The end of gender politics

There are so many great victory stories involving women: Mia Love, Joni Ernst, Elise Stefanik.

For my money, though, the real nail in the coffin of the "war on women" meme is this little development from southern California:

For Fluke to lose in a conservative or swing district would have cemented her trailblazing image. To lose in the liberal haven of West L.A. is a harsh verdict.

Even more than the Coakley defeat or certainly the Abortion Barbie defeat, this is delicious.

Remember my post from a few days ago about the question of who gets to decide authentic blackness? We're seeing the parallel debate concerning gender get answered this week.

When women en masse did not heed the pronouncements of the mid-century wave of feminists, such as Robin Morgan, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem that marriage was an oppressive institution, the next wave of gals, such as Andrea Dworkin, took it a step further and deemed all heterosexual relationships to be rape.

As is always the case when there's a radical level to a social movement, there was also a parallel "mainstream" level, as evidenced by the "empowerment"-type theme one began to see in traditional women's magazines, where articles on martial arts or navigating a high-powered career path were juxtaposed with ads for shiny-hair products or products for making one's eyes more lovely.  These magazines have, for the past few decades, had a decidedly left-of-center editorial bent, championing all manner of hooey such as sustainable energy, alarm over a supposed bullying epidemic, and, of course, the tension between organized Christian faith and extra-familial sexual behavior.

That's where Sandra came in.

I think Rush Limbaugh is great and always have, but I knew instantly he'd committed one of the worst errors of his career when he called Fluke a "slut."  That was not the angle on which to point out what a hollow figure she was.  The point about Fluke was that she wanted government to make a Catholic institution subsidize contraception - a product that one can get for under ten dollars a month at the Walmart pharmacy.  She was the confluence of the statist dependency mindset and the push to weaken the institution of marriage (by mainstreaming sexual behavior outside it) - and a hypocrite to boot, given her "powerful woman" schtick.  That's what Rush should have stuck with.

But, as with so much in our culture, there wasn't much to her prominence beyond some media hoopla.

Real, powerful women are going to Washington the first week in January, women who understand that there are two human natures - male and female - and that real personal power comes from using one's brains and conviction (and ability to shoot a gun) within that framework.

Memo to the Freedom-Haters: Men and women are different, and each can be powerful in ways consistent with what we know from human history about unchanging reality.  Get over it.