A petition on the White House website is calling for President Obama to stop referring to female constituents in his many speeches as “wives, mothers and daughters.”
“Defining women by their relationships to other people is reductive, misogynist, and alienating to women,” the petition to the Obama administration states.
Petitioners — as of Friday morning, there were 2,223 of them — said Mr. Obama seems to be talking only to men when he uses such terms. And they spoke specifically of his recent State of the Union address, when he said: “We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace and free from the fear of domestic violence.”
Petitioners say such language is “counterproductive to the women’s equality” he supposedly seeks.
Their goal is to receive 100,000 signatures by March 13.
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Cheryl Chumley is a continuous news writer for The Washington Times. Previously, she was part of the start-up team for The Washington Times’ digital aggregation product, Times247. She’s also a 2008-2009 Robert Novak journalism fellow with The Phillips Foundation. She can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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