I wrote this book to inspire American women to realize their power to profoundly shape America’s future through the voting booth. I hope to motivate women to embrace the idea that their wisdom, passion, intellect, and voice are desperately needed today in the American political conversation. I want us to talk to each other more!
After working in and around the political arena, including in campaigns as a volunteer and later as a paid consultant, and for countless hours with women’s political organizations, I’ve learned quite a bit about the interaction of politics and women.
Candidates target women with political messaging that is designed to subtly persuade us to abandon our reason and logic, and to be swept away instead by emotion. The result is that we sometimes vote to support ideas that don’t work well and bring about results we never intended.
On top of that, I feel a growing sense of urgency about America that I believe is shared by millions of Americans today:
- America is at a serious economic and political crossroads; headed in a direction most Americans say is wrong.
- Politicians are in overdrive in their efforts to emotionally manipulate Americans into voting their way.
- America is off track and citizens are floundering trying to retain our hold on what it means to be American, and what America’s place in the world is supposed to be.
- Too many women (and American men, too) are convinced that the basic American ideals or views we genuinely hold, the things we actually know in our hearts are true, are not politically correct, so we don’t speak up when we should.
You might be wondering why you should read a book by someone you’ve never heard of. I am not a talking head on any cable TV or talk radio show. I don’t work for a political party. I am not a candidate for political office. That said, however, millions of women do know me, because I am a lot like many of you:
- I’m no heiress or child of privilege; my parents live off Social Security and pension benefits in a retirement home.
- I am a product of K–12 public schools.
- I worked hard in school, and earned and borrowed my way through college and law school. My total debt was huge when I finished, but I eventually repaid it.
- I came of age as the term “feminism” took hold in America; I have supported so-called progressive views on most political issues, from large social spending, to “women’s rights,” and many other issues.
- I have voted on both sides of the aisle.
- I’ve experienced 60- to 70-hour workweeks in a high-stress professional environment—working as a labor litigator in a major law firm. I know what it means to be a ‘career woman’.
- I’ve experienced life at home as a full-time mom of three young children so I know what it means to be a stay-athome mom.
- Those three young children are now in their twenties. I know quite a bit about their worlds; and my husband and I keep in close touch with them through phone calls and social media and care deeply about their futures.
- I was raised by parents who taught me by words and example the importance of respect for all people, regardless of background. Consequently, I have throughout my life had close friends of many different backgrounds.
- I grew up in upstate New York, went to school in New York and Washington, D.C., lived for many years in Southern California, a few years in Maryland, and now reside in the South, in the heart of Texas. I understand the discomfort the perceived Bible-belt mentality engenders in some Californians and New Yorkers, and the puzzlement of some Southerners at the seemingly ultra-secular coasts.
- I also have dear women friends who are single moms, who have had abortions, who have been participants in heart-breaking divorces, and who are happily married to their soul mates. I don’t see women’s lives through rose- colored glasses; I see and understand the good, the bad, and the ugly.
But here is what I also see, understand and feel: Something is wrong in America. The direction of the country hasn’t felt right to me for many years, and recently, the feeling has grown deeply and rapidly worse. And while I’m not a big believer in polls (as you’ll see later in this book), the mere suggestion that women in America could vote in support of the collectivist style, powerful centralized government policies that some in Washington are supporting, is simply unfathomable to me.
We women desire to live our personal and professional lives, relate to our spouses or significant others, and raise our children with an unmistakable bias in favor of basic American ideals and values that we all can list:
- Hard work and reward for hard work.
- Freedom to pursue our dreams with the expectation that we can earn and keep for the most part the fruit of our work.
- Taking responsibility for our own lives.
- Respect for the idea that we have, as the Declaration of Independence says, rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness that come from our Creator and that government is supposed to protect.
- The outright rejection of controlling, big government interference in any aspect of our lives.
Most women I know would not voluntarily embrace a controlling, domineering father,
boyfriend, or spouse. We love our independence, and whether we are career women or stay-athome
moms we have an abiding sense of self-respect and self-reliance. But many of us have sat
silently as government becomes more aggressive, intrusive, powerful, controlling and
condescending.
I wrote this book because I think it’s time for the women of America to vote in record
numbers to push back against a government that is doing to our country what we would never
let anyone do to our family and loved ones. Armed with the information and, I hope, thought provoking
arguments and discussions in this book, the women of America will do just that.
Debora Georgatos
Dallas, Texas, 2012