Dumbfounded

The ability of the human mind to hold two contradictory ideas at once never ceases to amaze me. Take, for example, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a republican from Washington State who failed to support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and opposes the State Children's Health Insurance Program. What amazes me is not just that she is a woman who supports neither equal pay nor broadening health care insurance for children, but that she is aware of how she has benefited in her life from the freedoms her party does not seem to want to guarantee women. As Dana Goldstein from the American Prospect reports:

[McMorris Rodgers] says she wishes more women could have the benefits she enjoys of a flexible work schedule, generous family leave time, and the privilege of working from home. But such policies have never been endorsed by her own political party. Republicans are taking a back seat as Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) leads the fight to expand the Family Medical Leave Act, which would enshrine into law some of the flexibility McMorris Rodgers theoretically endorses.

It always amazes me that you can, in fact, be female and not a feminist.