Recent Rants

I don't feel like my blog has been very topical lately, so here are two of my recent rants concerning women and our country ("topical" is being used loosely, as both subjects are fairly old news):

First, and most recently, is a comment made by Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen about Ann Romney in which she questions Romney's input on economics by stating, "she never worked a day in her life."
My Rant: My complaint has nothing to do with the working mom v. stay-at-home mom argument. My complaint is about the insinuation that stay-at-home moms are not intelligent and have no valuable insight on the economy. If you are living on one paycheck, and working to stretch your husband's paycheck for bills, grocery shopping, clothes shopping, etc. then you know firsthand how healthy (or unhealthy) the economy is. It doesn't take employment to understand that. Does a woman that works at McDonald's have more credible input on the economy than a homemaker, by virtue of being employed? To me, this just shows a true condescension that exists in viewing women who choose to be stay-at-home moms as uninformed and unintelligent with nothing valuable to offer.
It brings to mind the comment made by Hillary Clinton in March 1992, "You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession..."

The second, is inspired by my loose following of the Sandra Fluke controversy several weeks ago. Fluke is a Georgetown University law school student (a Catholic institution) who testified before House Democrats in support of an insurance mandate that covered birth control. She argued that even institutions with moral objections to contraception should be required to give coverage, stating that the cost of contraception can be an economic hardship on students.
My Rant: First, Biology:101: Sex is a choice that has a consequence- the possible result of pregnancy. When women start demanding that the government has a responsibility to help them avoid this risk, they are shifting the focus from the accountability of their choices to demanding that they be provided the means to maintain a certain lifestyle. It's as if they are victims of their reproductive powers and somehow the government owes them prevention, simply because they have female parts. If you can't afford cable, then you don't buy cable. If you can't afford The Pill- and you don't want to become pregnant- perhaps you shouldn't be sexually active (or use cheaper contraception methods). Nor should institutions that morally oppose contraception be forced to provide it.
I am aware of certain health conditions in women (unrelated to family planning) that require the treatment of birth control. This is not the issue at hand, although it has been pulled into the argument. The center of this argument is contraception- intentional prevention of contraception and pregnancy.