BY KAREN WEBB

So you say you want women’s votes?

How about a clue as to how not to get them? First thing you need are women who have an IQ no higher than their shoe size to talk to the rest of us. Second, you need women who care more about the next election than the needs of women to talk to the rest of us.

The GOP has come up with what they think will do the trick – the “RedState Women” PAC. I happen to live in Oklahoma, the reddest of the red states, and while I won’t be quoting any Okies, do not think it is because we don’t have our share of nuttier than nutty women.

The RedState Women PAC wants women to vote for Greg Abbott for governor of Texas and he is against equal pay for equal work regarding women.

So the executive director of the Texas branch of the RedState Women, Cari Christman, went on TV in Dallas and was asked why she was against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. We all know why she is and it is the same reason the GOP is – and that is because Barack Obama likes it But she responded that women “want real-world solutions to this problem, not more rhetoric.”

Interesting that she would choose to come up with a particularly confusing use of rhetoric. She wants a more realistic solution, more realistic that equal pay for equal work, which I guess she thinks is an underserved pie in the sky.

If you think that was as clear as mud, try this; “If you look at it, women are extremely busy,” she said. “We lead busy lives, whether working professionally, whether working from home, and times are extremely busy. It’s a busy cycle for women, and we’ve got a lot to juggle. So when we look at this issue we think, what’s practical? And we want more access to jobs. We want to be able to get a higher education degree at the same time we’re working or raising a family.”

Cari, dear, your kind of juggling isn’t that practical. Cari is a busy, busy extremely busy girl, too busy to come up with a statement that even sort of answers the question or makes any logical sense.

To Cari, it is practical to work professionally for less pay than men who do the same job. She wants access to more jobs where she is willing to be paid less for the same work as male co-workers. She wants to get a higher degree and pay for it while working at a job that pays her less than her male co-workers and she wants to be paid less even while raising a family.

No, no, no, no. I do not want to explain that, but Beth Cubriel, the executive director of the Texas Republican Party wants to give it a try. “Men are better negotiators,” she said on Capital Tonight. “I would encourage women, instead of pursuing the courts for action, to become better negotiators.”

When I went to high school in Texas, I couldn’t take drafting because it was only for boys. When I went to work at Southwestern Bell, I could not apply for certain jobs because they were only for white men.

Women started out about $30 a week less than men and we were told it was because men were supporting a family or would be supporting a family. However, even if they never had a family, they still made more.

On top of that, you were told you deserved less because you would probably get married, quit and have a man to support you. There was no need to negotiate – that was just the way it was.

Back then if you were white and male you were immediately at the front of the line.

Texas doesn’t have a lock on ditsy females. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, said women don’t want federal laws to ensure women receive equal pay for equal work – women “want to be able to have the power and the control and the ability to make those decisions themselves.”

I have no idea what that means, but to this day – and I have worked on many part-time jobs – I still haven’t found one that lets me have the slightest power or control regarding my decision to be paid more.

Rep. Andrea Kieffer, a Republican member of the Minnesota Legislature, was talking about a package of bills addressing minimum wage, sick leave and equal pay for equal work when she said: “We heard several bills last week about women’s issues and I kept thinking to myself, these bills are putting us backwards in time. We are losing the respect that we so dearly want in the workplace by bringing up all these special bills for women and almost making us look like whiners.”

At this moment, I am thinking to myself and I am saying, “Self, why in the name of everything holy would any woman listen to this ditz? She gives ditzy a bad name. When was that time, back in time, when I so dearly wanted the respect of men in the workplace, and to get the respect of those men, I had to be a good little girl and remember that I was not special enough or worth enough to being paid the same as the jerk I’m sitting next to and the only reason I am worth so little is because I was born a girl? But I am not really fond of whining, either. I am more the give it to me or I’ll kick you guys where the only reason for your better pay is located.”

Nothing says ditzy like a blond, FOX-GOP cheerleader who makes more in a year than what most women make in a lifetime and I am hoping that all the guys at FOX make more than Martha MacCullum makes.

From an encounter between MacCullum and Alan Colmes:

Martha: “I think most women do not want to be treated as sort of a special class of citizens. They want to go to work every day, they want to get paid for being a professional, for doing their job really well. And they don’t want to be treated like some group of people who have to be, you know, given a little special handout just to make sure that they’re OK.”

Alan: “It’s not a special handout. It’s equality. It’s equal pay for equal work.”

Martha: “Many women get paid exactly what they’re worth, Alan.”

Again, FOX and the GOP are telling us that asking for equality is asking to be treated special, just like LGBTQ.

Well, I happen to think my daughter, my granddaughter and I are really special, along with most of the women and gay people that I know. I think Martha needs a pay cut just to prove that she is willing to be treated like other professional women. You know, so she can go to work every day and get paid less for doing the same thing the guys are doing and for doing it really well or maybe even better.

Many men are paid a hell of a lot more than what they are worth, Martha.

Martha, tell Rupert, you are willing to be treated like other professional women and be paid 40% less than Alan and the guys at FOX, just because you aren’t worth as much. You want to be like other women and not want anything special.

No income equality for the women at Fox because they do not want it and believe they do not deserve it because of their gender.

– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer