Obama or Romney? (Remember to vote November 6!! :D)

"are they actually sharing the views, or using a large group's views as a way to fish people in, which is what he is clearly doing."

That's the crux of the issue. Is Obama preaching gender equality purely to gain women's votes, or does he genuinely believe in his policies? I don't think it is as cut-and-dry as to say he's clearly just fishing for votes. Let me explain why I don't think he is doing that.

If Obama was purely fishing for votes he would start backing the coal industry more strongly and match Romney's rhetoric on ending job out-sourcing to China, because those are areas where Romney gains big points. Yet he doesn't. He refuses to make cracking down on China part of his campaign or backing the coal industry part of his campaign to anything resembling the extent Romney does. If Obama was purely playing to for the most number of votes possible he would copy Romney in areas where Romney wins big points. These are just examples of popular Romney policies which came off the top of my head, I could probably think up more but on the other hand it's 4 AM and I don't have the capacity for that.

It is clear, then, that Obama is not in the business of trying to win the most votes he can at the expense of sacrificing his principles. Exhibit A: Obama would not sacrifice his moral commitment to sustainable energy merely to win the votes of people in coal-mining communities (which lie in key swing states meaning they ARE an important group).

Factor in the fact that 30% of Americans don't even believe global warming is caused by humans ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/20/most_americans_believe_global_warming_is_caused_by_human_activity/ ) and that 174,000 people work are directly employed in the coal industry (with maybe as many as 1.5 million employed indirectly ( http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coal_and_jobs_in_the_United_States ) versus only around 500,000 employed indirectly or directly by the green energy industry ( http://www.renewablepowernews.com/archives/2128 ), and you can deduce that it would result in a net profit of votes for Obama if he jettisoned his environmental policy in return for supporting coal.

Now let us consider once again the issue at hand: is the President merely pandering to women to grab their votes on the back of empty promises or does he truly believe in his policies regarding gender equality and will do his best to push them through? Using the example of the coal-miners, I think it is fair to say Obama does not always sacrifice his personal morals in return for votes. I don't think anyone can say with any confidence that Obama would support women's issues if he did not believe in them, just as he refused to support the coal industry.

You might be right, I cannot prove Obama honestly believes in women's issues and I cannot disprove your hypothesis that he has chosen to publicly support them merely to gain votes, but it *is* nonsense to suggest it's as cut-and-dry as you are making it out to be. It is very popular during times of election to believe that politicians are heartless monsters removed from society who will do anything and sell out any belief the hold dear for a few extra votes, but it just isn't true.