"Painful Pandering to Women"

"It’s the year of the woman — or at least the year of the painful political pander to women," writes Karol Markowicz. "Both political parties are bending over backward to cater to this underrepresented minority group, which made up just 54 percent of voters in 2008."

...why, exactly, are women being treated as some sort of mass unit? All this catering to “women’s issues” assumes that all women feel the same way about all issues — and that those issues are almost all tied to sex or reproduction. That women may worry about taxation, terrorism, government spending, jobs or other “men’s” issues is apparently inconceivable.

It’s not a step forward for women that we are the focus of all this; it’s condescension, pure and simple.

If the goal is still equality between the sexes, then the pats on the head women have been receiving from politicians in the last year show we’re just not there yet.