COMMENTARY: Women voters care about more than abortion

I am a white woman who spent 80 percent of her life in the suburbs. I taught high school in the suburbs to young white girls who are now young white women in the suburbs. That gives me the right to an opinion on white suburban women.

A few weeks ago, I participated in a televised panel discussion where the moderator asked about the “suburban woman” vote. The “white” part wasn’t focused on, but it was implicit in the question. When you hear the phrase, you conjure up Karen with her blond pageboy, her two tween-aged children, her SUV Beemer and her distaste for conflict.

That, however, is no longer representative of the demographic, if in fact it ever was.

As one of my co-panelists mentioned, there has been a change in the complexion and character of the suburban female voter over the past couple of decades, so this idea that we have a homogeneous group of females who share the same values and priorities is as passe as Geraldine Ferrara’s wedge cut.

There was the suggestion that we (I include myself in that group even though I now live in the city) were concerned only with one thing: abortion.

You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that, given the sky-is-falling ads approved by Kamala Harris that conjure up images of women dying because of “Trump’s abortion ban.”

If they only knew how many of us are sitting on our comfortable recliners with our afternoon cosmopolitans and Greek yogurt snacks rolling our eyes. We know the truth, and we know that there is no Donald Trump ban and that no one died because of it.

I made the point that suburban women care about a lot of things, including the education of our children, national security, immigration and criminal justice. In other words, we are not obsessed with reproduction or the lack thereof.

The idea that women are a monolith and owe allegiance to a particular person or cause is anathema, and about as anti-feminist as you can be.

Far be it from me to act as an apologist for Gloria Steinem Inc., but it does seem a little strange that people are preaching to us about what we should be doing as if there is some unspoken code of conduct we need to follow in order to maintain our legitimacy.

I thought it was all about independence and autonomy.

Can it possibly be that the only autonomy Democrats are willing to tolerate is reproductive autonomy, and that in all other respects the ladies are supposed to toe some invisible progressive line? Never mind, it’s a rhetorical question.

And as for that sticky race question: If Condoleezza Rice were at the top of the ticket, any ticket, she would have my vote. I would stand in a blizzard for 10 hours just to cast my vote for her, even if she had changed her registration to Democrat. That’s how much I loved the former secretary of state, the one who was never given the respect she deserved as an independent thinker.

There are many conservative minority women, Black and Latino and Asian, who reflect my values far more than the women who actually look like me. There are also a lot of men who would get my vote before any of my progressive sisters.

I remember when Madeline Albright claimed that there is a “special place in hell” for women who don’t support women. She wasn’t referring to all women, of course. She was talking about the sort of woman who wasn’t going to vote for Hillary Clinton. This was a different form of prejudice, but equally toxic.

I don’t see race when I vote for candidates. I don’t see gender. I don’t see nationality. I don’t see religion, particularly because that is no longer an indication that this person will share my values. See Biden, Joseph. I see the person and his or her politics. And any suggestion otherwise is the real sign of bigotry, misogyny and ignorance.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.