Objections to Julia Ad Show GOP Out of Touch
But when Bennett zeros in on his concerns that Julia is depicted with no man and no church in her life, his true agenda starts to come clearly into focus, and along with it, the core contradiction of the conservative ideology. The Republican Party claims to stand for individual liberty and opportunity, but it actually believes that only some individuals are worthy of those fundamental rights.
Ilyse Hogue
As the slide show depicts Julia using the opportunities provided to her through government programs to excel in school, in parenting and in starting a small business, Bennett quakes with frustration that she is doing so without a man. At one point, he bellows, “Instead, the state has taken their place and is her primary relationship.”
But his core charge is ludicrous. Just because the story doesn’t introduce a male character does not mean that Julia’s life is bereft of relationships. With or without a man, the truth is that any woman will face most of the situations shown in the slide show at some point in her lifetime and will be at a competitive disadvantage without programs that offer equal opportunity to succeed personally and professionally.
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Conservatives who continue to wage a war on women’s health and economic parity willfully ignore the basic facts facing American women today.
Seventy years after Rosie the Riveter popularized the idea of women in the workplace — or at least as factory line workers while the men were at war — women still only make 77 cents on the dollar compared with men for doing the same job.
Innovative and entrepreneurial women fare no better. Male-founded start-ups receive four times more venture capital funding over female-founded start-ups. Women-led companies are twice as likely to get debt versus equity capital, requiring that women shoulder more of the risk on their own. Despite research showing that gender diversity within senior ranks of organizations translates into financial value, especially when innovation is part of the equation, women have not gained much footing. Moreover, according to the 2010 census, four million more women than men live in poverty in the United States.