Tea at Trianon: Carly Fiorina and the "War on Women"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Carly Fiorina and the "War on Women"

I heard Carly Fiorina's speech at CPAC and am impressed, especially when she was asked about the "War on Women." To quote Maggie's Notebook:

I think our party needs to be as diverse as the nation we hope to represent. Women are now 53 percent of voters. As I like to tell some of my Democratic friends who like to talk about the War on Women, we are not a special interest group. We are the majority. (Read more.)

True. The term "War on Women" implies that the only issues women care about are birth control and abortion. It implies that all that matters to American females are the means to have sex without having a child. I think this view demeans women. The women I know care about feeding, clothing and educating their children. They care about the homeless and the hungry. They care about religion, self-improvement, health, politics, travel, books and investments. They care about all the things that men care about. I am tired of seeing women reduced to the sexual sphere as if that is the only thing that matters to us.