THIS IS WHAT MUTUAL RESPECT LOOKS LIKE

 Michele Bachmann has shown us how it’s done in Iowa. First, be from the state so you have a birthright edge. Secondly, align yourself with the kind of far right ramblings the nation’s breadbasket likes so much. Next, be attractive and personable and have a husband who acts supportive while you stay “submissive.”

It also helps to have 5 children and 23 foster children to refer to and a law degree as well as a graduate degree in taxation law. The fact that you are a sitting congressional representative may be the least attractive thing on your resume these days, so don’t mention it often.

The day after she won the straw poll in Iowa and edged out arch-rival Tim Pawlenty, Bachmann was interviewed by CNN’s Candy Crowley. Bachmann said, among other things, that she has a set of “core principles” like Ronald Reagan, and that she would reinstitute the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military if she is elected president.  She also refused to back down on her previous position that the US bond rating downgrade by Standard and Poors had nothing to do with her beloved Tea Party’s rigidity. Even after Crowley quoted the S and P head who said that it was that very rigidity that frightened the rating agency and had them convinced no reasonable compromises could be reached to move the nation forward economically, Bachmann remained, well, rigid.

Michele Bachmann happens to be a woman. I happen to be a female activist of long standing. I cut my political teeth on the women’s movement of the 60’s and beyond. I believe all women, including Bachmann, are and should be equal to men and I support her right to run for president and speak her mind, however much I and others disagree with her views.

But that is not enough for many rightists. They cannot understand why women like me do not support women like Bachmann and Sarah Palin when—after all—we have similar genitalia. It matters little to these folks that the female candidates in question do not support most of the “core principles” of women who have fought for female equity for generations.

I don’t I support the politics of Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin for reasons similar to those that have Justice Scalia not supporting men like John Kerry when he ran for president, or reasons why Justice Thomas doesn’t cozy up to Barak Obama though they are both black and male.

No one ever asks men why they don’t support other men in politics because they are the same gender. It’s assumed that men have the ability to separate their private parts from their political philosophies. Women not so much, apparently.

Last week Michele Bachmann used a phrase that many politically active career women of my generation would never utter. We’d rather have pins stuck in their eyes before trying to justify being a “submissive wife.” Bachmann later fumbled for a recovery by trying to say “submissive” meant mutual respect.

I think that is what “equal” means, Michele. Merriam-Webster tells us “submissive” is the adjectival form of “submit” and it all means, “to yield oneself to the authority or will of another” or, “to defer to or consent to abide by the opinion or authority of another.

Those who need more help with what this means in a marriage, even a political one, can check with Michelle Obama, Nancy Reagan, or even Sarah Palin, none of whose names spring to mind when looking for an example of a “submissive wife.”

In fairness, I don’t support any of the men running for the Republican top spot either; but my differences with all these folks are strictly based on what goes on from the neck up, not the waist down.