Cosmopolitan Magazine will be telling women they can’t get paid, get laid, or use contraception without a politician’s blessing.

Cosmopolitan Magazine wants to get serious, everyone. They really do. Just ask the head of the magazine. When asked about Cosmo’s plans to cover November races, Editor in Chief Joanna Coles answered:

Yes! We’re going to be covering issues that directly impact our readers’ lives—like, equal pay for equal work. Sixty-two percent of college intake is now women, and no woman currently graduates from college and thinks it’s OK to be paid less than a man for doing the same job. We’re also very keen on access to contraception. Those are the two things that we feel really strongly about.



I think there’s a really big divide between older voters and millennial voters, and our readers are really kind of surprised that there are still all these old male politicians, like Thom Tillis in North Carolina, who feel they can kill the equal pay acts, and who don’t believe in access to contraception. I mean, Tillis is fighting a very close race with Kay Hagan, and he’s a supporter of Personhood, which means he’d like to remove a lot of the contraception options that are currently available, including the IUD. And I think millennial readers—men and women, Republican and Democrat, look at politicians like that and think, ‘We’re not on the same planet. I don’t understand.’



And I think young women voters are going to be the voters that actually turn the election. We want them to know what’s at stake.

Emphasis mine. If Cosmopolitan wanted its readers to know what’s at stake, they wouldn’t have myopically picked an issue like equal pay as a litmus test for “helping” women. Cosmopolitan simply wants to tell women whom to vote for without evaluating whether their favored policies help women. This is more elite, left-wing, New York City 1 percenters telling women what they should think.

Considering their history of pushing “5 Ways to Please Your Man,” photoshopping beautiful women to pieces, and telling women what to wear, should we be surprised? No, because this trendy feminism without substance is the exact confection substituting for critical thinking. So it’s perfect fit at flashy but empty Cosmopolitan. When I asked Jill Filipovic, Cosmo’s senior political writer, about how the magazine would evaluate candidates, her criteria was nothing more than Democrat talking points.

Five Mind-Blowing Problems With This Female Political Litmus Test

Equal pay for equal work isn’t a radical idea, and it isn’t a partisan idea. Everyone thinks people should be paid what they are worth. No company wants to lose good employees. It’s not in their best interest. Choosing the candidate that stands in front of a sign that says “equal pay” constitutes more worrying about label than fit. So, perfect for Cosmo. The “wage gap” for single women was 4 percent in 2012, not the tired, debunked 77-cents-on-the-dollar stat thrown out there to chum the water. The wage gap appears when marriage and children enter the picture. Then women start leaving the workforce and desiring for flexible work arrangements. Why is Cosmopolitan opposed to workplace flexibility? Why would any woman want to be paid the same as a man if they are doing the job better? Equal pay sounds pretty illogical if you realize it means better employees will have to make the same salary as a low-performing employee. Cosmo wants competent women to be paid the same as incompetent men. Minimum-wage increases eliminate jobs. This has been confirmed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which estimated that raising the minimum wage could cost 500,000 jobs. That’s the real reason the Democrats lost steam on this issue earlier this year. Cosmopolitan feels so strongly about equal pay that it offers… unpaid internships to young women hoping to work with them. If Cosmopolitan is focused on contraception, I look forward to their endorsement of Colorado Senate candidate Corey Gardner, who wants to make birth control available without a prescription. That’s right, you could get it right in the store, which is more access than women have today. I won’t hold my breath on this one after watching Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, oppose making it easier to purchase birth control. It sure would be strange to see Cosmo not favor making contraceptive pills available over the counter, when almost two-thirds of women do and so does the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. After all, access to contraception (according to Cosmo) is a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT, people. If it’s a basic human right, one wonders why some need another party to write them a permission slip for it.

Cosmopolitan should be selling confidence, but instead will be telling women they can’t get paid, get laid, or use contraception without a politician’s blessing. That sounds pretty creepy to me.

Beware of the party and candidate who thinks it’s their business to “help” you. They may need you to be helpless to remain compelling. Cosmopolitan isn’t breaking ground here. They are just adding another avenue to make choices FOR women: How to dress, how to please your man, how to vote for “their candidate.” If feminism was about overthrowing the patriarchy, beware of the new matriarchy, which wants to call the shots for you.

