Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
- George Santayana

This is Part 1 of a multiple part series on Women and Conservatism. I don’t know how many parts I will write or where this series will go. A lot will depend on your responses. I just know that Conservatives… true Conservatives, those who believe in smaller government and fewer taxes better start coming up with some ideas for improving the plight of women, mothers and wives in this country.

My heritage is Cherokee. I respect women and their intelligence. I have read where some women don’t vote because they would just cancel out their husband’s vote. I have read that women vote for the candidate with the best hair or the sexiest. I refuse to believe that the women of this country are that shallow. I do believe that women are very busy between work and home doing things that their spouses, mates or even children should be doing. I believe they should make the time to study the issues, influence the issues and get involved but most of all they should vote.

Elections determine the direction of this Country and they determine what quality of life you and later the children of today will have… if any.

A HISTORY LESSON

The Cherokee and many other Native American tribes were matriarchal societies. (For historical reference see James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees.) When they first met with the white invaders and attempted to establish some treaties and agreements, the men went back to the tribes to confer with their women. The European invaders scoffed at this. They ridiculed the native men for taking advice and orders from women. This was the beginning of the end of the Cherokee society as it had been.

Ann Coulter recently made a statement in an interview with the New York Observer:

If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

I was appalled when I read her statement, until I did some research.

An excellent clear-cut comparison of the two political viewpoints appears on the Student News Daily website.

Conservatives stress family values; liberals stress individual choice regardless of law.

In her article ”Wooing the Single Women Vote” Lakshmi Chaudhry wrote:

The liberal tilt among unmarried women voters is less a matter of feminism than economics… Although single women comprise 46 percent of all eligible women voters, they only represent 42 percent of women registered to vote. And of those registered, only 52 percent actually voted in 2000. Sixteen million of them did not register to vote in 2000 and 21-plus million never made it to the polling booth on Election Day. Married people, in general, are 27 percent more likely to register to vote as single people.

Conservatives and liberals both believe in free-market economies; so where do the Conservative lose contact with the female voter? Actually this is fairly transparent; unmarried women are not necessarily what you think they are. Over 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Single women are the breadwinners in many families. They see conservative values aligned with the women who sit at home taking care of children, while they have to work for less wages than men, have to pay for child care, healthcare, housing, and their ex husbands are perceived to continue to live a better life style. This, in most cases, is just a perception, but in the media it is exploited.

So the question arises, what can Conservatives do to better get their message across to the single women?

Click here to read Part 2
Click here to read Part 3