The gap exists because of reality: when women look around and on an every day occasion, see and experience where we aren’t included or even thought about, or, when we are included or thought about, how we’re treated – whether in real life (Ginni Rometty) or fake life (anything on Mad Men) – we don’t like it.  And we see the statements and policies of conservatives as, in general (yes, there are exceptions), upholding, supporting and keeping in stasis what we don’t like, while we see the statements and policies of moderates and liberals as, in general, seeking to change, alter, take down and improve that which we don’t like (though of course there are plenty of exceptions there too – start with any sex scandal).

And, as if to underscore how clueless the men are, US Senator Mitch McConnell claimed that his female colleagues certainly would support him in calling out the “war on women” as being manufactured. Thanks, Mitch, for demonstrating how completely you haven’t heard a word your female colleagues have said and how thoroughly you expect them to follow you in lockstep, to wit, from that link:

“Talk about a manufactured issue. There is no issue,” McConnell said. “Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (from Texas) and Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine I think would be the first to say—and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska—’we don’t see any evidence of this.’”

However, three of those female GOP lawmakers whom McConnell cited— Snowe, Hutchison and Murkowski—have specifically spoken out against Republican measures they believe are aimed at women.

Then, there’s the whole gaslighting aspect to what McConnell and others like Republican National Committee Chair, Reince Priebus, are saying – Preibus analogizing his belief that the notion of there being a war on women is as far-fetched as suggesting there’s a war on caterpillars.

We’re not being gaslighted – reality bites. And no amount of optics of Republican female spokespeople on the trail or a strong spouse, daughter-in-law or mother will begin to cut into the reality.

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Read more here.

Bernadine Healy must be spinning in her grave

(More about Bernadine Healy here – she mandated that women be included in health trials – about women’s health. Hello.)

There’s a lot of excellent commentary on that photo around the web but here’s US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) speaking up about it – with the image full blown behind her:

And we can’t ignore that here are the menz pundits this morning on MSNBC (read more about the optic debacle here) talking about what else – women’s health and contraception. Nary a woman.  Unbelievable in 2012.

Where are the women?

Definitely check out the cleveland.com comment thread – be sure you’re sitting down, even if you’re used to the tone they sometimes take on.  And also browse this comment thread on Connie Schultz’s Facebook page.

Folks, we have a long, long way to go.  If this cause inspires you, please check out Name It Change It, an effort to catalogue and call out, on a non-partisan basis as you will see from the examples, just how rampant the sexism is, especially when politics is involved.

Yet now, here again, CNN is reporting that their polling shows a gender gap favoring  – wait for it – Romney again:

A gender gap appears to have developed as well. In South Carolina, Gingrich won among men and women, according to exit polls. But in Florida, although Gingrich has an edge among men, Romney had the advantage among women.

“Some of that may be due to recent coverage of Gingrich’s personal life, but it is almost certainly due to other factors as well. Gingrich’s favorable rating has consistently been higher among men than among women for years before he became a presidential candidate, suggesting that men may find his red-meat approach to issues more appealing than women do,” says [CNN Polling Director Keating] Holland.

Many people have anticipated that Florida is not South Carolina, and I share that opinion.  How different is the female electorate in the Sunshine State from the same segment in the Palmetto State?

We won’t know for sure until next Tuesday evening, after they vote.  I have my suspicions but I’m going to keep them to myself until election night.

What do you think?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s the full list of 50 from Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook:

FIRST LOOK – GQ’s “The 50 Most Powerful People in Washington (People with the last names Obama and Biden not included,” by Reid Cherlin, Rob Fischer, Jason Horowitz and Jason Zengerle: 1) Eric Cantor 2) Mitch McConnell 3) David Plouffe 4) Leon Panetta 5) Hillary Clinton 6) Ben Bernanke 7) David Petraeus Kevin McCarthy 9) Pete Rouse 10) U.S. Chamber’s Tom Donohue 11) Tim Geithner 12) John Boehner 13) Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, Steven Law (American Crossroads) 14) Tommy Boggs, chairman, Patton Boggs 15) Dan Pfeiffer 16) Gene Sperling and Jack Lew 17) Chuck Schumer 18) Grover Norquist 19) Chuck Todd 20) Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser and speechwriter, and brother David Rhodes, president of CBS News 21) Paul Ryan 22) Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough 23) Heather and Tony Podesta 24) Chris Van Hollen 25) Paul Clement, partner, Bancroft

26) Jim DeMint 27) White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler 28) Joe Pounder, RNC research director 29) Rep. Tim Scott 30) White House Personnel Director Nancy Hogan 31) Brian Deese, deputy director, White House National Economic Council 32) Education Secretary Arne Duncan 33) Jake Sullivan, State Department director of policy planning 34) Ezra Klein 35) White House Director of Legislative Affairs Rob Nabors 36) Bill Daley 37) Patty Murray 38) Capital Weather Gang bloggers 39) Liz Cheney 40) Mike Allen 41) restaurateur José Andrés 42) party planners Jayne Sandman, Barbara Martin, Svetlana Legetic 43) Marco Rubio 44) White House Social Secretary Jeremy Bernard 45) Charles Krauthammer 46) MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd 47) Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg 48) Jack Quinn 49) restaurateur James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong, Buck’s Fishing & Camping 50) Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine, owners, Politics & Prose.

Pathetic.  Not even necessarily on GQ although I’d levy that claim without much sweat. But pathetic re: those who can appoint, who can make power and influence reside in whomever they choose.

And the number of women in the second half doubles primarily because three women party plan together.

Sigh.

I may have to put the Ginsberg video in the sidebar permanently, until we get better numbers on these things.

And although his editorial today doesn’t specifically talk about the tough times women in tech and as entrepreneurs in general can have compared to men in the same context, it still is a gratifying highlight of kick-ass women supporting other kick-ass women.  That makes Joe that same thing, by association.

Thanks, Joe for highlighting Bad Girl Ventures. A new session begins at the end of this month – it looks like they are still taking applications.

And there’s really no better way to describe it than in the simplest of Hebrew phrases, זה בעיה zeh baaya – it’s a problem.

But let’s not have a misunderstanding here: the women are not the problem. The way in which supposed teachings are interpreted to require women to be treated are what should be considered to be at issue – not the women in and of themselves just for existing.

The best blog I’ve read that covers these issues and many others is A Mother in Israel.  She is a wonderful and generous writer – and also happens to have grown up in the USA (she made aliyah a long time ago).

For those who don’t know from reading this blog, I lived in Beit Shemesh for a year over twenty years ago and I still cannot believe what is going on there now, although my time in Israel in 2008 showed me how different the Old City was compared to when I was there (far less inviting, IMO). I also have very observant relatives in some of the most observant parts of Jerusalem who were fabulous to me while I was there and I spent a great deal of time in some of the communities discussed in the article.  From my experience and knowledge, a number of the portrayals in the article are accurate, but I’m not living there now so I offer that as a caveat.

What’s really kind of sad, for so many societies with portions of their populations acting as though women are “the problem”  – we’ve been half or more than half your populations for centuries. That people now are making such a stink over us making a stink about how stinky we can be treated at times is, frankly, really stinky.

We’ve been 50% since Adam and Eve. How did things get so out of balance in the first place?