GOP Doesn't 'Get' Women

From Sen. Susan Collins to Herbert Hoover's great-granddaughter, leading conservative women are stumped by the GOP's recent record on women's issues, writes one of their leading voices. Instead of treating women as equals, top Republican men see them as "totemic and unknowable," notes Kathleen Parker at Newsweek; in short, "they don't 'get' women." Between Todd Akin's comments, Paul Ryan's support for a "human life amendment," and the party platform, Republicans are looking "suicidal," and Democrats are loving it.

Margaret Hoover can't figure it out, wondering how "this minority of representatives are in such positions of power that are so out of step with the majority of Republicans." Polls show she's right: For instance, some 77% of women feel birth control "shouldn't be part of the national debate," while 66% of self-described pro-lifers say abortion should be up to women, not the government. But at CNN, GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison defends her party. She cautions against an oversimplification of women as a bloc: One's gender doesn't define one's political positions, and no one party is better suited to women, she writes, citing her decades-long record fighting for her gender. Click through for her full column. (More Republican Party stories.)