McDonnell the Converted Feminist
February 13, 2012 | 1:32 PM
As one father to another, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has some advice for Rick Santorum: Drop the naysaying about women in combat roles, because if the voters don't tell you that you're out of step with the times, your daughter just might.
McDonnell, an up-and-comer in the GOP, told CNN this morning that Santorum was off base when he said recently that women may fail in their missions in combat because of the "emotions that are involved." The first-term governor has a daughter who was a platoon leader in Iraq, with 25 men serving under her command. When daughter Jeanine McDonnell would call home and relay some of her harrowing experiences in a war zone, he said, "I did get a little bit emotional. But she didn't. She got the job done."
Reiterating comments he made at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee meeting over the weekend, McDonnell said, "She did a great job. She was in some very risky situations. And yet she endured and led and I'm proud of her."
In the unkindest cut of all, McDonnell, who it should be noted is
backing front-runner Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination,
suggested that women like Jeanine don't pay much attention to old fogeys
rehashing issues asked and answered in the decades since the women's
movement launched in the 1970s. "She doesn't pay any attention to that,"
McDonnell said. "I think most women in leadership positions don't. They
just go forward and lead and do well serving their country in the
highest traditions. I don't think it bothers them anymore."McDonnell, an up-and-comer in the GOP, told CNN this morning that Santorum was off base when he said recently that women may fail in their missions in combat because of the "emotions that are involved." The first-term governor has a daughter who was a platoon leader in Iraq, with 25 men serving under her command. When daughter Jeanine McDonnell would call home and relay some of her harrowing experiences in a war zone, he said, "I did get a little bit emotional. But she didn't. She got the job done."
Reiterating comments he made at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee meeting over the weekend, McDonnell said, "She did a great job. She was in some very risky situations. And yet she endured and led and I'm proud of her."
McDonnell's counterpoint to Santorum reflects a fair amount of ideological evolution on his part as well, and he perhaps has his three daughters to thank for that. Back in 1989, as a student at Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network University, McDonnell, then 34, wrote a thesis suggesting that federal support for child care programs perpetuated "a dynamic trend of working women and feminists that is ultimately detrimental to the family ..."
The views expressed in his thesis became fodder for McDonnell's Democratic opponent in 2009, although he paid no political price for them and went on to win easily.
In any case, the televised spectacle today of one staunch conservative upbraiding another in defense of a woman's competence in a traditionally male realm had to be a reassuring sign of the times for daughters everywhere.
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