The Reason for the GOP's War on Women

It should be so obvious by now. The Republicans are backing such measures as discouraging insurance coverage of birth control, obstructing abortion in every way possible, and apparently wishing women back into the “barefoot and pregnant” 1950s. And what does this accomplish? If women get pregnant with second and third babies, then what with the cost of daycare, they may as well stay home and economize. And that is how the unemployment problem will be solved, GOP style – by taking women out of the workforce. Voila, with fewer people chasing the reduced number of jobs available in this country, the unemployment figures go down. Thereby making them (the Republicans) look good. Taking 46 percent of the work force out of the labor market will of course tend to open up the job market for males of all ages, even those over 50 or over 65. Assuming that all these males are actually able to perform the jobs that open up – and that is a huge assumption – then that naturally will tend to get them off the unemployment rolls, easing state UI deficits, and returning America to that mythical (and I emphasize the word mythical) golden era of the 1950s. What do you think – am I goofy to think this is their not-so-secret plan to cure unemployment? And yet – Mitt Romney has done another flip-flop (of course!). Videotape from January shows him saying he supports forcing poor women to go to work – even though he and wife Ann now declare that stay-at-home mom-ism is the way to go. “MSNBC’s Chris Hayes discovered that in January of this year, Mitt Romney told a crowd in New Hampshire that he wants to force poor women who stay at home to care for their children to go to work.” Roll the tape: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/04/15/mitt-romney-poor-stay-at-home-moms-should-work-video/ (VIDEO from MSNBC) FACTOIDS: Of working married women, 48% provide half or more of the household income (they are the primary bread winner and if we pay well, they want your jobs) (Source: Families and Work Institute Study) In 2007: Sixty percent of married mothers of preschool children are now in the work force, four percentage points fewer than in 1997. The rate for married mothers of infants fell by about six percentage points, to 53.5 percent. (Source: United States Bureau of Labor Statistics study, “Trends in Labor Force Participation of Married Mothers of Infants.”) In 2011 and 2012, women comprised a steady 46.8 percent of the total labor force; a steady 53 percent of all women were in the labor force. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS.gov at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm)