05/2006 Part V

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2006/04/28/louisiana/

Last week in committee debate on the issue, Sen. Diana Bajoie, D-New Orleans, opposed allowing abortions to save the life of the mother, saying she wanted to “make [the ban] more pro-life” by not allowing any exceptions.

Bajoie, by the way, AKA Tower of Hair. Some nice thingsshe’s done:

As a state legislator, Bajoie has led the way to create school-based health clinics, form the Minority Health Care Commission and increase health care coverage for citizens with mental health disorders.

God. Isn’t that funny?

“Bajoie, who is pursuing a masters degree in health administration ”

Now that’s even funnier.

I don’t know, maybe it seems incongruous to you, a woman backing legislation that would rather see a woman die than her fetus, because that’s more “pro-life.” I guess you think the 34 female senatorsin the history of the United States must have got there by staying true to their causes, pioneering causes for women and thus winning the respect and admiration of all mankind.

What Bajoie is doing is called “pulling a Schlafly.” Our best indication of women’s status in this country is how many women in politics must pull a Schlafly to survive.

“Pulling a Schlafly” can roughly be defined as supporting a cause or position entirely inimical to your own self-interests and those of your respective demographics in order to further your own authority, prestige, respect, or finances. As I just made this term up entirely, I welcome all of you to redefine it as you see fit. But for those of you who did not follow the link, here’s a short history of Schlafly:

Phyllis is a smart Republican woman. Highly educated. A fucking attorney. She goes to work for a Republican campaign. They say, “An M.A. in business and a law degree? Why, we have just the place for you, tits! Door-to-door canvassing!” Somebody makes an idle accusation of misogyny against the Republican runner. Schlafly, because she is fucking smart, offers a successful counter-attack: get a woman to be the face of it. Not just any woman, but a die-hard supporter, somebody who’s married and moral, who’s been pulled from the lower ranks so she doesn’t look like a threat, but is intelligent enough to work the machine. Somebody like… me?

BOOM

Schlafly is the Republican golden girl. What she couldn’t achieve through hard work and intelligence, the province of men, she could achieve through putting on an apron and smearing feminists.

Back to Bajoie. Bajoie may be pro-life. That is a position shared by many with reasonable arguments, rhetoric, and ethics to back it up, though I do not personally agree and do not think it is a viable public policy. And looking at her record — the advances she has made for the mentally ill, for cancer patients, for civil rights in her state — we may also say she has some humanitarian causes buried deep in that throbbing mass of hair. But please note: when it comes to women, that humanitarian bent disappears entirely. None of her accomplishments address women specifically. Her support of this anti-abortion bill doesn’t even necessarily have to be viewed as anti-women — again, please see reasonable arguments, rhetoric, and ethics above — but her position that a fetus is more viable than a grown woman most certainly is.

Why would it be a woman who takes this most extreme stance, of all the supporters of this bill?

Because she has to.

Because she wouldn’t get elected otherwise.

Because all women in power are under suspicion that they will be partial to — god forbid — women, and thus cannot be taken seriously. Because obviously, they are biased.

So she has to pull a Schlafly to get the stink of cunt off. Support the blacks and the crazies and okay let’s throw some free health care to children but women? She can’t go near them. In fact, if she goes after them, she gains a thousand allies. Nothing better than a big black mammy on your side — nobody gets to call you racist or sexist anymore. (For further reading on using Negroes as shields, see Clarence Thomas).

It’s fucking smart, and she’s practical and on top of her game to do it. And that’s what we lose through misogyny. That highly intelligent, enormously educated women, at least the equal to or possibly better than their male peers (god knows they had to work harder for it… as Herr Starr admonishes, “Shoot the women first”), have to support ludicrous extremes with no public benefits and numerous harms to even get their foot on the fucking ladder… I mean, just think what Bajoie could be doing if she didn’t have to be a bitch. If she didn’t have to stay ten miles from T&A to pass a bill. Think what Schlafly could have done if she could have made it on her own ideas (read some of her articles, for god’s sake! She’s not a goddamn hack like Coulter, who may as well put on black eyeliner and change her name to Manson for all the intelligence her controversy has!) instead of getting all her mileage out of misogyny.

Oh, puke. Why do I always think Mountain Dew will be a good idea?