Davis as candidate as governor for texas. [ ] hello im bonnie erbe with welcome to to the contrary a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives. Up first, isis. Security moms women living under isis and a female fighter pilot. Women are playing important roles fighting isis. Mairam al mansouri became the first female pilot in the United Arab Emirates military and led her countrys mission when fighter jets from the uae took part in air strikes against the Islamic State in syria this week. Meanwhile an unidentified french woman shot video showing the lives of women in syria under isis. It shows a woman being warned to keep her face covered and french women telling family members they are not coming home. The photographer used a camera hid den risking her life. Meanwhile, the terrorist crisis is changing minds about the upcoming november elections in the u. S security moms are back. This important demographic of white, married women is key to both parties as a result of the isis beheadings, the percentage of americans very worried about terrorism has just hit a sevenyear high with women 16 points more likely to say they are very or somewhat worried someone in their family will be a victim of terrorism. So debra will the terrorist crisis drive women to the polls in november and they vote republican . I do not agree with the rational but i think democrats have to be worried about that. The reality is president obama is rating between women has dropped since last year. It will have a trickle down effect. Security is a big issue for women but other issues like equal pay. Security has risen for all americans and they are looking for policymakers who will exercise serious leadership on the issue. After the strikes which i would like to see polling results after the strikes which were started recently, but will that make women feel more secure and become soccer moms instead of security moms. And we are talking white, married women. What is interesting the statistics showing that they dont want to go to war but they want to feel secure. Its inconsistent. So how do you deal with that . How do democrats deal with that . If i were in charge i think i would be talking about how 9 11 we had strikes under a republican presidency not a democrat. I would be emphasizing those. And emphasizing the lack of terrorist attacks in the u. S. Since president obama has been in office. I think Everybody Knows this is going to be a longterm challenge and therefore its going to require the whole tool kit of International Relations to deal with tonight defense policy being very on the games. Having regional strength and making sure we are doing everything on the world stage and we have not been doing that. And youre a republican consultant but what how would you coach democratic candidates. Democratic candidate why i say lets get mad about this and lets show them this is our issue. I would take the ball back and say we saw beheadings televised around the world why cant we make this National Difference issues our. Republicans are known to go harder and democrats need to bring it back in their court. I think president obama when he talked about the fact that we were going to be issuing greater air strikes and building an International Coalition did just that. He was outraged by the beheadings and talked about islam not being this religion of murder and terrorism that that is not what islam is and the people are coopting it. So the democrats are angry and what the women suds that they do not want war. They want action and that means diplomacy. And keeping to air strikes will do that. And this war, if you want to call it a war, we have seen such horrendous things done to women. You know, 4,000, i think, captive are captive sex slaves essentially. And people killing themselves so they dont have to be sex slaves. And one murdered for speaking out in mosul. How should our policy look at the treatment of women in war . Should abuse of women like that be just an important reason to do strikes as a country that has chemical weapons for example . The abuses of women are just an extraordinarily terrible heinous example of that which is at the root of all the wars that we have been in. That that aggressor nations are not using means to terrorize their people and others. This is a challenge, i think, to what Human Dignity is and what a Civil Society is a negation of what Civil Society is. I think its important for us to elevate the fact that the atrocities are happening with women and it happens all around the world that women are used as victims and are raised and beaten and are horrible things happen to them. And that that does need to be a part of the discussion why we need to get rid of this group because there are women and children at risk. I think president obama has said long ago that we decimated alqaeda and seen the new cells crop up franchises of alqaeda. That is terrible for women because the more and more they spread the more and more women will join those ranks. And we saw the video this week that showed a woman saying im not coming home. Im staying. And what goes through their heads . I dont know. I was relieved to see there were only 150 that had done that. A large amount. But there was a kurdish unit of women that went out and fought isil and they won their building that is amazing yes. These are complicated issues. Youve got the British Parliament debating right now whether or not to join in with us. So its complicated. Its very multination issues. But i agree that we have to bring women into the talk about what is going on. To make them part of the discussion as to how they are being treated and what our policies need to be. Are we seeing women worldwide pushing back against women who help isis . Are we seeing any of that . I have not seen that. I know there is a hashtag going happening that i think its called hashtag make a stand trying to gather support for women to pushback against isis and try and create an Educational Campaign for youth more likely to leave their homes like we talked about before that are 16, 17yearold girls leaving their homes to marry the isil fighters. Its important for women to get involved to follow the hashtag and educate young people. Why are we losing so many . There arent that Many American defectors i would call them to isis. But why are we losing anybody and france and england losing so many . It is the captive mentality. Oftentimes the women subscribed to islam and they are the fanatical members saying they do not believe that islam is a religion of peace and equality and the women are taken with the captors. How what do we need to do to prevent the cells from developing, prevent the young people from getting so angry at whatever it is they are angry at. That they turn into murderers . Preventing the dislocation from community from attachments to family and friends that would allow someone to be recruited for any terrible purpose. Yeah we have a lot of work to do. It is a family at the community level. I just have to say we have caused a lot of this instability. In the middle east. How . We did it going into iraq and invading iraq and overthrowing saddam different of coursions are coming together to be a force there is a vacuum. We bombed all the nations. Who have we not bombed. So what do you do now . Now, we have to do what president obama is doing is get other countries to come in with us and work with us in coalition to dismantle this group. And arm the rebels arm the people who want the state. And its hard like joe biden said how do you identify who you are going to arm . Theres 300 groups. And weve made that difficult before arming the wrong people. Isil has a lot of our weapons. And what isil has done for the people going back to your point isil has they built communities and provided social services. So they are they have been drilling and refining oil. Isil has a lot of capacities and delivered on a lot of promises to People Living in those localities and theres not much we can do when they have infiltrated so deeply. Let us know what you think and follow me on twitter. For more to love and marriage. Marriage rates are at an alltime low in the u. S a record 20 of adults over the age of 25 have never been married. And according to the pew research center, the trend is expected to continue. Shifts in gender roles more women earning College Degrees and more Job Opportunities for women are cited as the reason why men and women are delaying or not marrying at all. But theres one more reason. Women want working husbands. 78 of never married women say they are holding out for a spouse with a steady job. The concern is that for every 100 of these women 65 men are working. In the Africanamerican Community there are only 51 employed young black men for 100 young black women. So you recently got married and why are members of your generation not doing the same thing . We have not found the right person. There is choosiness with becoming more advanced in career and education it makes you want more things you want somebody at your level or a greater level. I think marriage is great. And ive said this before. I celebrated my fouryear wedding anniversary. Its interesting that heterosexual people are backing out of marriage and members of the Lbgt Community are wanting that commitment. Its about choice. 25 years old i did not think about marriage. We are postponing things because we are growing our careers and that is ok. I do not think the people will never get married. So we should be clear here. The marriage rate is declining. But we are also seeing really High Aspirations for marriage among the vast majority of americans. Why this discrepancy between aspiration and reality. And part of the things that have contributed here are the sexual revolution, the feminist movement its changed life in many ways. Having grownup during both of those movements in manhattan where a lot was going on, i dont think feminists or the sexual people led the sexual revolution thought that it was going to lead to a indianaty gration of society. All kinds of consequences come from good intentions. And so what happened, i think weve seen more womens education and seen more opportunities for women and also seen more confusion between men and women about that path to marriage and what it takes to form a healthy, happy relationship that can go the long distance. That is true. But you are going to have a bit when you shake up the social norm. Why did it go so badly . I see it as having gone badly when you see 16yearold girls of color having a baby out of wedlock because madonna did it or Something Like that. Its horrible. They are confining themselves and probably their child to a life of poverty. When you are looking at women taking more time and living independently that is a good thing. Whether you get married or not. Its better than being enslaved and better than being put in the house and saying you are going to cook and clean the rest of your life and im going to retire and you are still going to cook and clean. Women are telling us they want to get married. You put it on feminism and changes in social structure but i dont necessarily think that men are interested in getting married. There are a lot of men right now that and women that i know that are successful and they have and men are there that have jobs and that they are just not getting married they will be 40 and like im not ready to settle down. I do not think its feminism but people are not looking at marriage as the end all be all and some of the people are cohabitating because they are not putting a ring on it doesnt mean they are not interested in forming bonds and connecting with one another. No doubt the failure to commit is a shawl challenge and men exhibit that. You wrote a book about it, by the way. Singleness lasting longer than we expect. And i think that one of the reasons we see that failure to commit or the inhibition to commit is a result of the sexual revolution. You do not have to get married anymore. Can you sleep with who you want. And men get bored with that, too. In their 20s but 30s and 40s they want their careers are taking off and working hard they want to settle down. They do. And i found that in talking to men. Urban pockets they say no men are single and doing what they want. But i agree a lot of people are fixed on i want to get married and i want to have children and see those things being together. We have not gotten to the issue of women finding men with jobs. Why is that such a problem . So reading the survey questions that say why havent you gotten married the number one answer is i have not found the right person or feel financially stable. Maybe as much as reflection about ones own state saying that about the other. And we have had a massive steady increase in the standard of living. Maybe our expectations of what it takes where you have to be economically when you enter marriage has become. Why would you want to marry someone that does not have a job . Exactly. If you want to get married and there is a shortage of men with jobs you got to consider men who dont have jobs. Lets be clear what unemployable horse is better than no horse at all . Im just saying if you want to open up the number of possibilities. People have all kinds of qualities that they he must be x religion, he must be a doctor or a lawyer, he must be blah, blah, blah. But how are women about thinking about ok he doesnt have a job right now butly help him and turn him into a working husband. Well there is not a lot to say. I think again we are seeing different strends. People have written about thisle educated women who completed college or more are that is a different life course than women who have a High School Diploma or less. They are not getting married they maybe having Children Women who graduated college are getting married and having children. We are seeing this diverging tra jek si reenforcing inqualities in our society. Marriage is middle Class Institution why low income people do not get married. When two poor people get together they lose the resources and the safety nets they need in order to have stable families and in order to be mobile. So upwardly mobile. And this idea why arent people getting married we need to look at it economically. Welfare benefits . Talking about the ability to be able to put food on the table if you have two people making minimum wage and they come together and separately they are able to get the financial help that they need in order to live their lives and put a roof over their head and they come together, the federal government sees that as a rise in income but its not enough to make them economically stable. And we have to end on that interesting note. Behind the headlines. Wendy davis the texas gubernatorial candidate drew National Attention with her pink sneakers and filibuster to stop the closure of Womens Health centers. Now she is fighting criticism of her National Book tour promoting a new memoir. I am a fighter. I have learned to just put my head down and fight for the things that i believe in and i found that that is a very effective way to represent the people that elect me to serve them. In her new book for getting to be afraid, wendy davis tells her story. A story about being raised by a single mother, being a single parent of two girls her joys and losses. I wrote this memoir as a personal memoir. And i hoped that texans and others across the country would relate to it in some way and that it would be of help to them. Davis reveals she had two abortions for medical reasons. The first was an ectopic pregnancy. And the second doctors told her that her fetus at 22 weeks had serious brain deformities the baby would not live to full term. Davis shares her decision made with her family to terminate that pregnancy and the last moments with the daughter they named tate. We needed to accept and do what was the most loving thing for her. To spare her the suffering. We were told by four doctors that she would like lay not survive to term that if she did she would likely not survive delivery and if she did she would be in likely a primitive vegetative state. The reproductive rights debate in texas is one that is about Womens Health protecting women. Respecting women. Making sure that women make these deeply personal decisions for themselves and do it with their family guided by their faith and their doctors and that this isnt something that government ought to be intervening in. I will say the same for my own personal situation. And im grateful that there wasnt a law in place that would have dictated that. Im fighting to make sure that that is the same for others as well. Davis says despite charges to the contrary she is not a oneissue candidate. I rely on my own mega phone. I have been in the senate for six years and ive been deeply disappointed that people are not being represented as they should be in our leadership. That we have disinvested in Public Education and weve disvested in transportation and water infrastructure. Opponents are also critical of davis for spending much of her time away from her daughters while she attended harvard law school. People will believe what they believe. My story is my story. And im proud of my journey. And im proud of the mother that ive been to my two girls. I dont look back for a moment with regret at the journey that i went through to try to create a better life for myself and particularly my oldest daughter who went through much of that struggle with me. Texas has not elected a democrat to a statewide office in 20 years and davis is trailing in the polls. But she says she is seeing lots of enthusiasm for her candidacy and expects a win. The last time we saw this much engagement in our state around a race was that last race that Anne Richards ran in 1994. And i do believe that we are going to see that evidence itself at the ballot box on election day. So do you think that she will win over some prolife texa texs with the story of having two abortions . I do believe her story is very compelling and the fact that the idea that republicans have said that the only reason why women want abortions is they dont want to have babies. In fact there are many medical reasons that happen. Its sad to hear about the loss of her children to abortion. Does it make you as a conservative like her any better . The body of the fetus the brain damaged girl, they put her in clothes and they baptized her. I have two observations. She is frank about the depression that the post abortion depression she faced that is a reality more women need to know about and why many oppose the late term abortions what i hope is that so many women who face this terminal illness of a child find out about the option of paranatal hospice that allows them to deliver a child and have the child cared for in the last hours of their lives that brings women closure and compassionate end to a challenging chapter in their lives. I do not think she is going to win anybody over. It is a sad story and points out why we have to have abortion be safe and legal. There is a question about whether she would have been able to have that abortion now. We passed 72 hours you have to wait. One of the most restrictive Abortion States now in the country. She would have to wait 72 hours. Before she would be able to take care of herself and make that decision for herself. That is ridiculous. Informed consent i do not think that is ridiculous. I think she looks intelligent and she can make her mind up. Quick question. Did she run too early . Should she have waited because texas is going blue due to immigration. Maybe. But if eloses she can run again. I have a strategy this was poorly timed releasing that memoir it is a great story. But to me she is like sara palin and doesnt have a shot. Whether you agree or think to the contrary, please join us next time. Otime funding for to the contrary provided by. The Cornell Douglas foundation. Committed to encouraging stewardship of the environment, land conservation, watershed protection and eliminating harmful chemicals. Additional funding provided by the colcom foundation. The wallace genetic foundation. The oak foundation. The carpenter foundation. For a transcript or to see an online version of this episode visit our pbs website at www. Pbs. Org to the contrary. [ music ] from washington, the mclaughlin group, the american original. For over three decades, the sharpest minds, best sources, hardest talk. Issue one. Considering or target isis in syria. Last night on my orders Americas Armed forces began strikes against isil targets in syria. We were joined from this section by our friends and partners, saddam rain, United Arab Emirates, jordan, about hurricane and qatar. This makes it clear to the world this is not americas fight alone. The war against the Islamic State, isil, escalated this week. For the first time early tuesday the u. S. Led coalition