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Cathy Young argues today that the reason Sarah Palin makes feminists so upset is that she’s all successful and stuff, and we’re just jealous bitches. Yeah, that’s the ticket. It has nothing to do with seeing a woman who takes advantage of all the hard work of feminists before her and proceeds to take a piss all over it, refusing to extend the same generosity to other women that was extended to her. I got the link from Scott, and I have to agree with him and with Ann and Miriam that it’s despicable how right wingers are trying to use Sarah Palin’s nomination to drain the word “feminism” of all meaning. As I said earlier, if you fail to understand the desperate hostility to feminism that’s critical to the culture wars, you fail to understand the culture wars. The word “feminism” itself is this fetishized evil for culture warriors. They either try to shame women out of using it, or they try to use it when it’s not applicable (such as laughably describing someone who opposes any support for women’s equality like Sarah Palin a “feminist"), but they are stuck on hating the word itself and wanting to stomp it out of existence.
You just know this is the silly season when people suddenly act like they don’t have the minimum number of brain cells to fire off to understand the concept of female misogyny. (The proper number is 3.) But female misogynists are common critters. They buy into the patriarchal arguments about women’s inferiority and, as such, focus their energies on making sure they’re the best of the second sex instead of fighting for equality, which they don’t think is possible. I wouldn’t even necessarily say that all of them have internalized misogyny---women like Ann Coulter, for instance, clearly think they’ve sassed their way into being honorary men. Many of them eagerly take to new levels the controlling and punishing of female sexuality, again, to distance themselves from the bad girls and thereby gain what little esteem is possible for a woman to gain. It took Ann Althouse’s peculiar mix of needing praise from right wing men and her loathing of other women to come up with the idea that Jessica Valenti shouldn’t have left her house with her breasts on. They are true believers in the idea that one can be very sexy but also desexualized, which is why Palin is being treated like this giant sex object, because she’s got a practiced ability at being fuckable without showing that she might be the sort who wants to fuck.
This, by the way, is why I’ve never been happy about the notion that men shouldn’t call themselves feminists. Since only women are called feminists in the vernacular, the word is easily to redefine as “woman who does anything ‘strong’-seeming” instead of “individual who supports feminism, the notion that women are equals”. Palin doesn’t actually differ from McCain either in her opposition to women’s reproductive rights nor, it turns out, her belief that shaming women for being sexual to their face is a fine way to spend your time. Witness:
In 1996, evangelical churches mounted a vigorous campaign to take over the local hospital’s community board and ban abortion from the valley. When they succeeded, Bess and Dr. Susan Lemagie, a Palmer OB-GYN, fought back, filing suit on behalf of a local woman who had been forced to travel to Seattle for an abortion. The case was finally decided by the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled that the hospital must provide valley women with the abortion option.
At one point during the hospital battle, passions ran so hot that local antiabortion activists organized a boisterous picket line outside Dr. Lemagie’s office, in an unassuming professional building across from Palmer’s Little League field. According to Bess and another community activist, among the protesters trying to disrupt the physician’s practice that day was Sarah Palin.
Palin enjoys seeking out women whose sexual behavior she can’t control and screaming and yelling at them. McCain also enjoys screaming and scaring women seeking medical care.
John McCain was mad. Fuming mad. It was then the early days of his political career, and he had paid an unscheduled visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Mesa, which was within his Arizona congressional district. That’s when Gloria Feldt, then the CEO of the group’s local chapter, got a phone call. “Congressman McCain is here,” a staffer told her, “and he is screaming and it is upsetting the patients.”
Let’s not be sexist and judge who’s a feminist by what’s in their pants. How about what’s in their heart? And McCain and Palin share an abiding loathing of all you ladies out there who don’t buy into their view of you as theirs to control.
Posted by
Amanda Marcotte on 04:51 PM •
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Cathy Young is a libertarian. They need to believe that discrimination is a rare blip that will be ironed out by the Great Workings of The Market.
“I got the link from Scott, and I have to agree with him and with Ann and Miriam that it’s despicable how right wingers are trying to use Sarah Palin’s nomination to drain the word “feminism” of all meaning.”
They’re doing it with the word “sexist” too. Sexism apparently did not exist prior to August of 2008.
\"It has nothing to do with seeing a woman who takes advantage of all the hard work of feminists before her and proceeds to take a piss all over it...\”
Right. Palin made her own way. She does not owe past \"feminists\" or you anything, your desire to remain relevant notwithstanding.
Its not as if she wouldn’t be governor today if it weren’t for past feminists gaining the right to vote and breaking glass ceilings. Oh. Wait.
Palin made her own way.
Wow. She must be, like, the chick equivalent of that Blackazoid Obama Mesus dude.
Let’s see:
Sarah Palin singlehandedly got women the right to vote, which was the primary feminist political development that enabled women to run for office and have a chance of winning.
Sarah Palin singlehandedly convinced 4 different universities to admit women.
Sarah Palin singlehandedly ended couverture, which enabled to own her own property, earn her own pay, and decide for herself whether, when, and who she would marry. (Also a great boon for the McCains, of course!)
Sarah Palin singlehandedly convinced banks to grant separate checking accounts and credit lines to women, enabling her to not only work for a living and spend money without the direct permission of her husband, as well as the ability to live in several different US states as a single woman during her early 20’s.
Sarah Palin singlehandedly started a movement to set up childcare for women who work outside the home, from daycare centers to au pairs.
Sarah Palin singlehandedly decided to allow women to serve in the military, lessening the degree of controversy she would face as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard.
Anybody got any other ways Palin ‘made her own way’, without riding at all on the coattails of the dread feminists?
Sarah Palin---she could have done it without the legal right to vote. Uh-huh.
The irony is that Palin is where she is precisely because feminists have won the argument about whether or not sexism is right. Republicans need to be sexist without seeming to be sexist, so they need a sexist woman to give them cover. If they didn’t need her as a token, she’d be nothing.
Pants, Opo, she wears pants. Single-handedly made it acceptable for women to wear functional, rather than decorative, clothing.
(My mother, who is only 56, could not wear pants to her public high school on Long Island until her senior year.)
She was also a basketball player—woman’s guarantee of access to sports, also feminist-driven. Maybe Sarah Palin is single-handedly responsible for Title IX?
And my guess is that a woman probably would not have been able to own a gun, either, without feminists’ fight for equal rights.
Also, I hear she was some kind of outstanding high school athlete. Turns out she single-handedly pass Title IX, even though she probably wants it repealed in real life.
I saw an interview where Palin credited Title IX with a lot of her own early positive experiences, then said it’s irrelevant now because inequality of the sexes is over…
They either try to shame women out of using it, or they try to use it when it’s not applicable (such as laughably describing someone who opposes any support for women’s equality like Sarah Palin a “feminist"), but they are stuck on hating the word itself and wanting to stomp it out of existence.
Reclusive Leftist has a post up about how Palin is a feminist. It’s annoying the crud out of me because it seems like she’s boiling down feminism into 3 or 4 talking points and just ignoring the Republican policies Palin supports that hurt women and contribute to kyriarchy.
For your amusement [the demented kind], from the 2002 congressional testimony of the director of the local hospital’s community board (the one mentioned in the Salon article) in support of a bill to allow everybody--from the tech sterilizing the instruments, to the hospital, pharmacy, and insurance company--to refuse to provide medical care and meds they deem icky to certain female patients:
When the abortionist was told she could no longer perform abortions at Valley Hospital, she was overheard complaining that abortions were a good portion of her income.
...
One member [of the Alaska Supreme Court], Justice Bryner—I was there when he said this, and I just about fell on the floor—he said during oral arguments for the State funding issue, he declared that pregnancy is a disease.
The perfect combination of religiously motivated propaganda and ignorance.
Pants, rowmyboat?
What about the fact that she isn’t wearing:
a corset
a hoop skirt
a bustle
a hat (’ladies’ were required to wear hats in the office until at least the 60’s)
gloves
panty hose with seams in the back that have to be straightened all the time
a garter belt (let’s not go there)
a girdle (as far as we know)
-
And that she’s allowed to wear:
athletic-oriented clothing and footwear
fabrics that breathe
a coat (respectable ladies of the nineteenth century made do with shawls)
casual clothes like t-shirts and sweats - I realize it’s Alaska, but the woman has a serious addiction to polarfleece which would not have been permissable in pre-feminist days.
performance footwear made for doing things like hunting moose
People tend to forget that “dress reform” was a very real movement that actually accomplished a lot.
Ostiarius:
Right. Palin made her own way. She does not owe past \"feminists\" or you anything, your desire to remain relevant notwithstanding.
If you have to lie to get your point across, you don’t have a point.
Jeebus, but I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve said that in the last six months.
Oh, wow. I thought Ostiarius was being sarcastic. I must never underestimate the stupidity of others, I must never underestimate the stupidity of others…
Oh, and Opo, is Sarah Palin the new Chuck Norris?
“kyriarchy"--a new word to me, as defined here:
http://myecdysis.blogspot.com/2008/04/accepting-kyriarchy-not-apologies.html
it makes sense to me.
At any rate when arguing with a pedantic opponnent considerable time might be wasted dancing around the “men rule” implication of the word “patriarchy;” I’ve always figured people of good will and sense need not be hung up on the limitations of the word, considering the rough and general historical justice of it and the obvious relevance to our problems today.
But it’s nice to have a new word to express a generalized kind of dominator paradigm in action.
So thanks for that, Elizabeth!
The new Chuck Norris of feminism, maybe!
Sarah Palin isn’t a misogyist sister-punisher, she’s THE ONLY FEMINIST EVAR. Every hard-won advance of the last 2 centuries has been all Sarah, and only Sarah.
Cathy Young needs to eat a bag of dicks.
That is all.
In the Boston Globe on Friday, columnist Ellen Goodman frets that Mrs. Palin is a “supermom” whose supporters “think a woman can have it all as long as she can do it all . . . by herself.” In fact, Sarah Palin is doing it with the help of her husband Todd, who is currently on leave from his job as an oil worker. But Ms. Goodman’s problem is that “she doesn’t need anything from anyone outside the family. She isn’t lobbying for, say, maternity leave, equal pay, or universal pre-K.”
This also galls Katherine Marsh, writing in the latest issue of The New Republic. Mrs. Palin admits to having “an incredible support system—a husband with flexible jobs rather than a competing career . . . and a host of nearby grandparents, aunts, and uncles.” Yet, Ms. Marsh charges, she does not endorse government policies to help less-advantaged working mothers—for instance, by promoting day-care centers.
Mrs. Palin’s marriage actually makes her a terrific role model. One of the best choices a woman can make if she wants a career and a family is to pick a partner who will be able to take on equal or primary responsibility for child-rearing.
So Young’s plan to help women is...find a better husband? Charming.
It’s also bullshit. Apparently, Todd Palin was considered a major authority in the governor’s office in a way a wife would never be treated.
But regardless. It’s theoretically possible to find a good man in an inequitable society. But it’s harder. There are more good men than ever before....because of feminism. Human nature is what it is. Men have less power over women, they are less corrupted.
Actually, it seems Mr. Palin makes a pretty good role model for equal parenting. Maybe he’s a feminist?
OTOH, it sure seems that Sarah doesn’t actually do any work as governor, other than filling out expense sheets to bill the state for sleeping at home and flying her kids around the state. She’s in Anchorage something like 50 days a year, the legislators wear “Where’s Sarah?” pins, and all the mayors are pissed at her for never being available to talk about funding. So maybe it’s not really all that hard for her to raise 5 kids. And it’s probably not all that hard for him to do equal parenting since they likely have help--somewhere I saw that her primary aid is nicknamed ‘The Babysitter’, which implied she uses state money to care for her kids.
Hey, there we go! If we all had maids/butlers and childcare assistants, everyone could be a feminist! I like that world.
a husband with flexible jobs rather than a competing career
Oooh, there’s something else Sarah Palin singlehandedly invented without any help from feminism whatsoever. The phenomenon of the stay-at-home dad, and/or the female breadwinner.
This, by the way, is why I’ve never been happy about the notion that men shouldn’t call themselves feminists.
I consider myself to be a male feminist.
Cathy Young is a libertarian. They need to believe that discrimination is a rare blip that will be ironed out by the Great Workings of The Market.
I dunno about that. Discrimination seems to be more a feature than a bug of the libertarian worldview. Most libertarians I know are white males who seem to believe that the innate superiority of white males will always prevail in a meritocracy. Also, a disturbing number of them are anti-choice, which makes sense when you realize that libertarianism is predicated on the notion that protecting the property of white males is sacrosanct. Which, of course, includes female and underage chattel. They bond with their fundie brothers in the worship of the Sacred Sperm. Not surprisingly, there are lots of MRAs amongt the Libertariat. The relatively few females who embrace the ideology tend to be the type who scorn their sisters and spend a lot of time letting everyone in earshot know what an exception they are to those other worthless bitches. To paraphrase the quip about libertarian men, libertarian women are Republicans who think men should be able to smoke weed and get laid.
The idea that early 20th century female suffragists would share your ideology is laughable. Moreover, extending your vacuous argument to its \"logical\" end, you should be a Republican, since the Republicans were instrumental in pushing the 19th amendment through. Don\’t piss on the party that gave you the right to vote!
Palin made her own way. She does not owe past \"feminists\" or you anything, your desire to remain relevant notwithstanding.
Yeah, Susan B. Anthony can suck it.
Ostiarius:
The idea that early 20th century female suffragists would share your ideology is laughable. Moreover, extending your vacuous argument to its \"logical\" end, you should be a Republican, since the Republicans were instrumental in pushing the 19th amendment through. Don\’t piss on the party that gave you the right to vote!
This troll scored a 1.5 out of ten. Three points deducted for lack of originality, five for knowing precisely fuck-all about American history, and an additional half a point for the inappropriate backslashes.
In short, I think you owe me another nickel, dipshit.
The early leaders of the feminist movement were against abortion.
The radical feminist Susan B. Anthony referred to abortion as \"child murder\” and viewed it as a means of exploiting both women and children.
Alice Paul, who drafted the original version of the Equal Rights Amendment, referred to abortion as \"the ultimate exploitation of women.\”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/mother/early.shtml
It\’s amazing what one discovers when he bothers to read history.
\"In short, I think you owe me another nickel, dipshit.\”
Just because I know more than you is no reason to wax choleric. Perhaps you would do well to pick up an American history book with lots of colorful pictures.
Ostiarius,
What does abortion issues have to do with Sarah Palin? Other than the fact that she’s anti-choice and us here at Pandagon are pro-choice?
Do you seriously believe we don’t have any other compelling reasons to not support Palin? Even if Sarah Palin came out tomorrow and said that she unaminously supports choice, I would still not vote for her. Full stop.
I don’t feel hesitant to say that most here at Pandagon would agree with me.
Oh, and yes, a lot of early feminist leaders WERE against abortion, but that was a different time, different circumstances. Their reasons had nothing to do with “life”, either. I don’t feel like going into a whole explanation, since you are obviously only interested in scoring points.
Ostiarius, piss off. The Republicans of yesteryear were also opposed to slavery but the Republicans of today have embraced the Southern Strategy. They are also responsible for the rise of women like Phyllis Schlafly (anti ERA) and Ann Coulter (anti women having the right to vote).
One thing that is constant about the GOP is that they nearly ALWAYS cause economic havoc, in the form of recessions or depressions.
Ostarius, are you saying that Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul weren’t past feminists? Because Palin owes them a lot when it comes to legal rights. And culturally, she owes a whole lot of cultural radicals a lot as well, as the 50s finally disintegrated.
This guy equates the Republican Party of 1920 with the GOP of 2008 while lecturing us about our inferior understanding of American political history?
That’s pretty funny, actually.
Here’s your assignment for the day, Ostiarius:
1. Define the expression, “party realignment.”
2. Define the Southern Strategy and explain its significance.
(hint: these two are related)
For extra credit, describe the origin and platform of the Progressive Party (aka Bull Moose Party) founded by Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 and explain why 21st century progessives would have anything to do with the modern GOP.
Feminists of the nineteenth century opposed abortion for two reasons.
1. It was not the mundane outpatient procedure it is today—women DIED having abortions, even perfectly legal and medically supervised ones.
2. Abortion was seen as something men forced women to do, usually because the men were up to no good. In one famous case I’m currently reading about a woman was having an affair with her preacher (Henry Ward Beecher, if anyone knows the case), was discovered by her husband, and forced to abort the child she was carrying because her husband knew he’d been away when it was conceived. She was made to have an abortion because of her husband’s childish pride. Not out of any sense of autonomy or ability to control her own reproductive future—the child was very much a wanted child. Feminists were against men making their wives have abortions they didn’t want to have.
I’ll also say that while 19th century feminists were against abortion itself, they really paved the way for women to get to a point where abortion could be legalized without being a liability rather than a boon.
The Lucretia Mott Amendment Equal Rights Amendment Sarah Palin Amendment didn’t need any hairy old hags like Alice Paul to fight for it because Congress was waiting for the moment when Sarah Palin could have equal rights as a man.
I disagree with Sarah Palin on a number of issues, including abortion rights. But when the feminist establishment treats not only pro-life feminism but small-government, individualist feminism as heresy, it writes off multitudes of women.
Wait what? Pro-life feminism? You mean like Code Pink who support the rights-to-life of disenfranchised youth who enlist? Maybe all the can-do grassroots feminist activists who support the rights of victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence? Somehow, I think not.
Flat-chested ... typical ...
The early leaders of the feminist movement were against abortion.
They also excluded black women from the movement. Luckily, feminism is a living thing and changes with the times.
Moron. You don’t really know the history of this at all, do you? During the 19th century, abortion was MORE dangerous than childbirth and also the PRIMARY means of birth control for MOST women. Also, sexual intercourse wasn’t considered voluntary for women, but mandatory. Early feminists saw abortion in the context of a rape culture, and pushed for women to have the right to---get this---control their own bodies.
After rape became less acceptable and women’s sexual desires became speakable, then abortion moved from being part of the rape culture to part of of a woman’s toolbox for controlling her own body.
So, you’re wrong. Early feminists and modern feminists have a continuous line of support for the right of a woman to own her own body. In addition, early feminists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton were harshly anti-religion, so they would have been on the opposite fence of the anti-choicers of today, who are all, outside of a few atheists who are bitterly misogynist, religious fundamentalists to the last one.
Even Feminists For Life admits that early feminists pushed for voluntary motherhood. FFL tries to imply that it was fundamentally a cover for mandatory abstinence, but it wasn’t really. It was the first steps towards advocating for birth control. It just so happened that in the 19th century, the only contraception---a way to avoid a painful and dangerous abortion---was abstinence. As other forms became available, feminism adapted. Some feminists were birth control advocates from the beginning, though, because they had the imagination to think that non-abstinence birth control could be possible.
Gov. Palin has always credited feminist that plowed the path for all women with helping her reach the levels of success she enjoys.
It’s feminists like Amanda and Co. that are piling on Gov. Palin. All because Gov. Palin happens to make the choice of life over abortion.
As one who supports Pro-Choice, I see no problem with Gov. Palin exercising her CHOICE. Too bad other feminists can’t get past the abortion issue. It has sickened me to see so called feminist try to destroy Gov. Palin just because she is not their style of feminist. Disgusting, and it’s making many woman take note - don’t be surprised if Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain win the WH in a landslide because many independent women are paying attention to the cat fight and hissing coming from anti-Palin feminist.
Take a page from Geraldine Ferraro and talk issues - avoid the nutbag Naomi and Gloria approach of attacking the woman. Oh, and also take note of the classy Sen. Clinton who has refused to play surrogate for Obama in his attempts to discredit Gov. Palin. She’s smart enough to know that attacking Gov. Palin as others have will hurt her chances in 2012 - with independent female voters.
Don’t you know your T-shirt model is supposed to have big tits? Frikken’ libruls can’t get anything right.
Or are you prejudiced against women with bodacious tatas? Yeah, that’s it--you must be sexist!!1!1!
Lena ~
Nobody here objects to Sarah Palin excising her personal right to choose.
We object strenuously to her attempts to force her personal choices on the rest of us via state coercive power.
Use your damned head.
You got it, FearItself. Worse yet, though, are the libs w/o balls.
I know I shouldn’t feed the trolls, but Lena: We aren’t opposed to Sarah Palin because she didn’t choose to have an abortion. We are opposed to Sarah Palin because she actively advocates for taking that choice away from every other American woman. We couldn’t care less whether other women choose abortion or childbirth for themselves, so long as those choices are made freely and without coersion. We just want to make our own choices, just like Sarah Palin did.
I think that Palin’s bun hairdo and general sense of style are de rigeur among conservative fundamentalist/ evangelical women. “I’m all woman - but don’t touch me!”.
Robert, we have listened to other points of view, and disagreed with them. Reality, in fact, disagrees with Paglia’s opinion that Palin is a feminist. You see, feminists advocate for the rights of women. Palin advocates taking away the rights of women. Therefore, she is not a feminist. How many times do we have to say this? Opposing policies and funding that would help women is the antithesis of feminism. Palin opposes policies and funding that would help women. Therefor she is the antithesis of feminism.
I could say that you, Robert, are a turnip. Does that make you a turnip? Do you possess many-or any-of the qualities that make up a turnip? No? Then, I could call you a turnip ‘til the polar bears come home* and it wouldn’t actually turn you into a turnip.
*Ssince Sarah Palin wants to take polar bears off the endangered species list, we could be waiting a while for them to come home
Thank you for your thoughtful response, JPlum. Consider this though: Your political views assert that more government funded programs are the answer to solving problems. Fair enough. But others just as sincerely believe that such programs are unnecessary and, in fact, often have the opposite effect. You have every right to disagree with such people and believe that your way is the better way. But then to go the extra step and conclude that therefore such people don’t care about ‘X’ or want to take away the rights of ‘X’ is a logical leap of faith that is not warranted.
I’ll give you a good case in point. Checking out my blog you would have learned that I’m a Canadian living in Vancouver, BC. We’re currently engaged in our own federal election these days.
One of the parties asserts that the best way to provide low-cost childcare is to create government funded childcare programs to which any family (no means test) can take their children to for less than $10 per day. There’s only so much money available for this, so once the funds are spent, no more families will be eligible.
Another party doesn’t think such a program is equitable because it provides no funding for families who choose for either the mother or the father to stay at home with the children until they enter school. So they’ve decided to give money directly to all parents, totaling a budget amount that’s comparable to what the first party wanted to spent on their program.
A 3rd party may come along and feel that current funding for current health care and education is also strapped and choose to increase the budgets of these existing programs instead of creating a new childcare program. Or perhaps they feel that with a rapidly growing elderly population, more money needs to go to low income seniors instead of to families where both parents are still of working age.
Like you, I would have my own opinion on which party’s platform makes the most sense but perhaps unlike you, I would never say that any are “taking away the rights of children or parents”. It makes for a great soundbite but only goes to stifle debate.
Here’s another example. I frequently visit Chicago. I have a good friend there named Melissa who has been a registered Democrat all of her adult life. We’ve often discussed the massive ghettos that exist on the Southside of Chicago. She carefully explained to me the history of how they got to the abysmal state they’re now in. Back in the 1960’s well meaning politicians felt that the poor needed to be provided for. So they built huge apartment complexes which later became known as “The Projects”. Apartments were provided at low or even no cost. Over time they deteriorated so badly that now many are being demolished.
Why did this happen? I think it can be summed up in one word: Incentive. More accurately, the lack thereof. If you give someone something for nothing and continue to do it over time, most people take it for granted. This is because you’ve taken away any incentive for them to try harder, work harder, and strive for more. I’m not a particularly religious person but there’s an old parable that is quite apropos: “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day (and be back again tomorrow looking for another fish). But teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”
I realize that some consider this parable to be a fallacy. I, on the other hand, adamantly believe it is the cornerstone of human psychology.
In case you’re interested, I passed on our conversation to a female friend of mine here in Vancouver. She’s 46, a single mom, upper-middle class but not wealthy. In times past I’ve heard her describe herself as a strong feminist, but not a radical one. Her words, not mine. She’s no fan of Sarah Palin (or Barack Obama) but is adamant that Palin is just as much a feminist as you or she is.
I can only conclude therefore that what you’re really against is Sarah Palin’s more libertarian views on the size and breadth of government. In the democracies we both live in you have absolutely every right to oppose her political views. In fact, I sincerely compliment you for exercising your democratic rights. But when you then jump the shark and assert that she is not a feminist, you choose to stray far away from what this woman has actually accomplished in her life and how much inspiration she is giving little girls to aspire to be anything they want to be.
I would never say that any are “taking away the rights of children or parents”.
The nice thing about the USA is that we have more than two hundred years of unbroken governmental history behind us. Including long stretches of relative peace, prosperity, and social stability. If we want to know whether a program or policy would work, all we have to do is open a book (or a website, or a reel of microfilm, or, well, you get the idea) and find out whether that particular approach worked well in the past or not.
For instance, most Republican ideas about privatization, “shrinking government”, trickle-down economics, etc. are easily verified as complete and utter bullshit. We’ve been doing this for something like 30 years, and it has NEVER worked. Ever.
On the other hand, most Democratic ideas about public services and social safety nets can easily be proven to not only do what they’re designed to do, but also to work so well that people generally can’t even imagine the way it used to be before they were put into place. People forget that they ever were put into place, that they weren’t just written into the Constitution or mandated by God. If you want to test this theory, go ask any 64 year old who isn’t a multimillionaire whether the Social Security program should be cut off. Ask any American whether they’d like their police precinct, fire department, or town library to be shut down. They will look at you like you just landed from Mars, because they can’t even imagine life without such institutions.
Robert, it may surprise you to learn that I am a born-and-bred Canadian living in Toronto. When I talk about Palin taking away women’s rights, I mean in very real, specific ways. She wants abortion to be illegal, even in cases or rape or incest. That would be taking away a woman’s right to self-determination, to ownership of her body. I’m not talking about increasing government programs-I’m talking about keeping government out of the uterii of American women. We never tire of pointing out that the conservatives who praise smaller government are the very ones who want a government so big, it will actually reach into the bodies of women.
And you’re still missing the point-by all definitions of feminism, she is not a feminist. She has benefited from feminism, sure, but let’s look up feminism in the dictionary, courtesy of the Oxford Canadian: 1. the advocacy of equality of the sexes, esp. through the establishment of the political, social, and economic rights of women. 2. The movement associated with this. Does she advocate for the rights of women, or has she merely benefited from those rights?
We (feminists) say she does not advocate for the rights of women. We say women have the right to bodily autonomy, and to make decisions about how, when, and under what circumstances we have children. She says we should have that right taken away. You cannot be a feminist, and want to take away women’s rights. It’s as simple as that.
The state of Alaska was forced to pass a law preventing Wasilla, when she was mayor, from charging women for rape kits (and it is mostly women who get raped). It was the only town in Alaska that did that. How pro-woman is it to make women pay to have crimes against them investigated? Now, if she was forcing everyone else to pay the costs of law enforcement evidence gathering, you could say she wasn’t targeting women. But it was only the rape victims who had to pay.
Do you have any evidence, Robert, that Sarah Palin has advocated for the equality of the sexes, for the establishment of the political, social, and economic rights of women? Any evidence that she is, in fact, a feminist, an advocate of feminism?
I should note that I’m note saying anything original here. What I’ve said has already been said by the feminists of Pandagon, Feministing, Feministe, Shakesville and other. I don’t want anyone to think I taking credit for thinking all this stuff up!
And Robert, I’ll be voting Liberal in our election, because the conservatives want to screw the poor and the middle class, the NDP want to screw the rich and the middle class. The liberals will spread the screwing around. Since, as a middle class woman I’m going to get screwed regardless, I’m voting for the ones who screw me the least.
*facetious, yes, but with a kernel of truth.
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Cathy Young is a libertarian. They need to believe that discrimination is a rare blip that will be ironed out by the Great Workings of The Market.