Uh Oh – New Mexico Republican Congressman Steve Pearce Lets Slip What Republicans Really Think the Role of Women Should Be

Conservatives Get Into Trouble When They Say What They Really Believe

In the wake of Mitt Romney’s loss in the 2012 election Republicans have reacted by trying to build their credentials with women.

Democrats in recent years have repeatedly attacked Republicans for their views on and comments about women's issues, particularly when it comes controversial comments made by GOP candidates. Mitt Romney suffered from one of the biggest so-called "gender gaps" in recent history in the 2012 election -- an election in which two GOP Senate candidates might have cost their party a seat because of comments about rape and pregnancy.

Since that election, GOP leaders have sought to coach their members on how to be more sensitive when talking about women's issues.

Uh sorry Republicans, it ain’t working.

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) when he won his congressional seat back in 2010. (AP)
One of the few times he didn't make his wife stand behind him, head bowed
in obedience

A Republican member of Congress says in a recently released book that a wife is to "voluntarily submit" to her husband, but that it doesn't make her inferior to him.

Rep. Steve Pearce's (R-N.M.) memoir, "Just Fly the Plane, Stupid!" was released last month. Its publication -- and his acknowledgment in the book of the controversial nature of the submission debate -- come as the Republican Party reevaluates how it talks to and about women.

In the book, Pearce recounts his rise to owning an oil-field service company and winning election to Congress. In the book, the Vietnam War veteran says that both the military chain of command and the family unit need a structure in which everyone plays his or her role.

He said that, in his family's experience, this meant that his wife, Cynthia, would submit to him and he would lead.

"The wife is to voluntarily submit, just as the husband is to lovingly lead and sacrifice," he writes, citing the Bible. "The husband’s part is to show up during the times of deep stress, take the leadership role and be accountable for the outcome, blaming no one else."

Mr. Pearce can expect to feel the wrath of other Republicans, not because they disagree with what he is saying, but because he is not supposed to let that particular cat out of the bag.  After all, how can Conservatives keep pretending to care about women and women’s issues if people like Mr. Pearce keep saying what they really think.