While I’m sure we’re all quivering in anticipation for what the president has already assured us “will be a pretty good speech” about this latest and greatest pivot to economic issues on Wednesday (really though, guys: you’re going to want to watch this speech), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi provided a little appetizer last week and on Monday with the introduction of her super-special and supposedly women-centric economic agenda.

 At a summer lunch with reporters in her Capitol conference room, Rep. Nancy Pelosi rolled out an ambitious economic agenda for women with next year’s congressional elections in mind.

The California Democrat launched a legislative agenda of family-friendly policies, such as paycheck fairness for women, an increased federal minimum wage, and President Barack Obama’s proposed early childhood education initiative.

The agenda, coming as the legislative season begins to make way for next year’s campaigns, was designed to stand in contrast to bills being debated under the GOP majority on the House floor. “It’s all about letting women know there’s an opportunity for something different,” Pelosi said…

“Women are really struggling today,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Ct., a longtime champion of women’s issues, who sat to Pelosi’s right. “They’re looking for an increase in their income, in equal pay, in education opportunities – that’s the focus of this agenda.” …

“If making this fuss impacts their [Republicans]] decision making, that for us is the success,” Pelosi said. “We would rather they join us in this, rather than our having this as a political weapon.”

Riiiight. Because I’m sure that this has nothing to do with rehashing a bunch of Democratic policy initiatives into somehow women-specific issues in order to perpetuate the idea of women as some kind of political Other as well as preserving the handy-dandy War-on-Women meme by eviscerating Republicans when they don’t automatically go along with it. Who cares that Republicans are standing firm against a bunch of terrible and economically damaging policy ideas? They’re anti-women! And goodness knows that whole united-front approach to ObamaCare in the run-up to the 2014 midterms isn’t panning out, so she’s going to need to give her caucus something else to talk about. You know, besides our currently stagnant economy and the ways in which further taxes, regulations, and government “investments” under President Obama have pretty much failed to help women or anybody else find jobs, start businesses, grow their income, or pursue economic opportunities to a degree that can get our economy moving again.

I.e., a lot of the same sorts of contortions that President Obama will be pulling tomorrow in his own economic speech. Hooray.