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Every Woman Counts is a campaign sponsored by the Lifetime Network that is supposedly geared toward increasing the participation of women in the political process, encouraging more women to vote and to increase the national spotlight on issues that are important to women.
I’m certainly all for any organized effort to get women’s voices heard above the din of political shouting, but I’m not sure the recent Lifetime Every Woman Counts poll is really getting us down that road.
1. Which candidate would you rather receive a gift from?
2. Which candidate would you be most comfortable leaving your children with?
3. Which candidate would you most like to have dinner with over the holiday season?
What the … ???
If Lifetime was really committed to making sure that every woman’s vote counts, why are they spending money to have a poll taken on these silly questions? And publicizing them doesn’t really give a lot of street cred to its stated efforts to highlight priorities of women voters and building a stronger presence in highlighting where the candidates stand.
What do questions like this add to the “political dialogue” other than making politicians think that we care more about popularity contests than health care or the environment?
Any effort to energize women to take more ownership of their political voices is fantastic in my opinion. So why cheapen the effort by doing a poll that insinuates we’re more concerned about whether Hillary would be a thoughtful gift-giver or whether Rudy would be a good baby-sitter?
If we really want to count and be counted, let’s not provide any more ammunition for the politicians to think that we’re not serious voters.
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 4:19 pm and is filed under Does It Really Make Any Sense?, PunditMom Ponders.
November 15th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
I completely agree. They might as well ask us who we think has the best fashion sense. You’d think the people over at Lifetime would be seriously invested in making the campaign a legitimate effort to engage women. It’s just sad to see them asking these kinds of questions. I’m moved to say that MTV might ask better questions than the folks over at Lifetime.
November 15th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
I’m going to contact Lifetime about this. What a way to perpetuate the myth that women don’t have views on issues other than what is best for our babies and our home. Geez!
November 15th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
That’s just silly. Thank you for the heads-up, so I won’t waste my time with that particular poll.
I agree that the stated goal of Every Woman Counts is worthwhile, but going about it this way doesn’t seem to move that agenda forward. I guess they’re playing into the belief that women vote based on personalities as opposed to issues, and perhaps some do - but shouldn’t the goal be to move AWAY from that sort of thinking?
November 15th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
grrrr just just so frustraiting it’s hare to write words to express it.
November 16th, 2007 at 3:25 am
Issues. Substance. Intelligence. Must repeat. Issues. Substance. Intelligence.
November 19th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Infuriating. Really.
November 20th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Lifetime has a long history of advocacy for women, and has in fact been instrumental in getting more than one piece of legislation on violence against women passed. They are the only network to include serious issues women care about as part of their programming, and regularly consult with national women’s groups on issues. The poll was much longer than these few “fun” questions, as PunditMom would know if she had done her homework. The serious questions were released first, and separately.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:16 am
I certainly am aware of the work Lifetime TV has done for women. My concern is that if serious efforts start to veer toward, or include, these types of “fluffy” questions the more important questions and efforts are not taken seriously.
If Lifetime wants to be viewed as the serious advocate it is, why do these questions in the first place? They serve no purpose to help women and only hurts the perception others have of women’s groups.