WOMENIN THE

WildernessCHART ING A NEW PATH FORWARD

Voting for Obama by a solid 11-point margin, women followed their faith in government security.

How can we better explain that economic liberty and limited government benefit women?

The Independent Women’s Forum hosted a panel to set a winning agenda for the next four years—and beyond.

Winter 2013

“There’s a reason the topic of how to reverse this trend, and open more women to supporting the cause of liberty, commanded such attention: The future of our republic depends on it.”

Dear Friend:

As you may have heard, the Independent Women’s Forum’s Women in the Wilderness event drew a

standing room only crowd of people excited about ideas yet deeply concerned that ideals we hold

dear aren’t being effectively communicated in the current political atmosphere, especially to women.

There’s a reason the topic of how to reverse this trend, and open more women to supporting the

cause of liberty, commanded such attention: The future of our republic depends on it.

In November 2012, women voted for President Obama by an 11-point margin, demonstrating a

faith in big government and the security it supposedly brings. If we can’t find a way to speak to

women about why economic liberty and limited government benefit us more than big government,

we are in for long-term trouble with regards to liberty and prosperity.

As our event’s moderator, Christina Hoff Sommers explained: “A key theme of the Obama

campaign was protecting [women] from the aggressive Republican ‘war on women.’ If we want to

see conservatives survive, we are going to have to change the storyline.”

The theme of the evening was finding a better way to convey our ideals to women, while being loyal

to our principles. We selected our panelists with the hope that they would provide guidance as we

begin the process of charting a new path forward—getting out of the wilderness, so to speak—and

set an agenda for the next four years—and beyond.

We were fortunate to have a distinguished moderator in Hoff Sommers, philosopher, American

Enterprise Institute resident scholar, and author of seminal works on women’s issues (Who Stole

Feminism? and The War on Boys). Polling analyst Karlyn Bowman, also of the American Enterprise

Institute, knows more about public opinion than just about anybody in Washington. She left us with

causes for concern and reasons to hope.

A senior fellow at the Mercatus Center, Veronique de Rugy shared her expertise in economic

matters, speaking passionately about what can be accomplished when government gets out of the

way and lets us do our best. Mollie Hemingway, an editor at Ricochet, addressed the issue from a

cultural perspective. She made the point that we can’t just tell people who disagree with us that

they are wrong. We need to understand where they are coming from—but also have a grasp of the

values on which our own beliefs are based.

Last but certainly not least, my colleague, IWF Executive Director Sabrina Schaeffer, who is the co-

author of the book Liberty Is No War on Women, talked about what IWF research shows about how

women think about political issues. The research indicates that there are new ways to address the

issues and help women understand what they can gain from a free-market system.

We were so heartened by the quality of the discussion that we have pulled it together in this

small booklet. This is something new for us, but we kicked off this new “tradition” because it was

such an important evening that we wanted to put the information in a handy format and perhaps

broaden the audience.

Before I leave you to your reading, I’d like to comment on one more aspect of the event: the

response from the Left. We were barraged with criticism because we didn’t focus our attention on

the issue of abortion.

While we were very candid about our disgust at the absurd and hurtful comments made by some

members of the Republican Party during the 2012 campaign season, we did, indeed, prefer to

focus our discussion on issues of economic liberty and limited government.

We believe that the real “war on women” is big government—which truly undermines women’s

progress and financial security—a failed education system, excess regulations and taxation, a $16

trillion debt, and a government-run health care system.

The larger point is that the women at IWF and our fellow panelists (who cover the spectrum in

terms of their personal views on abortion) simply don’t agree that “women’s issues” should be

limited to our anatomy, as the Obama campaign seemed all too often to believe. We seek to

broaden the discussion, and we do not see women as solely a vessel for reproduction.

We hope that you will find the thoughts expressed by our panelists as helpful as we do in charting

a new path forward.

Sincerely,

Charlotte HaysDirector of Cultural Programs

Table of Contents

Remarks at the IWF’s Winter 2013 Women in the Wilderness panel:

6Christina Hoff Sommers,ModeratorAuthor, philosopher, and Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

12Veronique de RugySenior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center with expertise in U.S. economy, budget, and taxation 15

Mollie Z. HemingwayEditor, Ricochet.com and contributor to GetReligion.org

18 Sabrina Schaeffer Executive Director of the Independent Women’s Forum and co-author (with Carrie Lukas) of Liberty Is No War on Women

Karlyn BowmanSenior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute with expertise in politics, media, and public opinion and polls

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“Conservative leaders and funders don’t take women’s issues seriously. They tend to treat women’s groups like the Ladies Auxiliary and women’s issues as a distracting side show. But today, women’s issues are at the center of American politics.”

CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS, MODERATORAuthor, philosopher, and Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

Good evening and welcome to the “Women in the Wilderness” forum. The question we are going to

consider today is: Where do we go from here? As conservative feminists, how do we better explain

how limited government and economic liberty benefit women. How do we set a winning agenda for

the next four years -- and beyond. I will say a few brief words about my view of the matter—then

turn the discussion over to our stellar panel.

Years ago, I read a list of writing tips that the famed editor of the Washington Monthly gave to

young writers. When you write, he said, always have a fair maiden—always have someone the

reader is rooting for––someone the reader cares about and wants to protect or vindicate.

The editor did not mean literally that you had to write about a damsel in distress—just that

journalism is best when readers have an emotional investment in someone’s well being. Well, here

is the challenge to conservatives in a nutshell: liberals excel at fair-maiden narratives; conservatives

do not. Fair or not, President Obama was perceived to be protecting the poor, the working class,

immigrants—-and most of all women. Liberals have literally embraced the fair maiden—a key theme

of the presidential campaign was protecting her from a vicious Republican war on women. If we want

to see conservatism survive, we are going to have to change the story line.

I drifted from being a liberal to a conservative as I came to realize that conservatism is a more

protective, compassionate, and rational philosophy. For me, expensive, poorly administered

entitlement programs that will burden our children and grandchildren with crippling debt, out-

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of-control, ideologically driven regulation that undermines our national economy—these are

destructive and harmful policies—superficially compassionate—but effectively, just the opposite. I

rejected hard-line feminism for just the same reason. I came to see how it promoted policies that

appear to protect women—but in fact harm them.

Conservative writers like Sabrina Schaeffer, Charlotte Hays, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Carrie Lukas

and many others have been focused on exposing the destructive side of the hard-line feminist

agenda. They also write brilliantly on the importance of limited government and economic liberty

for women. But their message is not getting across. Why? For at least two reasons.

One: We are vastly outnumbered when it comes to women’s advocacy. It is a David and Goliath

situation—without David’s slingshot. The feminist scholars in the nation’s women’s studies

departments, law schools, and research institutes enjoy a near-monopoly on “women’s issues.”

They write the textbooks, fashion the theories, teach the classes.

When journalists and legislators address topics such as the wage gap, gender and education,

and women’s health, they turn to these experts for enlightenment. Too often, what they get is

propaganda, grievance politics dressed up as research, and (in the words of Christine Rosen)

“deliberately misleading sisterly sophistries.” The feminist scholars are academically weak but

politically adroit. They represent only a tiny coterie of radical women, but they effectively present

themselves as the official voice of American women.

The second vexing problem: Conservative leaders and funders don’t take women’s issues

seriously. They tend to treat women’s groups like the Ladies Auxiliary and women’s issues as a

distracting side show. But today, women’s issues are at the center of American politics. The left

turns every issue into a women’s issue. And, often, they are right to do so.

Take something like Social Security reform. Try to reform it and you will run up against a legion

of feminist critics who will declare this is part of the war on women. Why? Well, because men,

on average, die earlier than women, more women depend on it. So yes, in a way, women have a

greater stake. Instead of being clueless about the issues, conservatives could make the case that

they are trying to SAVE a program essential to women—and liberals are driving it into insolvency.

But I am not sure what is worse—conservatives ignoring women’s issues –or conservatives

addressing them. Is there anyone more tongue tied than a Republican official talking about

women? During the election Kimberly Strassel, at the Wall Street Journal, wrote: “To say that the

Republican Party remains dominated by fossilized male dinosaurs who don’t know how to talk to

modern women—well, that would be mean. It would also be close to the truth.” She is right. Here

is what a frustrated former Bush advisor Karen Hughes had to say “If another Republican man

says anything about rape other than it is a horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his

tongue… The college-age daughters of many of my friends voted for Obama because they were

completely turned off by Neanderthal comments like the suggestion of ‘legitimate rape.’”

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Memo to conservative men: Women’s life circumstances are different from men’s in important

respects. Their concerns need to be addressed by leaders who recognize and respect the

differences. And one more thing: women are 53% of the electorate.

To get out of the wilderness we need to change the narrative, we need a stronger research base,

and a stronger conservative women’s lobby. (If I were a billionaire committed to protecting the

American Dream—I would give 10 million dollars to the Independent Women’s Forum to develop

a women’s research center and a legal foundation. We would still be outnumbered. But good

scholarship would give us a powerful slingshot.) We also need new messengers (i.e., more female

legislators—and more younger male legislators who know how to talk to modern women). Then,

and only then, will be in a position to take back the fair-maiden.

Today we are going to hear from five distinguished women on the topic of “women in the

Wilderness and where we go from here? I am not sure if any of them share my ideas about what

went wrong—but I am sure you will find what they have to say enlightening.

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“Republicans should glue Cathy McMorris-Rodgers to John Boehner. She should be there every day because optics matter.”

KARLYN BOWMAN Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute with expertise in politics, media, and public opinion and polls

Good evening, I’m pleased to be with you tonight and to see this extraordinary turnout. IWF is

back, and we can thank Sabrina and the wonderful staff for that.

I’ve been at AEI for a long time and I’ll start with a confession: I wrote one of the first pieces on

the gender gap in 1982. So tonight, I’ll stick to electoral politics and numbers and talk a little

about what we learned in the 2012 election.

I want to start with the GOP retreat in Williamsburg and a presentation that is being given as we

meet titled “What Happened and Where We Are Now.” I don’t know what the pollsters will say, but

I’m guessing they might be modestly optimistic about 2014, mostly because 2012 was a wake-up

call for Republicans and conservatives. The first reason for modest optimism about 2014 is that

electorates in off- year elections are different from electorates in presidential election years. New

voters and young voters who did so much to put Obama over the top aren’t as committed to the

process and don’t turn out in high numbers like they do in presidential elections years. In 2010,

voters under 30 made up 11 percent of the electorate. In 2008, in Obama’s first election, they

made up 18 percent of all voters. That’s a big difference.

Unmarried women, whom pollster Stan Greenberg calls the largest progressive voting bloc in the

country, are also less reliable voters. Some key Democratic pollsters believe that their inability to

turn younger unmarried women out in big numbers contributed to Democratic losses in 2010.

Also looking ahead to 2014, the Democrats have far more seats at risk in the Senate than do the

Republicans. Twenty of the 2014 seats are held by Democrats and 13 by Republicans. Most of the

GOP Senate seats look safe at this early stage.

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Finally, second terms for any president are difficult. We have something we call the six-year itch

when people tire of a president and a lot of incumbents are defeated.

So there are some reasons for modest optimism about 2014, but there are enormous challenges

ahead. I’m going to talk about three—vote totals, demographics, and the attitudes that are the

source of the gender gap.

On Election Day, 55 percent of women voted for Obama and 44 percent voted for Romney. The

men’s vote was almost a mirror image. This is the familiar gender gap. But women turned out in

significantly greater numbers than did men. Christina mentioned that 53 percent of voters were

women and 47 percent men. In 2012 slightly more than 129 million people voted. That means 8

million more women than men voted.

If women are voting disproportionately Democratic on the presidential level and casting ballots in

greater numbers, there is a significant problem going forward. In every Senate and gubernatorial

race for which we have 2012 exit poll data, women were a larger share of the electorate than men.

The exit poll data allows us to look at women and men, and at married and not married women

and men. The not married female category includes women who have never been married and

women who are separated, divorced, and widowed and it’s hard to break out young single women,

the group that the Democrats are counting on in the future.

In every election since 1982, women have been more Democratic than men. Even in the

Republican sweeps of 1994 and again in 2010, women voted more Democratic than men. In

every election where we have data on the married and not married group, not married voters have

been more Democratic than married voters. In every election for which we have data married and

unmarried women have been more Democratic than their male counterparts.

The attitudes that produce the gender gap in politics haven’t changed since the gap was born in

1980. Women and men differ on using force, including questions about sending troops abroad

and gun control. In a new CNN poll, 44 percent of men, but 65 percent of women said they wanted

stricter gun control laws. Gun control however, is not a top priority for the public.

Women are more risk averse than men. Polls after the Fukushima nuclear disaster showed a

huge gender divide on nuclear power. CBS asks about whether you would like to ride on the space

shuttle if given the opportunity, and there is a gender chasm.

Women say they favor a stronger role for government than do men. This is true almost across the board.

Women are less likely to be informed on national issues.

On social issues we have an interesting pattern. On abortion, men and women have never differed.

But women are much more supportive of gay marriage than men.

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The question for me is whether these differences are hardwired or if a new generation of women

who expect to work and have families, who have more education than their male counterparts, will

be open to arguments that conservatives and the GOP are making.

Now what can conservatives and Republicans do going forward?

I agree with the things that Christina suggested, but let me add a few more. First, the GOP needs

to do better at recruiting women at the state legislative level because the GOP needs a farm

team. Patty Murray was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and she

announced early that she would recruit female candidates to run in the Senate races in 2012.

She was very successful.

Republicans can never again allow the Democratic Party, as happened in Missouri, to be a part

of the selection of GOP candidates. Second, Republicans should glue Cathy McMorris-Rodgers to

John Boehner. She should be there every day because optics matter. Third, Republicans should

develop binders full of women to get women into DAS [Deputy Assistant Secretary] positions.

Someone such Carly Fiorina can provide names for farm team for DAS positions which many of

you might want to take.

My AEI colleague Jennifer Marsico noticed differences in advertising by the Obama and Romney

campaigns. If you went to the Romney campaign site, you would find “Moms for Mitt” bumper

strips. But Obama had a different approach designed to reach a younger demographic. Another AEI

colleague, Henry Olsen, made the point that GOP rhetoric needs to change to reflect demographic

realities. When conservatives appeal to Judeo-Christian values, he says, they are cutting out a

large swath of new voters.

There need to be more Republican and conservative women in broadcasting and polling -- more

Laura Ingrahams, more Sabrinas, and less Rush Limbaugh. In the polling community, I’m very

impressed by young Emily Ekins’ work for the Reason Foundation. Significant generational change

of that sort will pay dividends.

There may be short-term gains in 2014. If conservatives and Republicans address the larger

challenges, there may some significant long-term gains.

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“With very rare exceptions, there is nothing that women cannot do today … as long as the government gets out of the way. And that’s the fight we need to have.”

VERONIQUE DE RUGYSenior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center with expertise in U.S. economy, budget, and taxation

The title of this event Women in the Wilderness is very appropriate. This is exactly how it feels,

being a libertarian, a conservative, or a woman who actually believes in freedom. For those who

know me, shrinking the size of government is more than an academic pursuit. I moved here 13

years ago and I never imagined that living in the United States in 2013 would feel more and more

like living in France, minus the unpasteurized cheese and cheap but delicious wine.

How do women get out of the wilderness? I am not convinced that the path forward for freedom lovers

rests within the Republican Party, or Democratic Party for that matter. They have both failed us. The good

news is that if you love freedom, our ideas did not lose on the ballot last November. I say this because

freedom wasn’t on the ballot. (Remember that Gary Johnson wasn’t even represented in every state.)

We had the choice between big government and bigger government. So the good news is, we

haven’t lost the battle for freedom and we must continue fighting.

The bad news is that things in Washington are not looking up. For instance, the fiscal cliff deal

increased marginal tax rates on top income earners. This will affect women directly and indirectly.

As I explained in a recent Reason magazine column, how high income earners’ respond to

changes in tax rates is an issue that academics have studied extensively.

Counter-intuitively, studies have revealed that in the short run, the supply of labor is relatively

unresponsive to changes in after-tax earnings. Full-time employees—especially primary earners,

who have historically been men—don’t really seem to react much when their taxes go up. They

work the same hours at the same jobs even when they get to keep less of their earnings, which

affect them and their family.

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But studies have also shown that women and secondary earners more generally, are much more

responsive to changes in income tax rates. That means that as tax rates go up, taxes play a

bigger role in informing their decisions whether to work or not than factors that should be more

relevant such as their children’s needs for instance.

What’s more, even if higher taxes don’t discourage the efforts of those who are wealthy today,

they decrease the incentive for individuals to become wealthy in the future through their impact

on entrepreneurship, human capital accumulation, and career choices. In other words, increasing

marginal tax rates create an environment in which it will be much harder to become the next

Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. Increasing taxes on the wealthiest earners may raise some revenue

for the government in the short run, but the long-term costs can be substantial.

The fiscal cliff deal also makes the marriage penalty worse than it was before. If you are a woman,

and you make much less than your husband does (which is the case in a majority of households),

and you file jointly then you are taxed at your husband’s higher rate. The higher tax rates

implemented in the deal aggravate this penalty.

On the spending side, things are not looking up either. While spent less in 2012 than in 2011,

spending levels remain at an almost all-time-high since World War Two. Gross debt as a share of

GDP is over 100 percent. The debt held by the public is roughly 74 percent and it is growing. This

is a way to understand our spending problem and in my opinion this high debt is the reason we

were downgraded in 2011.

Why does this matter? We know that spending is the disease and debt is only the symptom. Yet,

there is a point where debt becomes a problem. Some research shows that debt can become so

big that the economy of a country starts to collapse.

How big does the debt have to be? On average, when debt reaches 90% of GDP then the economy

shrinks by 1%. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but as my colleague Matt Mitchell has calculated, if the

US had reached this level in 1975, the country would be 35 percent poorer today. This gap is what

our fight is all about.

Unfortunately, as long as we don’t change the path we are on, things will continue to get worse.

Spending programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid are going to explode and as a

result so will our debt. And that doesn’t account for interest on our debt.

But women benefit from these programs you may say? They do. However, the benefits they receive

should be an incentive to reform the social safety net. Take Social Security, for instance. Today, 70

percent of Social Security recipients are women.

First, there are lots of things women could have done with the money (including saving for their

retirement), had they not been forced to put their money in this program which by all accounts

offers very low return on investment.

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Moreover, once the trust fund dries up, benefits will be cut overnight by 25 percent. This means

that if women are the ones benefitting now, they are also the ones who will be penalized when

the cuts occur. Women would benefit the most from reforming the program by putting it on sound

financial ground or by moving to private accounts.

Now, I have some good news. While the government is too big, regulations are awful, and we still

have this horrible tax code that can be a main factor in decisions women make about their career

or their family, things are otherwise looking great for women. Outside of the realm of politics things

are actually stunningly good for women. There is really nothing we cannot do today. For instance,

40% of privately held businesses are owned by women. Women can marry who they want, they

can decide not to get married, they can get divorced without being ostracized, they can prosper

and make a good living without being dependent of their husbands but they can also decide to

rely on their husbands while they stay home to raise their children if they want to. With very rare

exceptions, there is nothing that women cannot do today … as long as the government gets out of

the way. And that’s the fight we need to have.

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“We need to think more deeply about the principles that guide us—but we also need to do a better job of understanding the principles that guide those who don’t agree with us.”

MOLLIE Z. HEMINGWAYEditor, Ricochet.com and contributor to GetReligion.org

It’s important to remember, as we are doing our soul searching and agonizing, that the ideas

that most of us here tonight care about—liberty and freedom—were not well represented on the

presidential ballot last year.

I care a great deal about liberty, about limiting the size and scope of government, and about

market solutions to the problems that we are confronting. In 2010—which was one of the best

years for the liberty movement—the issue that people cared about most was ObamaCare. There

was a surge in voting at the polls and big, big wins for candidates who opposed ObamaCare.

And in 2012, what did the Republican Party, in its wisdom, do? The Republican Party ran as its

candidate a man who as governor of Massachusetts was the godfather of ObamaCare. When we

are talking about the ideals of liberty and freedom, we must remember that the Republican Party

isn’t always as friendly to these ideals as we might hope.

We need to think more deeply about the principles that guide us—but we also need to do a better

job of understanding the principles that guide those who don’t agree with us. One of the most

interesting books to come out in the last year is Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind, which was

well-received by conservatives but less so by liberals. Haidt was in some ways issuing a wake-up call

for liberals, saying that they must do a better job understanding the moral universe of conservatives.

Haidt was telling them that—much to their surprise—conservatives have a complex moral

approach to the issues. What he was really showing is that everybody is guided by a morality and

that it really helps to be able to understand what other people’s morality is. Everyone in this room

probably is concerned about many of the same issues.

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We are worried about threats to our freedom, we are worried about how increasing government

makes the things we care about less possible and we are already here in this room. But we want

also to reach out to other people who don’t share these values at all. Haidt puts it in terms of

morality binds you to one another. We share similar views and we’re here together.

But also morality blinds, it blinds us to the perspectives of other people.

We need to understand the motivation of other people and humble ourselves enough to try and

learn from it as well. Some people are not naturally attracted to the ideas of freedom. Instead,

they might be attracted to fighting oppression, or compassion, or equality of outcome. You can

say some of those values are stupid, or that if they really cared about them, they would be on our

team, but we would do better to really humble ourselves and understand where they are coming

from and learn the values of their moral universe and how to communicate with them in a way

that is more amenable to them. Of those voters who said that they cared about compassion, 81%

voted for Barack Obama versus 18% for Mitt Romney.

Among people who cared about basic competency issues, Mitt Romney won. But on caring the

chasm was vast—81 to 18! Do we say we care about liberty and freedom because we want to hurt

people? No! But we rarely talk about freedom as being better for people, and therefore we find

ourselves on the defensive. When people say they want to do this huge new government program to

help people, we rarely put forward a competing vision. This is the natural state of things, because as

people who aren’t seeking government solutions, we are going to be the ones saying no all the time.

But I think it is also important that instead of just saying no we put forward an alternative solution.

People who believe in limited government hold this belief not because they don’t care about other

people but because they believe there is a much better model for serving the community than

more government, and that is the heart of the message I wanted to share. I believe there can

be many gains made in the short term simply by not being stupid and making different ways to

improve the messaging.

We must keep this in mind, particularly when we hear depressing numbers about the gender gap.

The gender gap numbers sound horrific, and in many ways they are, but it’s also true that you don’t

need to win every single vote in that gap to have electoral success. You do need to win some of

them, though. On President Barack Obama’s website, if you were a woman and wanted to show

your affinity for the candidate, you could get a plethora of different things. You could get handbags,

you could get funny, witty T-shirts.

And all these people on the Republican side were making fun of the very specific, funny things

that were being offered. And on Mitt Romney’s website there were a total of three offerings for

women … and two of them were focused on mothers. So if you were a single woman you had all

of one “‘I’m a Lady for Mitt” T-shirt you could buy and there was an apron and a “Mom’s Drive the

Economy” bumper sticker. Simply being more welcoming to women who want to be supporters of a

given candidate might go a long way.

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But the actual difficulty is that there is a huge issue in the culture, the gender gap is 18 points,

but the marriage gap is 41 points. The gap is growing. In the 2020 census, it is likely to be 47

percent of women will not be married. This is a challenge to those of us who believe in a non-

big government vision that people’s needs can be meet at the individual level through family

formation, and in the community, at local houses of worship, local community organizations.

We believe that community and family institutions are the most flexible and agile and can respond

to the needs of the local community. We believe that they can do much better than the large,

impersonal federal government, which is full of bureaucrats who don’t know how to run a program

effectively if their lives depended on it. And the alternative vision that we have is when you have

less government, you have stronger institutions. And I think people who don’t have the same views

on freedom and liberty have been really effective in running roughshod over those institutions.

We must discuss an alternate to a big government vision, one where people’s needs are taken care

of, where there is security. It comes back that nugget about women not wanting to fly on a space

shuttle. Security is a big issue, compassion is a big issue. We must present an alternate vision that

features both security and compassion but is the opposite of a big government solution.

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“Our side tends to get bogged down in debating about whether or not discrimination exists. This is probably not a good way to start off any conversation about the wage gap or workplace regulations.”

SABRINA SCHAEFFERExecutive Director of the Independent Women’s Forum, co-author of Liberty is No War on Women

As everyone around this table has said if we have learned anything from November’s election

results, it was that Republicans and by extension the liberty movement have no idea how to talk to

women. In an attempt to be constructive tonight, I am offering a modest, four point plan as to how

to bring women out of the wilderness.

Point Number One: If you’ve Got It, Flaunt itI’m deeply turned off by the idea that you should elect somebody because of her gender. We’ve

had celebrations recently over the record number of women in the Senate, despite the fact that

the majority of them—16 out of 20—are Democrats and will vote for higher taxes and bigger

government.

Still, it’s time to acknowledge that the GOP is not just a party of older white men. Republicans

have a slate of strong, talented, fiscally conservative female lawmakers—former physicians,

accountants, business owners—who are poised to communicate the message that liberty is no

war on women.

Electing Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Republican from Washington, to the leadership as

chairman of the House Republican Conference was a step in the right direction. Now’s the time, of

course, to make sure she becomes as recognizable a face as Speaker John Boehner.

Unfotunately, the Republican Party lost several key female lawmakers in November—including

IWF’s 2012 Woman of Valor Rep. Mary Bono Mack from California, as well as Rep. Nan Hayworth

from New York—who now serves on IWF’s board. The bottom line is Republicans cannot afford

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to ignore the remaining elected women who understand and can communicate how progressive

policies fail women and their families.

Conservatives cannot afford to treat women such as Gov. Susanna Martinez of New Mexico,

Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Rep. Kristi Noem from South Dakota and and Rep. Lynn

Jenkins from Kansas as tokens. They must be viewed as ambassadors to a public that has been

systematically mis-educated about limited government and free market policies.

We’ve got it. So now it’s time to make women the face of conservative politics.

Point Number Two: Talk to Women…Especially Single WomenChristina mentioned that conservative funders and lawmakers don’t take women’s issues

seriously. And I couldn’t agree more. I sometimes go into donor meetings and I see donor’s eyes

glazing over. “Like why would I care about women?” And I’m thinking, if it is a male donor, well you

are married, you have a daughter, a sister, and an aunt. Apparently we live in a vacuum. Women’s

issues are at the center of everything right now.

Conservatives tend to shy away from playing gender politics. I think this is a good, admirable thing.

But in their effort not to pander to women, they seem to have forgotten that women exist at all and

that we make up 53% of the voting electorate.

The Obama campaign targeted women with a dishonest campaign about reproductive issues. They

used demeaning slogans like “Vote your Lady Parts.” (Of course, the media viewed “binders full of

women” as far more offensive than vote your lady parts! (While we are on the subject of “binders

full of women,” I want to mention that IWF compiled our own binder full of women who would be

great in elected office. Please look at our binder: http://iwf.org/blog/2790387/IWF-Releases-a-

Binder-of-Women-Candidates-for-High-Office)

As absurd as the Life of Julia info-graphic was, it worked. Women—especially unmarried women—

found that they could identify with that anonymous face of “Julia,” and Republicans were portrayed

as hostile to women in all areas of life from education to the workplace to entitlements. And they

never had a proper response.

Recognizing that the genders are different and that men and women might have different ways of

looking at things isn’t pandering; it’s simply finding a better way of communicating.

I’ll offer one quick example:

How on earth did conservatives allow President Obama’s campaign to frame the major issue

confronting women in 2012 as birth control? As I see it, if there was really a “women’s issue” this

election it wasn’t birth control, it was energy policy.

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Women are the leading consumers of everything from groceries to electronics to cars. Most moms

such as myself are responsible for shuttling kids around, doing laundry, and paying bills - activities

that put into sharp relief the impact high-energy prices have on families.

Still throughout the campaign President Obama kept talking about plans to invest more resources

in green energy companies and his commitment to a cap and trade plan that would unfairly target

the coal industry—an energy sector that represents nearly a quarter of total U.S. energy supply.

There are women in this room who know far more about energy policy than I. But the bottom line

is that energy is a critical issue for women that Republicans seemed to ignore completely.

We do need a competing vision. And when we have this unilateral disarmament and actually don’t

bother to engage with a part of the public, we can’t win. We have to learn to show how these

issues truly affect women. I don’t think it’s impossible. Because I’ll bet deep down the so-called

“Obamaphone woman” knows that a job and a good economy are better than a free phone.

Point Number Three: Don’t Play on Their Playing Field Don’t play on their field—this is the lesson we learned from research we conducted on the

Paycheck Fairness Act last June. Just a word about being able to do research in general before I

tell you about this project: Christina mentioned that conservative women are vastly outnumbered

by liberal women’s voices in academia and the media.

I would say that we are also vastly out-researched and outspent. One of the reasons women’s

groups on the Left are so far ahead of women’s groups on the Right is that they’ve been running

controlled message and GOTV experiments for years. Groups like Emily’s List and Women’s Voices

Women Vote have figured out exactly how to talk to women and how to register and motivate

specifically unmarried women. And they have money coming in from all sorts of seemingly centrist

or non-partisan organizations like the Pew Research Center to help them.

So in an effort to play a little catch up, IWF commissioned a message experiment last spring

to test the impact of arguments for and against the Paycheck Fairness Act. Respondents were

randomly assigned to one of five conditions in a true experiment—four treatments and one

control. All the treatment groups received the Progressive message in favor of the PFA; three

treatment conditions also included different IWF messages against the PFA.

And what we learned is that 74 percent of women agree at least somewhat that workplace

discrimination is a serious problem.

Our side tends to get bogged down in debating about whether or not discrimination exists. This is

probably not a good way to start off any conversation about the wage gap or workplace regulations.

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But we can, nevertheless, win these arguments—if we get on the right playing field.

Because we learned that despite the consensus that discrimination is a problem, it doesn’t

necessarily translate into support for legislation like the PFA.

It turned out that when respondents read both the progressive message in favor of the PFA and

IWF’s message highlighting the ill-economic impact of regulations like the PFA—how it will be bad

for business and the economy—support for the legislation dropped precipitously. In fact, “strong”

support for the bill dropped 35-points to a mere 10 percent when respondents were exposed to

the economic argument against the bill.

We also learned that a message intended to debunk the wage gap and emphasize instead how

the choices women make determine their wages and salaries was relatively ineffective in blunting

support for the bill.

Bottom line: If we try to out-Dem the Democrats—merely presenting a counter-argument on their

playing field—discrimination isn’t a problem!—we lose.

We might take this tact instead: We hear you on discrimination. But have you stopped to think

what this law might mean for our economy? And have you thought about other, non-governmental

approaches to closing the wage gap?

We don’t have to concede our principles. We don’t have to embrace the notion that society is

openly hostile to women. But we may need to frame the arguments in a way that wins women.

Finally…

Point Number Four: It’s Not Fair!Fairness is the critical lens through which Americans judge policies and candidates. And we know

from research that women place a high importance on “fairness.”

Even more important, how they define fairness— as equality of outcomes or equality of

opportunity— determines their support or opposition to particular policy questions.

For example, in evaluating women’s support for the Paycheck Fairness Act, we found that the

greater moral weight a woman placed on “equal outcomes,” the more likely she is to support the

PFA. In fact, more than any other factor—party identification or demographic characteristic—a

woman’s perception of fairness was the best guide to her position on PFA.

The reality is conservatives must begin by changing women’s perceptions of fairness as it relates

to public policy—that free market policies are fair.

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We need to explain how our solutions—a strong safety net for those in need and greater

opportunity for all Americans—are indeed the most compassionate solutions that lead to better

outcomes for the most vulnerable Americans as well as average Americans like us.

Still, my final word: I caution that we need to test this first. Just because this “fairness” frame

works for progressives, does NOT mean it will translate exactly for us!

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About IWF

The Independent Women’s Forum is on a mission to expand the conservative coalition, both by

increasing the number of women who understand and value the benefits of limited government,

personal liberty, and free markets, and by countering those who seek to ever-expand government

in the name of protecting women. IWF is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) research and educational

institution. By aggressively seeking earned media, providing easy-to-read, timely publications

and commentary, and reaching out to the public, we seek to cultivate support for these

important principles and encourage women to join us in working to return the country to limited,

Constitutional government.

Sabrina SchaefferExecutive Director

Carrie L. LukasManaging Director

INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S FORUM

IWF.ORG

1875 I Street NW, Suite 500Washington, DC 20006

202.857.5201 (phone)202.429.9574 (fax)info@iwf.org (email)