On the House floor, Ayanna Pressley contends the Constitution is sexist
By Andrea Widburg < >
In some ways, one has to feel sorry for Rep. Ayanna Presley (D-Mass.). She entered the House of Representatives at the same time as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. All four are female and young, some are attractive, and they are all hardcore "democrat socialists," which means they're all stone-cold socialists. They were called "the Squad" and promised to be the future of the Democrat party.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got the most mileage out of her exposure through the Squad. She's in the news constantly and got a lot of airtime being Bernie Sanders's surrogate during the impeachment proceedings in the Senate. (The love affair between the old socialist and the young seems to be waning, which is typical for revolutionaries, for the young always eat the old.)
Omar and Tlaib also made waves as the spokespeople for the new anti-Semitism and Israel-hatred permeating the Democrat party. Then Omar upped the face time ante by being exposed as part of a series of immigration frauds, as well as being a Jezebel breaking up marriages, including her own.
Pressley couldn't seem to gain traction. A month ago, she admitted that she suffered from alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes people to lose their hair. For Pressley, it's been especially difficult because, as she admits, hair is part of African-American women's cultural identity. However, compared to being Bernie Sanders's surrogate or the spokeswomen for a new generation of anti-Semites, alopecia will take you only so far.
Pressley is therefore back again, this time supporting trying to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment. To that end, she offers her hot and extremely ill informed take on women's legal and economic status in America:
Following a poetic introduction, Pressley gets to the gist of her statement, which is that women are not free in 2020 America and can be made free only by ratifying the ERA, a relic of the early years of Second Wave feminism in the 1970s.
The gist of Pressley's case for the new ERA is the hoary argument that women earn pennies on the dollar compared to men:
In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, women are paid 83 cents for every dollar paid to a man, but nationally, women are paid only 80 cents for every dollar a man is paid. Even worse, the modern-day wage gap disproportionately impacts women of color with black women earning 61 cents, Native women earning 58 cents, Latin X women earning only 53 cents, and [Asian American and Pacific Islander] women making as little as 50 cents per dollar paid to a white man.
This argument has been repeatedly disproven. Women earn less because (a) men take more dangerous jobs, which earn higher pay, and (b) because women opt for lower-paying jobs so that they can have more flexibility to care for children, aged parents, and even their own sense of self and well-being.
As for the fact that it's women who provide childcare, blame Mother Nature. Any woman who has given birth knows that babies gravitate to the mother. Nature framed men and women differently, and they respond to the needs of the helpless differently: women with nurturing and men with breadwinning.
Pressley then details her other indictments against America, including that deep anger leftists have that pregnancy exists and creates different dynamics for women in the workplace, the home, and the public square — but mostly she blames the Constitution for its imbuing America with original sexist sin:
In addition to pay discrimination, we face pregnancy discrimination, discrimination in the criminal legal system, sexual and domestic violence, and inadequate health care access. But this isn't an accident, the American Constitution is sexist by its very design, this country's laws have historically treated us like second-class citizens, depriving us of the right to vote, enter most jobs, and to own property.
Had Pressley ever bothered to read the Constitution, she would have discovered that it says nothing about the status of women. It's true that the Constitution originally limited voting rights to men, but that was consistent with the norms of the entire world. As the world changed, the Constitution changed, too.
As for the laws, again, blame the world. Don't blame America for having the institutional flexibility to change the world and make those things right. Pressley's ignorance serves its purpose, though, for it fuels her anger and entitlement.
Poor Pressley. By beating tired old horses that were resolved in 1920 and the 1970s respectively, she's badly lagging behind the rest of the Squad. She's going to need to up her game if she wants to keep her fame.
By Andrea Widburg < >
In some ways, one has to feel sorry for Rep. Ayanna Presley (D-Mass.). She entered the House of Representatives at the same time as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. All four are female and young, some are attractive, and they are all hardcore "democrat socialists," which means they're all stone-cold socialists. They were called "the Squad" and promised to be the future of the Democrat party.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got the most mileage out of her exposure through the Squad. She's in the news constantly and got a lot of airtime being Bernie Sanders's surrogate during the impeachment proceedings in the Senate. (The love affair between the old socialist and the young seems to be waning, which is typical for revolutionaries, for the young always eat the old.)
Omar and Tlaib also made waves as the spokespeople for the new anti-Semitism and Israel-hatred permeating the Democrat party. Then Omar upped the face time ante by being exposed as part of a series of immigration frauds, as well as being a Jezebel breaking up marriages, including her own.
Pressley couldn't seem to gain traction. A month ago, she admitted that she suffered from alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes people to lose their hair. For Pressley, it's been especially difficult because, as she admits, hair is part of African-American women's cultural identity. However, compared to being Bernie Sanders's surrogate or the spokeswomen for a new generation of anti-Semites, alopecia will take you only so far.
Pressley is therefore back again, this time supporting trying to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment. To that end, she offers her hot and extremely ill informed take on women's legal and economic status in America:
Following a poetic introduction, Pressley gets to the gist of her statement, which is that women are not free in 2020 America and can be made free only by ratifying the ERA, a relic of the early years of Second Wave feminism in the 1970s.
The gist of Pressley's case for the new ERA is the hoary argument that women earn pennies on the dollar compared to men:
In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, women are paid 83 cents for every dollar paid to a man, but nationally, women are paid only 80 cents for every dollar a man is paid. Even worse, the modern-day wage gap disproportionately impacts women of color with black women earning 61 cents, Native women earning 58 cents, Latin X women earning only 53 cents, and [Asian American and Pacific Islander] women making as little as 50 cents per dollar paid to a white man.
This argument has been repeatedly disproven. Women earn less because (a) men take more dangerous jobs, which earn higher pay, and (b) because women opt for lower-paying jobs so that they can have more flexibility to care for children, aged parents, and even their own sense of self and well-being.
As for the fact that it's women who provide childcare, blame Mother Nature. Any woman who has given birth knows that babies gravitate to the mother. Nature framed men and women differently, and they respond to the needs of the helpless differently: women with nurturing and men with breadwinning.
Pressley then details her other indictments against America, including that deep anger leftists have that pregnancy exists and creates different dynamics for women in the workplace, the home, and the public square — but mostly she blames the Constitution for its imbuing America with original sexist sin:
In addition to pay discrimination, we face pregnancy discrimination, discrimination in the criminal legal system, sexual and domestic violence, and inadequate health care access. But this isn't an accident, the American Constitution is sexist by its very design, this country's laws have historically treated us like second-class citizens, depriving us of the right to vote, enter most jobs, and to own property.
Had Pressley ever bothered to read the Constitution, she would have discovered that it says nothing about the status of women. It's true that the Constitution originally limited voting rights to men, but that was consistent with the norms of the entire world. As the world changed, the Constitution changed, too.
As for the laws, again, blame the world. Don't blame America for having the institutional flexibility to change the world and make those things right. Pressley's ignorance serves its purpose, though, for it fuels her anger and entitlement.
Poor Pressley. By beating tired old horses that were resolved in 1920 and the 1970s respectively, she's badly lagging behind the rest of the Squad. She's going to need to up her game if she wants to keep her fame.
