RNC: Conservative ladies say 'woman up'

The first time I heard about the Woman Up Pavilion, I knew I had to visit.  

The lounge is pitched as a comfortable place for women to go and discuss policy while getting their hair and make-up done, sipping drinks, and perusing the latest in pink Romney wear.  Think Sex and the City meets the National Review.

The Woman Up Pavilion seemed particularly apropos, considering that last night’s woman-heavy speech schedule at the convention was dubbed Ladies Night.  Oh, and also that whole rape-abortion-birth control thing.  That’s been kind of problematic too.  So after all of this, I was curious to see how conservative women would represent themselves at the Republican National Convention.

The pavilion is done up in chic black and white, with pink and red accents provided by bunches of flowers.  The center of the room was occupied by a circular set of pleather banquettes, upon which were seated a dozen women.  The women were intently listening to a panel about U.S. foreign policy, which included Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll; Anita McBride, the former chief of staff to First Lady Laura Bush; Clare M. Lopez, a former CIA operations officer; and KT McFarland, a national security analyst for Fox News.

First I stopped by the room set aside as a salon for hair and make-up touch-ups.  The salon had been the source of a bit of scoffing among some online news outlets, but after a day in the withering Florida humidity left my hair in sweaty chunks and my mascara smeared beneath my cheeks, I was no longer scoffing.  I was pretty sure the stylists were providing a valuable service.

I may have been the only one who thought this way.  The salon was virtually empty but for the ladies who were working and their tools of the trade.   One of those stylists, Constance Young, said it had been extremely slow all week long, and that not many women seem to know about the service they are providing.

“We’re probably going to start pulling people off the street for a makeover,” she said.

I took a few minutes to look at a little section of goodies for sale by local vendors, including pink Romney t-shirts and hats, painted china and pro-Romney handmade jewelry, and I peeked inside the room which had been converted to the “women’s suffrage museum” for a second before moving on to the real action in the main part of the pavilion.

I grabbed myself a spot on one of the black banquettes arranged around the room and checked out the scene.  A drink menu on the table in front of me caught my eye, so I picked it up and learned that a “Woman Up Martini” – made of orange vodka, triple sec, lime juice and cranberry – will set you back $6.  I was scribbling down the ingredients of the drink when I heard the words “nuclear policy.”

My ears instantly perked up, attracted by the incongruous nature of a foreign-policy discussion taking place in a room tricked out to look like Barbie’s Dream House. I put down the drink menu and drifted closer to the discussion, which was quickly growing heated.  An audience member was arguing with a panelist over foreign aid, and then another audience member spoke passionately about her disagreements with U.S.-Israeli policy.   The conversation took another turn when one of the panelists spoke how she was from the Reagan school of foreign policy, not the Bush one.  After a day and a half of listening to carefully modulated speeches and camera-ready sound bites presented in the convention center, the disagreement and off-the-cuff passion was refreshing.   In an environment that has been tightly controlled and programmed at every possible corner, the Woman Up Pavilion provided something that has been sorely lacking: spontaneity.

I may have been the only one who thought that way, because after a few minutes, the moderator stepped in and tried to steer the debate to an end, ironically praising the “good discussion” as she tried to close it down. 

And what of the debate over reproductive rights that has been raging elsewhere?  Aside from a table dedicated to pro-life literature in a room off to the side, the debate was in little evidence within the walls of the pavilion. As one of the panelists said, “We’re talking about a broad range of women’s issues here.  We’re not just talking about birth control.”

The Woman Up Pavilion will continue to have panels and discussions for the rest of the Republican National Convention, almost all of which will be focused on foreign policy, business and economics.  It is located in the Channelside Bay Plaza.

Senior web editor Caitlin Constantine is out and about in downtown Tampa during the RNC. She will be filing web reports throughout the convention.