I’ve got a lousy cold and a lot of work – and ideas – backed up but I cannot endure one more column headline opining on why there’s a gender gap between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

The gap exists because of reality: when women look around and on an every day occasion, see and experience where we aren’t included or even thought about, or, when we are included or thought about, how we’re treated – whether in real life (Ginni Rometty) or fake life (anything on Mad Men) – we don’t like it. And we see the statements and policies of conservatives as, in general (yes, there are exceptions), upholding, supporting and keeping in stasis what we don’t like, while we see the statements and policies of moderates and liberals as, in general, seeking to change, alter, take down and improve that which we don’t like (though of course there are plenty of exceptions there too – start with any sex scandal).

And, as if to underscore how clueless the men are, US Senator Mitch McConnell claimed that his female colleagues certainly would support him in calling out the “war on women” as being manufactured. Thanks, Mitch, for demonstrating how completely you haven’t heard a word your female colleagues have said and how thoroughly you expect them to follow you in lockstep, to wit, from that link:

“Talk about a manufactured issue. There is no issue,” McConnell said. “Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (from Texas) and Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine I think would be the first to say—and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska—’we don’t see any evidence of this.’”

However, three of those female GOP lawmakers whom McConnell cited— Snowe, Hutchison and Murkowski—have specifically spoken out against Republican measures they believe are aimed at women.

Then, there’s the whole gaslighting aspect to what McConnell and others like Republican National Committee Chair, Reince Priebus, are saying – Priebus analogizing his belief that the notion of there being a war on women is as far-fetched as suggesting there’s a war on caterpillars.

We’re not being gaslighted – reality bites. And no amount of optics of Republican female spokespeople on the trail or a strong spouse, daughter-in-law or mother will begin to cut into the reality.