To the editor: Thanks to Robin Abcarian for shining light on yet another cringeworthy belief espoused by Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance — that postmenopausal women have no purpose beyond caring for grandchildren.
Apparently, supporting reproduction is our role throughout our whole lives. Notice where this vision puts childless women and those without grandchildren. Off to the nuclear waste Colonies with all the unwomen!
Vance apparently learned to appreciate the role of grandmothers in child rearing from his Indian-born mother-in-law, who moved in with his family when his first child was born. A real irony is that both grandparents can play a caring role in extended families, and yet Vance, peering out at the world through his misogynistic lens, does not conclude that older men have no other purpose. Of course not.
Vance’s worldview belongs nowhere near the White House, and I’ll join with postmenopausal women across the land to keep him from it.
Kristen Maher, San Diego
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To the editor: While agreeing with the thrust of Abcarian’s critique of Vance and his views of the “purpose” of postmenopausal women, I found her dismissal of “evolutionary biology-based navel gazing” misplaced.
A long postmenopausal life is an interesting thing about humans. Abcarian belittles even wondering about why it exists. And she misses the point that a hypothesis about why it exists doesn’t define the “purpose” of post-reproductive women, all of whom are individuals, with their individual purposes.
Her casual dismissal also smacks of the casual rejection of much of science that infects too much contemporary discourse.
Hector Neff, Long Beach
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To the editor: Thanks to Abcarian for highlighting Vance’s recent comment on Fox News downplaying the importance of abortion rights to women, because he thinks, in his own words, that “most suburban women care about the normal things that most Americans care about.”
The audacity of Vance to say that suburban women care more about “normal” things such as the public safety and the grocery prices than abortion rights! If a woman cares more about her personal rights than the price of food, is she abnormal?
It annoys and insults me when men, especially male politicians, are so quick to tell me what I care about most.
Sandra Poppink, Sunland
