Talk Me Down, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

July 19, 2014 Martha Thomases 1 Comment

I had hoped to write something frivolous this week, because being enraged all the time is exhausting.  It’s also more than a little egotistical, as if my anger, justified or not, is going to change anything.

Instead, I thought, I would attempt to amuse you, Constant Reader, with stories about the sparrows that inhabit my neighborhood.  I think there is some kind of Game of Thrones/All My Children thing happening with the way they relate to each other and to other birds, particularly pigeons.

That will have to wait.  Because I saw this and now I’m pissed again.

 

A Republican woman, Representative Renee Ellmers of North Carolina, speaking to a Republican crowd about how to reach women voters, said something with which I disagree.  Now, that in itself is not unusual.  I’m not a conservative Republican, but aside from that, I don’t always agree with myself from one day to the next.  My views on pornography, farm subsidies, immigration reform and other issues have changed a lot since I was younger,. I would like to think shows that I consider other points of view and experiences other than my own, but it may, in fact, just mean I am easily amused.

However, this is more than just a different perspective.  This is insulting.  The woman in question said (and I quote), “We need our male colleagues to understand that if you can bring it down to a woman’s level and what everything that she is balancing in her life — that’s the way to go.”

She goes on to say that men speak at a higher level than women can understand.  She says this in such a matter-of-fact manner that I can only assume that she, and her audience, accept this point of view as fact.

Not for one minute do I believe that all women think the same way, not any more than all men think the same way.  I not only think there are smart women and stupid women (and everything in between), but different kinds of smart and stupid.  I think men are the same, in that they are each different.

However, I think that in Western culture, women are frequently socialized to consider issues in different ways than men.  You don’t see a lot of men talking business on the phone with babies on their hips, for example.  I’m not saying it never happens.  I’m just saying it’s something women are more likely to do.

Therefore,  Ellmers is wrong when she says, “Men do tend to talk about things on a much higher level. Many of my male colleagues, when they go to the House floor, you know, they’ve got some pie chart or graph behind them and they’re talking about trillions of dollars and how, you know, the debt is awful and, you know, we all agree with that.”

First of all, pie charts and grafts were created to make complex figures easier to understand.  Using them is not evidence of a higher level of discourse.

Secondly, we don’t agree that debt is “awful.”  Most middle class families have debt.  If they are well-off enough to have enough money to pay their bills, they may still have mortgages on their homes.  They made an informed decision to borrow money for a variety of reasons, including:

• They wanted to own a house.

• They wanted to take advantage of the tax benefits of having a mortgage.

• Their money was making more money from investments than they would pay in mortgage interest.

• They believed their investment in real estate would increase in value while the money they paid for their mortgages would be worth less in constant dollars because of inflation.

There are other reasons, but these are the most obvious to me. But then, I’m just a simple woman.

Why does Ms. Ellmers think women aren’t up sophisticated enough to understand issues at the high level men do?  Perhaps she gets this idea from the so-called “liberal” media.  According to a recent study, almost all of the “experts” who share opinion on cable news networks are white men.

Yes, especially on Rachel Maddow’s show.  I love you, Rachel, but pick up your game.

I don’t think Republican women are necessarily evil, or that Representative Ellmers is necessarily evil.  I think she has bought in to a particular strain of conservative thought that considers women to be less than men.  She’s trying to find a way to persuade us to agree with her.

There may be a market of self-loathing women who think that, like her, they aren’t very smart.  I don’t think they can get insulted if we agree with them, too.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, needs to stop thinking about pie.