Latoya Peterson of Jezebel linked to a Washington Post article on Virginia gubernatorial wannabe Bob McDonnell’s “turnaround” from his not-all-that-long-ago total-wingnut thesis for a combined masters in public policy and JD in law at Pat Robertson’s Regent University titled “The Republican Party’s Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of The Decade” wherein he opined that feminism was deviant, that the law should discriminate in favor of married couples, that women shouldn’t work outside the home, and in particular that childcare assistance should be illegal to help force women to stay home. In other words he was a huge jerk. And based on his legislative and activist history since he still is.
But as Peterson notes the world’s changed even for McDonnell.
Then McDonnell tries to play the “I can’t be sexist, I have a wife and a daughter” card. Through a statement, McDonnell explains:
[H]e is “fully supportive of the tremendous contributions women make in the workplace. My wife and daughters work. My campaign manager in 2005 was a working mother. I appointed 5 women to my senior staff as Attorney General.”
On the one hand good for him for hiring women. Amazing how tremendous a contribution they’re able to make once major social and legal obstacles are removed, eh? On the other hand, based on his politics is there any reason to believe he’d still have appointed five women to his senior staff if it hadn’t been politically unpopular and, oh, say, illegal to discriminate against women in hiring decisions? And what’s his voting record been in the last 20 years that would lead one to believe he’d support women in the workforce if anti-discrimination laws were just now percolating up through the legislature?
My guess would be no. But times change. He’s now a jerk who thinks women should be able to work but not have reproductive self-determination. That’s progress. In another 20 years he may notice that dismantling the rest of the… (um… what’s the opposite of a “social safety net?”)... social obstacle course won’t bring about the end of the world as we know it either. But call this another instance where “slow but steady” probably shouldn’t win the race. At least not this one.
