A recent Salon article by Natasha Lennard discusses the central role of women’s issues in the current Wisconsin political saga, including this week’s recall elections. For six months, since Governor Scott Walker sought to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights—among other measures curbing public worker benefits and reducing the state’s expenditures, workers and their advocates have voiced vehement protest, culminating in the recall elections for some of the representatives who supported Walker’s policies. Women’s rights have been central to the debate over teachers’ unions in Wisconsin since the beginning, since Walker targeted teachers and nurses—professions in which the vast majority of workers are women. He exempted the male-dominated (and Republican-leaning) fields of firefighters and police. It’s unclear whether Walker was consciously trying to target
