"If You Can't Stand the Heat, Stay in the Kitchen."

And make me a sandwich while you're in there.

Courtesy of Mrs. JP comes this HuffPo article penned by Congresswoman Betty Sutton (OH-13). Rep. Sutton gets right to the point with this opening (emphasis hers):

Last week a talented, young woman full of promise came to me with a flier her family received in the mail from the Republican Party. As she handed me the mailer, with a sense of disappointment and hurt, she pointed to a line in the flier that read, 'Let's take Betty Sutton out of the House and send her back to the kitchen.'

She then goes on state that the flier was sent out by the Medina County GOP Chairman (a job title that ought to elicit condescending head-shaking and back-patting) Bill Heck on behalf of Tom Ganley, a rich white Republican who apparently has about as much of a problem with this misogynistic flier as Heck, which is to say no problem at all, to judge by Heck's response: "I saw it, but I didn't think there was anything particularly wrong with it."

OK, not only should this defiant bit of misogynism offend all women but it ought to offend all men as well. Because in seeking to send a congresswoman back into the kitchen, it reinforces the male stereotype as men being semi-sentient creatures wearing gravy-stained wife beaters and clutching a remote while sitting on a Laz-E-Boy, neanderthals whose misogynism is motivated by their gut.

Strike a blow for women's rights and sign Congresswoman Sutton's petition.

As a sidebar, Congresswoman Sutton's only "Democratic" rival, Justin Wooden (campaign site here), isn't any great shakes, either. Go to BettySutton2010.com and check out his supporter's blogroll.