Why Republican Women Vote for Santorum

[babylonsister]

Hmmm...

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/03/why-republican-women-vote-for-santorum.html

Rational Irrationality
Why Republican Women Vote for Santorum
Posted by John Cassidy


As I noted earlier, one of the most fascinating aspects of the primaries in Alabama and Mississippi was that in both states Rick Santorum got more votes from women than Mitt Romney did—this despite his views on abortion and contraception. So why did so many Republican women vote for Santorum? Here is an interesting contribution from one of the commenters on my earlier post:

About women supporting Santorum: I too find this baffling, and can only attribute it to some form of Stockholm Syndrome. As someone who grew up among born-again and evangelical Christians in Appalachia, I would hypothesize that women who have accommodated themselves to living an evangelical lifestyle have nothing to gain from questioning the premises of Christian patriarchy. Their lives are more comfortable, less fraught with domestic conflict, if they simply decide to be happy and make the most of their assigned roles. Although to a feminist the trajectory of their lives seems constrained, on a day-to-day basis evangelical women feel productive and empowered by playing a dynamic role in their churches and schools, from which they derive a potent sense of community. Nor are they necessarily barred from having a job. They have avenues for self-expression such as crafts, baking, or book clubs. (If your first reaction is to disdain these, then unless you’re a professional artist you probably have too high an opinion of your own creative outlets.) In fact, when I recall the women I grew up under, they didn’t think men were superior at all; they took the patronizing attitude that men were to be indulged in their masculine delusions. It would be elitist/snobby/condescending/wrong to view such women as passive or merely subservient. How many of us want to challenge the social constructs within which we have created active lives that are reckoned as meaningful? At any rate, this is my best effort to make sense of the women’s vote, which is otherwise unfathomable and preposterous to me.

—CWolfe

[hlthe2b]

1. Uggh....

I don't know what else to say....

[longship]

11. George Santayana

I really like your quote, which is iconic. However, I prefer it with a little bit more context:

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

BTW, another worthwhile one:

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.

George Santayana

I find that one possibly far more prescient.

Thanks for your always sage postings.

[hlthe2b]

13. Nice...

thank you for sharing your own favorite Santayana quotes. I too, like the context for the first.

[dkf]

2. Maybe it's because Mitt Romney is a sniveling weasel?

Personally speaking almost anyone is better than Romney on the barf meter.

[SharonAnn]

6. Until they are "discarded" for a new model.

That's the monster that's always there.

If you're financially dependent on the patriarch, then you have little control over what consequences his actions will have for you.

Talk to the two previous Mrs. Gingrichs.

[ladywnch]

4. thanks.... I think. this is probably the best explanation I've ever heard of

at an intellectual level, I get it.

at an emotional level, it still scares me.

[socialindependocrat]

7. Thanks! I feel comfortable with this logic.

What I see is not that they feel kept but that they are comfortable and
get to do whhat they want during the day and see their friends.

This was the ststement that hit home with me:
"didn’t think men were superior at all; they took the patronizing attitude that men were to be indulged in their masculine delusions."

A woman friend of mine was "shopping" with her female relatives and one admittied that she knew her husband was having an affair. She said, as long as she had the Cadilac and the 6 credit cards she didn't really care what he did.

There is a book called "The Myth of Male Power" written by Warren Farrell
(Why men are the disposable sex). This has some interesting insights that
talks about how men feel they are "in control" withought really being in control.

Thanks for the post.

[LisaL]

8. Who is paying for that Cadilac and her credit cards?

If she doesn't work then she is dependent on her husband. How is she in control?

[socialindependocrat]

9. She does what she wants

[babylonsister]

10. These women control their own environment, are happy in it, but

don't necessarily want financial control. Seems like anyway.

[CTyankee]

12. They want a good life. They don't want to struggle and they think if they preserve the

status quo, it will be preserved. Of course, that could change, to the detriment of HER financial situation, but no one thinks it will happen to THEM.

Then, it does and they find out what it is like to be a single mother, even with child support. It isn't easy and your lifestyle suffers enormously...but they never learn till it's too late...