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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'Woman Card'? You have got to be kidding
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By Frances Coleman
on April 28, 2016 at 11:33 AM
al.com
The Woman Card.
I know I got one at some point during gestation, but I don't remember the particulars. There's so much going on during the nine months you're readying yourself to become somebody's bundle of joy.
You start out as a teensy little zygote and spend your very first days doing cellular division while free falling through your mother's fallopian tube. Once you make your way into her uterus and manage to imbed yourself in the uterine wall, you officially become an embryo.
There's no rest for the weary, however. Right away, you've got to start growing a brain, spinal cord, heart and gastrointestinal tract, after which you're expected to fashion a rudimentary circulatory system and figure out how to rig a placental connection between you and good ol' Mom.
Soon you'll be working on what will become your arms, legs, ears, facial features and all the other structures they have planned for you. Being only a few weeks along and weighing less than an aspirin, you are not sure who "they" are -- God? the stork? Darwin? but you've been programmed by something or Somebody to grow, so that's what you do.
Before long, you leave your embryonic period and enter your fetal period, and guess what: Not only are you now about three inches long and weigh about an ounce, but you've gotten your Woman Card. They may not show up on an ultrasound, but if you could manage to look downward, you'd see that you've been issued your genitalia.
In fact, at this point you have the beginnings of everything, albeit it in miniature form, that you'll have as an adult human being. Your hair, eye and skin color were determined early on. All you have to do now is keep on growing per the Lord's, the stork's or Darwin's plan for another 30 weeks or so, until you're born a baby woman.
Then what?
If the answer is based on the recent musings of presidential candidate Donald Trump, then at some point after puberty you'll get to start playing your Woman Card. He did not specify what this card will do for you, but implied that you'll be able to use it whenever you want people to be drawn to you, perhaps to hire you or maybe even to vote for you, simply because you're a woman.
Apparently this is a new and improved card, historically speaking. Centuries ago, the card severely restricted a woman's rights and privileges, dictating such things as what she could and couldn't own, whether she would be permitted to learn to read and write, and when and whom she would marry.
See how things have changed, however, especially in national politics? All an opportunistic woman now has to do is sign up to run for president, wave her 2016 Woman Card and stand back as half of the American population blindly lines up to support her.
More:
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/04/woman_card_youve_got_to_be_kid.html#incart_river_index
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)Thanks for defining it so well.

CurtEastPoint
(20,024 posts)misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)..had in it's eyesights the trashing of women's rights.
In the 2016 race it is women's rights that hangs on the edge, not men's rights.
It better damn well be defended, because those basic rights for women that are at stake in Nov.
Any woman or man that diminishes this critical juncture, through an online opinion piece like this one, isn't speaking for the greater population of women voters nor their daughter & granddaughters.
This is why they will unite, campaign, fundraise & vote like never before for our first woman President.
The gender card indeed is a very big part of what the election is a about & It should be.
To minimize the "woman card" as this opinion piece did, is to minimize the rights of women that stand to be lost forever in November.
hardboiled
(6 posts)HRC is one of the worst female vehicles for the presidency you can choose.
Response to hardboiled (Reply #13)
Beaverhausen This message was self-deleted by its author.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)My my my
procon
(15,805 posts)A woman can't write about women's issues from a woman's perspective without a critique that it's too womanish for your delicate sensibilities? Look, if you want to write about a woman's frame of mind, her concerns and viewpoints, and experience with a man's disapproving criticisms, I'll certainly read your essay.
djean111
(14,255 posts)See how things have changed, however, especially in national politics? All an opportunistic woman now has to do is sign up to run for president, wave her 2016 Woman Card and stand back as half of the American population blindly lines up to support her.
And I believe many of her supporters believe that this should be what happens, and if it does not - we are misogynists. As a woman who does not support Hillary, I have been told I merely have issues with Strong Women and/or mommy issues. No, I have issues with stuff like war and fracking, but that is swept aside as of no real importance.
Kittycat
(10,493 posts)As a woman, it's been infuriating watching her and her surrogates run such a sexist campaign. But that's okay, I can take comfort in knowing there's a place in hell for me not supporting her. Just call me another BernieBro when I want to talk real issues and supporters don't, I'm sure that will fix it.
Beaverhausen
(24,699 posts)or am I reading it wrong?
Arkansas Granny
(32,265 posts)I've never noticed that my "woman card" gave me any special privileges.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Incredible
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)And it may trump (!) the woman card.
hardboiled
(6 posts)Bluntly saying 'the woman card' is an idiotic attack.
But it is total fair game to say HRC rode the coattails of her husband to get anywhere near any of the jobs she has had post rose law firm. This is a valid line of attack and actually can work. It would work because Trump could hold up four dem women senators that got their own their own and were better than HRC when crucial decisions were there to be made.
Let's for one second be brutally honest - HRC doesn't become NY Senator without being Bill's wife.
She doesn't parlay that senate gig into a run for the WH or the SoS job (see how this builds like a pyramid going back to bill's wife).
This is why HRC has always been a flawed candidate for 'strong women going for big jobs'. She's been helped and aided all along the way.
That is fair game for trump to hammer. And it would be smart of him to hold up Boxer, Mikulski (the first woman senator whose husband or father wasn't a big time politician), Stabenow, and Murray as women that didn't need to cling to coattails to accomplish what they did AND had the judgement that HRC severely lacks/lacked (AUMF Iraq).
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)I see four posts...did you sign up for the wrong site?
Hekate
(100,133 posts)...like "Impeach the Impure Vessel" only this one titled "Worst Female Vehicle."
Good times, good times.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Then again, it might since a lot of these newbies simply signed up to have another forum to tell everyone else how wrong they are.
hardboiled
(6 posts)So no, not on the wrong site. Just giving my opinion about HRC. The onus is on you, her supporters to get me to vote for her. Because right now, I'm not.
Would rather take a Dem Senate and Trump as POTUS and try for 2020.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Sheer hate, not at all based in reality.
one_voice
(20,043 posts)it is the consensus of the hosts this is better suited for GDP. Please re-post there. Thanks.