July 31, 2013

MCCRORY-COOKIES-01

Gov. Pat McCrory hasn't been willing to meet with the women (and a few men) protesting an abortion bill that opponents say restricts access to safe abortions. But he did stop by this afternoon with a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

I suppose if you're a Governor who's going to restrict abortion in your state after promising not to it wouldn't occur to you that such a move would appear to be terrifically condescending and thick-headed.

via the Charlotte Observer

Gov. Pat McCrory hasn't been willing to meet with the women (and a few men) protesting an abortion bill that opponents say restricts access to safe abortions. But he did stop by this afternoon with a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

McCrory was flanked by four security guards as he came out of the mansion gates. Before stepping onto common ground with the protesters – he went as far as the middle of the street between his mansion and the vigil – McCrory pointed directly at Jamie Sohn, a Chapel Hill resident.

“I was like, 'Me?' and he nodded,” she said during an interview shortly after.

The security guards stopped incoming traffic. Sohn walked out into the street to meet McCrory.

Sohn said McCrory told her: “ 'These are for you. God bless you, God bless you, God bless you.' " He handed her the plate of cookies, and waved as he walked away. She said she was too stunned to say anything back.

No one knew if the cookies were homemade – the protesters didn’t sample any before returning them. They slipped them under the mansion’s gate, along with a note that read: “We want women’s health care, not cookies.”

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Amanda Marcotte over at Slate.com put it this way:

If McCrory thought the gesture would make him look like a generous sort who reaches out to people who disagree, then it backfired, and not just because he avoided actually meeting with opponents about the law before he signed it. Next to sandwiches, cookies are probably the most potent edible symbol of the belief that women's role is to shut up, give up their ambitions, and return to the kitchen. While it's unlikely that McCrory was deliberately trying to tell the protesters to know their place, that's how the gesture reads. After Rick Perry's mansplaining tour of Texas, it's hard to tell anymore if Republican governors have given up even trying to pretend they respect the female members of the opposition. At this rate, the next Republican governor to sign an anti-choice bill is going to greet protestors with a basketful of aprons emblazoned with anti-choice slogans.

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