15/7/00

LIBERAL WOMEN ARE WORTHLESS

By Ann Coulter 

Women are complaining again, this just in from Lifetime Television ("Television for Women"!), which commissioned a poll of women voters recently. According to the summary provided by the Lifetime Television Web page, the top concerns of half or more of the respondents were: the "insufficient effort to cure breast cancer," gun control, medical benefits, child care, the rising cost of a college education, the connection between pollution and health risks, violence against women, and equal pay.

Nearly three-fourths believe it is more important for the government to shore up the Social Security Ponzi scheme than to bother with those silly tax cuts.

These could only be the poll results of people who have nothing to do with the creation of wealth. They sit at home waiting for their husbands to bring home the money, or toil away at little jobs dreamed up to assuage the egos of bourgeois women living in the suburbs. (I eagerly await such a station in life. But when I'm there, I won't forget how horrible -- horrible -- it was to wake up to an alarm clock, respond to bosses, and be responsible for my own rent.)

the typical liberal woman's political calculus is based on budgeting, not earning

Consequently, the typical liberal woman's political calculus is based on budgeting, not earning. They have no idea how the money materializes and are not particularly interested. But they've got lots of opinions on how to spend it. They claim to be Republicans, because prissy women with college degrees associate Democrats with the dirty working class. But they are no more Republican than Bill Clinton. They adore Bill Clinton.

As a class, women have never borne collective responsibility for work, they have never had to store food for the winter, and they have not generated economic growth. (At least not by dint of hard work -- more by inspiration.)

Women voters went for Reagan more than any Republican presidential candidate in recent memory, splitting their vote about equally between Carter and Reagan.

Nor have women borne responsibility for electing Republican presidents. In every presidential election since 1944 but one (1964), men would have elected the Republican candidate. In 1980, men voted for Reagan over President Jimmy Carter by 53% to 38%. Women voters went for Reagan more than any Republican presidential candidate in recent memory, splitting their vote about equally between Carter and Reagan.

What's a Republican presidential candidate to do?

First of all, Republicans should recognize that they can't fit a round peg into a square hole. It is impossible for a candidate to obtain the votes of the liberal women topping the Lifetime TV poll without becoming Bill Clinton -- in which case they will lose the votes of people with a capacity to engage in linear thinking and grasp logical connections.

Consider this item: 70% of the women polled in the Lifetime survey claimed the country is not making "enough of an effort to find a cure for breast cancer."

Here are some statistics: Men get prostate cancer at a rate of about 147 cases per 100,000 men; women get breast cancer at a rate of 113 per 100,000 women. The mortality rate for breast cancer and prostate cancer is about the same. The federal government spends roughly four times as much on breast cancer research as on prostate cancer research.

Indeed, the money spent on breast cancer research has been constantly rising for at least six years. These figures do not include the hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for "breast cancer research" in such unusual places as the Defense Department's budget or the tens of millions spent on breast cancer research by the states. (In 1997, California spent more than $40 million on breast cancer research and zero dollars on prostate cancer research.)

In a further monument to self-interest, 85% of women in the Lifetime poll said they think discrimination against women in the workplace is still a problem, but only 57% think there is any problem with race relations. I love liberal women.

Liberal suburban soccer moms are impervious to logic.

So the point is: Liberal suburban soccer moms are impervious to logic. One cannot cut taxes and reduce the size of government while simultaneously trying to satisfy women complaining about insufficient funding for child care and breast cancer research.