There has been something of a debate about whether Republicans have of late been waging a War On Women, or whether this is just more partisan spin. It’s a question that needs a bit more of a systematic exploration than it has gotten. Obviously, this entire question got started with the contraception debate in Congress, in which nearly every Republican Senator–including the ones that self-identify as pro-choice–voted to constrict reproductive rights. I don’t think that every Republican that voted for the Blunt Amendment to tighten contraception access is a woman-hating asshole, I just don’t believe it. I do think that the less-awful members of the GOP caucus have gotten very good at talking themselves into following the party line over the past decade, and anyone who cares about women’s rights who votes for a Republican–even a Scott Brown or a Sue Collins–is nuts. And let’s not forget that, aside from contraception, though, there have been all manner of bills on the state level to make it harder to exercise reproductive rights, like the Virginia ultrasound bill, which other states have copied.

Still, though, this doesn’t quite clinch it for me. You could argue that this is a reflection of an aversion to freer sexuality that evangelicals, most notably, have long despised. I see it as similar to homosexuality for them: sure, there are people who come to it from a strong sense of gender roles and hierarchy, but a lot of these folks just can’t get past the “ick” factor. I do not think that being anti-choice is necessarily driven by a hatred of women, though it’s a lot harder to make that argument for proponents of birth control because the debate about when life begins doesn’t apply. But perhaps, while for practical purposes I think you can draw a one-to-one correlation between opposition to birth control and being anti-woman, perhaps theoretically there could be some exception to the rule. I wouldn’t be all too inclined to believe it, but perhaps it is not impossible. So to me, the precondition to declare this a war in an airtight manner is unequivocal evidence of an attempt not only to curtail reproductive freedoms, but proof of an organized attempt to destroy the power of women in society that goes beyond these issues. Something that is incontrovertibly not related to any sort of “ick” factor relating to sex.

Thankfully this bozo stepped up in the nick of time:

A Wisconsin law that made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court was repealed on Thursday, after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly signed the bill.

The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from discriminating against certain groups by giving workers more avenues via which to press charges. Among other provisions, it allows individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.

A couple of things to keep in mind here.

First, this is so politically misguided I’m sort of amazed it happened. Walker is in a fight for his political life. TPM’s Polltracker has him a point behind Democratic frontrunner Tom Barrett in the upcoming recall election, and signing bills that are overwhelmingly unpopular is a curious way of heading toward the finish line. A pocket veto would perhaps have been the smart move here, but Walker is a true believer. This we know. And at least he knows enough to be afraid of it: “There were no public remarks, no media acknowledgement of the bill being signed, and no announcement about what had happened until the next day.” By appearing to hide it, he’s left a fresh scent of blood in the water, and I find it hard to believe it won’t dog him.

Second, this is just morally awful. I mean, sure, I could see businesses not being wild about being opened up to new forms of lawsuits, and I can understand the eternal need to cut costs in capitalism. But this problem is one of the most enduring and unfair discrepancies of our free-market system, an ongoing rebuke to the free-market evangelistas who insist that we just need to just get out of the way and let the market decide, and it will invariably decide fairly. Wage inequality by gender has been a continuous feature since women entered the workforce en masse in the 1940s, and whatever modest improvements in the situation have occurred since then have been due almost exclusively to labor organization and government intervention, as this handy website shows. The market, in this case, needed some prodding to make even modest moves in the right direction. This is like thunder in the ears of free-marketeers, but it’s positively a shrugworthy thing to me. It doesn’t disprove capitalism. It might have disproved a specific form of capitalism, only that form of capitalism has been discredited for ages (see: Wall Street Collapse, 2008), and is sustained more by faith than fact at this point. I love the symbolism of Scott Walker signing this bill in private, but my read on it is perhaps a bit different than the most obvious one: he probably thought it just wasn’t a big deal. Such laws are counterproductive since they impede the functioning of a free market, after all. And we won’t discover these amazing powers of the free market until we get rid of every regulation, apparently.

But most importantly, this is it. By signing this bill, Scott Walker has demonstrated quite clearly that the emperor has no clothes. Sure, you could say it’s some sort of market fundamentalism at work here, which is part of it, but the question remains: why this bill? Why now? If it was such an intolerable burden on employers, why not have repealed it in early 2011, when Walker took office? If it were that much of a burden, wouldn’t Walker want to let people know why he’s taking this stance, and that he’s standing up for them? It had already been in effect for two years by the time he took office, and stood another year without incident. It makes no sense to see this purely as free-market trickery. But it fits in perfectly with the narrative of the War on Women, as it (a) has nothing to do with sex, and (b) contributes to undermining the power of women in society. So thanks, Scott Walker! This case is closed.

Also, a propos, this guy is an idiot. I’m getting really sick of this liberal obsession with understanding and humanizing every single strain of every objectionable idea and ideology out there. There is one difference between the two parties on reproductive rights and equal pay–one party supports them and the other doesn’t. Period. Sure, maybe some Republicans say they support them, and do in fair weather, but they have proven abundantly they won’t stand up when they’re needed. Almost every Republican in the Senate voted against the Lily Leadbetter Act and every Democrat voted for it. That’s a fact. There is a war going on, and Cleaver is like one of the aristocrats from War and Peace, still attending lavish parties and exchanging innuendos when Napoleon was torching Moscow.