Republican women! Wake up!

“Who keeps binders full of women?” This was a question Bill Maher asked last Friday night; it’s a question I’ve been asking myself since the second presidential debate. Bill Maher’s answer was “serial killers,” but when Mitt Romney first uttered this phrase, I visualized a wealthy man flipping through a catalog of high-priced call girls. I think Democrats and Republicans can agree that it was a lousy choice of words, but what was more problematic was that in his answer about equal pay for women, Mr. Romney never mentioned equal pay for women. He boasted that his cabinet had more women in upper-level management positions than 50 other states, but what were these women earning? Did Mr. Romney hire these women for the same reason his former company Bain Capital subcontracts American jobs to China, because it’s cheaper?

Why are more than half of American women not outraged about where Romney and Ryan stand on women’s issues? Just last week, U.S. Representative Joe Walsh, made a comment saying in “very rare circumstances” does a woman need to endure an abortion to save her life. What a scientist he is! And let’s not forget the quote from Missouri’s Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin about pregnancy resulting from rape, he said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” I didn’t know that a political prerequisite was an advanced study on female anatomy and physiology. Ladies wake up! Todd Akin is a man that worked with Paul Ryan to redefine the term rape!

Instead of focusing on overturning Roe v. Wade, Mitt Romney should concentrate on further pressing issues occurring across the nation. As a women, it is nerve-racking to know that our possible future vice president is spending so much time on opposing family planning funds and concentrating on “personhood” bills. I am not telling any woman to change her stance on abortion, but simply respect the decisions of others. I do, however, think that no man should have the right to tell any woman what to do with her body. The GOP complains that President Obama’s policies don’t give American people a choice, and at the same time they want a panel of men to intrude and decide on an issue that should be strictly between a woman and her doctor.

Mr. Romney has been fickle when it comes to…well just about everything, but I am positive that this man does not have women’s best interests in mind. His running mate Paul Ryan is so extreme that I think he might just scorn women. In an interview with WJHL in Roanoke, Virginia, Paul Ryan was asked if he thought it lawful for a woman to get an abortion if she were raped; his answer was disturbing, to say the least. He said, “I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.” I don’t like using this hypothetical since rape is one of the most degrading and violent acts a human can commit, but if Paul Ryan’s wife or daughters were raped and the act created a pregnancy, would Ryan really demand his girls carry a constant reminder of something so horrific for nine months? I guess Republican Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock would. He thinks that a pregnancy resulting from rape is a “gift from God.” Really? Even if that poor girl was raped by daddy? I do believe that life is created by God, but God also gave humans free will, and sometimes what results of that free will is not God’s work; it’s science, and why is this even a question? America is a free country; it’s where women from oppressed nations seek refuge. We’ve already fought these battles and won, and ladies, this is exactly what President Obama means when he says Forward.