.....
Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.
But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."
This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.
Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.
So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.
Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.
So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.
Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.
Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.
And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.
posted by David at
11:43 PM
11 Comments:
I find it rather telling that some would criticize a vice presidential nominee on foreign policy issues, when she Obama doesn't have the experience either.
IT's just such a hollow criticism.
Of course, the irony of that all is that I am a woman, and so far I like her.
1:04 AM
Thanks Zach. That was insightful. Do you have a link to the original Steinem article? I'd like to pass it on to other people.
5:55 AM
Hahaha I posted that same video to my blog yesterday... so funny, so true, and HOW hypocritical. Sheesh.
6:12 AM
melanie, regarding foreign policy..i think it's more about judgement and temperment. Palin's policy is what worries me. And it should also be mentioned that as "inexperienced" as Obama may be, he has been , from day one, voting against the war. He also has been in support of a calculated withdraw from Iraq which the current Bush administration finally employed, after pressure from the Iraqi government as well. Also, Obama has been wanting to focus on Afghanistan as well, which is always the center of terrorist activity and recruiting.
7:32 AM
here chris
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,7915118.story
7:36 AM
Well, initially Obama was calling to just pull out. He didn't give a time frame either. In fact, I thought the things I heard him say initially were kinda foolish. The first time I heard him give any kind of plan and date was fairly recently and the date was rather far out, which surprised me after his earlier comments. From what I've heard and read, Bush has always planned to pull out when the area was a bit more stable. I have mixed feelings about the war. I certainly am not sorry Hussein is no longer in power.
Judgement based on political leanings and preferences is a far different matter than questioning her experience when those who make the claims don't have it either. Either experience is the issue or her policy is. State her policy and criticize that. Otherwise it IS a hollow criticism.
Anyway, that article kind of irritates me as a woman, as if we all vote in lock-step and all want the same thing. Some of us get tired of being mis-represented.
10:06 AM
I see nothing wrong with this paragraph:
As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.
2:44 PM
Articles like this show that feminism isn't about the advancement of women, but the advancement of liberal women. The reason all of the cosmopolitan feminist elite hate Palin is because she has done everything they have been telling women was impossible. Just because someone isn't a Washington insider or a media darling doesn't mean they aren't qualified.
Maybe us in small-town, working class America will finally get one of our own in the White House.
4:40 PM
I don't see this article as having anything to do with liberal woman vs conservative women. I think the article is articulates the opinion that the pick of Sarah Palin could be see as undermining the idea of feminism or the advancement of woman in politics based on the idea that Palin is such an odd pick compared to other woman (republican woman even) in politics that would upon first glance would seem more fit for the position, not compared to Obama and Biden, but compared to other woman. As the article points out. It is a move that is based on votes, and in politics that is expected, but considering this election, it's seemingly a reactionary pick made under the facade of something which I believe it has nothing to do with. Do people hate Palin? I don't think so, I think most people are impressed by Palin. I think the questions arise when considering McCain's motivation in this pick in relation to feminism, especially in the context of this election. I just don't believe this pick was made for any other reason than to capture a demographic. Politics is such dicey territory!!! hehe.
10:54 PM
there are a lot of grammatical errors in that last comment...uffda. forgive me!
10:58 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anxkrm9uEJk
Not that I take what actors say seriously, but I enjoyed this video.
Also - Obama's 16 month time table for pulling out of Iraq has been known for more than recently. Its been on his website for a while.
Obama will cut taxes for the middle class and will save the average American tax payer more than John McCain's plan will. Those who make over 250K+ will pay more taxes. I think they can afford it.
But yeah, to be honest, I think Palin is crazy. I'm not a fan of evangelical uber-conservatives with less than 2 years experience as a governor as their largest selling point. Oh wait, she stopped the bridge to nowhere right?
Except she didn't, lolz.
6:51 AM
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home