Mitt Romney loves "gender equality." Just not in America.

Mitt Romney loves "gender equality." Just not in America.

Aw, shucks, Mitt. You sure do make a Lady-American feel special.

Sure, you want to "get rid of" our largest provider of health care because religious liberty. And sure, you don't know what you think about equal pay—although your party and your advisers and your surrogates think it's a bad idea on account of how it's unfair to make employers pay women what they pay men because freedom. And sure, you may or may not support a constitutional amendment to take away our autonomy and bestow it on microscopic eggs because life. And sure, you believe what working women care about most isn't the size of their paychecks, but having flex time so they can rush right home to cook dinner for their families because ... well, because you're a ginormous douchehole.

But, as you explained in the final presidential debate, at least women in the Middle East are going to have it soooooo good under a Romney presidency because gender equality.

No, really. Gender equality:



ROMNEY: Well, my strategy is pretty straightforward, which is to go after the bad guys, to make sure we do our very best to interrupt them, to -- to kill them, to take them out of the picture. But my strategy is broader than that. That's -- that's important, of course. But the key that we're going to have to pursue is a -- is a pathway to get the Muslim world to be able to reject extremism on its own. [...] And how do we do that? A group of Arab scholars came together, organized by the U.N., to look at how we can help the -- the world reject these -- these terrorists. And the answer they came up with was this: One, more economic development. We should key our foreign aid, our direct foreign investment, and that of our friends, we should coordinate it to make sure that we -- we push back and give them more economic development. Number two, better education. Number three, gender equality. Number four, the rule of law. We have to help these nations create civil societies.

You see? Romney will use "gender equality" as a strategy to fight Muslim extremism because nothing stops Muslim extremists dead in their tracks like "free abortion on demand!" and "equal pay for equal work!" Not that a (giggle) President Romney would give women free abortion on demand or equal pay for equal work, because he doesn't actually support those things. But man, he is so going to win the war on terror by using gender equality. He's going to gender equality those terrorists right out of existence.

And not just that. Oh no. As he explained in his opening remarks, Romney's going to hit them with some "opportunity for greater participation on the part of women in public life" for good measure:



With the Arab Spring, came a great deal of hope that there would be a change towards more moderation, and opportunity for greater participation on the part of women in public life, and in economic life in the Middle East.

Okay, well, he's not actually going to do that. After all, Romney thinks a woman's place is in a binder, not public life. But he is shocked and amazed that President Obama didn't use his magic fairy dust to make women have more opportunities in the Middle East because he totally should have done that.

See, women? This is why Romney is just the big strong man we need because he will say "gender equality" in a debate without actually explaining what that means better than anyone else. And we all know that after getting that flex time so we can spend more time with our pots and pans, there's nothing women care about more than having a president who uses "gender equality" to fight terrorism while denying women's equality at home.

Want real gender equality right here at home? Please give $3 to each of our Daily Kos-endorsed women candidates for the House and Senate, so we can send more, better women to Congress to fight for real equality.