Kamala Harris is doing better in the polls than Joe Biden was.  No surprise there.

But that’s not just because he’s a dementia patient and she’s not.  There’s more to it than that. In the political world, it is often assumed that -- all things being equal -- a female candidate has an advantage of a couple points over a male candidate.

There are a lot of reasons for this, and of course, all things are never equal, so it’s not that simple.  If it were, both parties would make sure to only nominate women -- in swing jurisdictions at least.  But even so, Kamala Harris is sure to have some durable hold over some percentage of the electorate -- how big a hold and over how big a subset being unknown -- just because she’s a woman.

This isn’t necessarily unfair, on its own.  It’s just the way it is.  Republicans can run female candidates just as easily as Democrats can.  The fact that Republicans have plenty of absolutely terrific female governors and senators, from governors Kim Reynolds, Kristi Noem, and Sarah Sanders to senators Marsha Blackburn, Katie Britt, and Joni Ernst, shows that this doesn’t have to be a specific advantage for one party or the other.

However, there is one aspect of “the sex question” that is well worth diving into: the perception driven home by the mainstream media, the pop culture, and the Democrat side of the aisle, that Kamala Harris, and all female Democrat candidates, are automatically better choices for female voters -- “for women’s issues.”

Now, no male candidate of either party ever campaigns as being better “for men’s issues.”  It never happens.  But female Democrats campaign for office all the time, claiming that they are the clear choice “for women’s issues.”

It is fair, therefore, to ask the question: what are these “women’s issues” they speak of?

Accuse them of just using the term as cover for the abortion issue, and they will tell you that No, they’re not talking about abortion alone; they’re talking about health insurance and women’s rights and employment law too.

But what specific issue about health insurance is that?  They want insurance plans to be forced to cover abortions.  What women’s rights are they talking about?  The perceived right to have an abortion.  What employment law issue are they talking about? The ability of a hospital or clinic to force its healthcare employee, against his or her will, to perform or assist with an abortion.

Sometimes you have to drill down a couple of layers to get this honest answer, but in the end, it is undeniable:  To the modern Democrat campaign -- not to the voters, necessarily, but to the candidates -- the only “women’s issues” are about abortion.

So, the voter needs to ask a question:  aren’t any other issues also women’s issues?  And if so, where do the candidates stand on them? 

For example:

Our cities and suburbs are undergoing a severe explosion of crime, from robbery to rape to other physical attacks. This puts employees of retail establishments -- who are frequently female -- at particular risk.  It puts commuters, walkers, joggers -- who are frequently female -- at particular risk. And it puts tenants or homeowners who live alone, especially women living in apartments and public housing, and old widows living in their homes alone, at particular risk.

Crime is a women’s issue.  The mugger, carjacker, home invader, rapist, or convenience store robber who might have second thoughts before attacking a potential male will likely think of the female pedestrian, driver, jogger, or store clerk as an easier target.

(Personal aside: my family lives in a reasonably safe suburban residential neighborhood.  We men are comfortable going for a walk after dark; the women of our neighborhood are not. With good reason, in this day and age).

Voters deserve to know whether the candidate supports prosecuting and jailing criminals, or setting criminals free.  They deserve to know whether the candidate supports the wholesale emptying of prisons and the defunding the police, or keeping our jails and police forces operating at full strength.

Consider immigration.  The majority of the 20-some million illegal aliens encouraged by the Biden-Harris regime to jump the gates over these past four years have been male. The decent ones are competition for jobs, driving down wages for all of us.  The destitute ones are competition for the social safety net and the welfare rolls. The crooked ones increase the crime described above.  The ones with children put added strain on the schools, where every statistic shows that the more languages are spoken in a school, the more all the children’s education suffers.

So immigration, too, is a women’s issue.  The damage done by tens of millions of illegal immigrants who can’t or won’t assimilate into our society and our economy is simply incalculable.  Women are right to be concerned about it, and are right to demand answers from candidates seeking their support. But Democrat candidates support these wide-open borders, while Republican candidates sensibly support rational immigration limits, always with an eye to assimilation.

And no matter how many tragic occurrences prove the case -- from Laken Riley to Melody Waldecker, from Kate Steinle to Catalina Andrade and Merced Ballon -- the press will never admit it’s a women’s issue.

Now, turn to the Biden-Harris regime’s war on forms of energy that work (and its associated policy of propping up forms of energy that don’t work at all). While raising taxes to subsidize windmills and solar panels that will never -- never -- be cost-effective in their energy production, the Biden-Harris regime (with the full support of the Democrat caucuses in Congress and the bureaucracy) has directly caused a doubling of the cost of gasoline and diesel, while simultaneously contributing to the degradation of the electric grid.

Women buy gasoline for their cars; women need power in their wall outlets for air conditioning, light, and appliances.  Women are the doctors, nurses, or patients in hospitals and clinics that suffer when the power grid goes down because Democrat party insistence on windmills and solar panels has caused yet another blackout. Women are the mothers in maternity wards, or the patients in nursing homes, whose very lives are jeopardized by these power failures.

And since women are so often single mothers, responsible for the health and safety of their children, when the refrigerator goes out and food is spoiled, that’s an extra burden on their suffering families.  When the gasoline bill for their cars goes from $1000 per year to $2000 per year, that additional thousand is taken directly out of their standard of living.

The list is endless: inflation at the grocery store, the accelerating cost of housing, the outrageous increase in the price of automobiles -- all these cost increases are caused by Biden-Harris regime and Democrat party policies in Washington, because it’s those policies that caused this crippling inflation.

And that makes inflation, the cost of living, and therefore, the very standard of living of Americans, legitimate women’s issues.

Where do the candidates and their parties stand on these issues?

You know.  We all know.

But the press plays along with the Democrat party talking points, using the term “women’s issues” as a handy euphemism for “abortion on demand.”

Because the press is just as wrong on all those other actual women’s issues as they are about that one.

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation manager, trade compliance trainer, and speaker. Read his book on the surprisingly numerous varieties of vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his political satires on the Biden-Harris years (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his brand new nonfiction book on the 2024 election, Current Events and the Issues of Our Age, all available in eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.

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