Incontrovertible women’s rights advocate and American icon Gloria Steinem wades into the Palin (who “shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton”) discussion with a focused Op-Ed in the LA Times.
I strongly urge you to read Steinem’s piece, but here are the highlights (bolded portions are my editorial emphasis):
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.
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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.
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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…
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[Palin] 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.
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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.
Read full text here.
6 responses so far ↓
RC Lightning // September 4, 2008 at 11:00 pm |
I read Ms. Steinem’s article in the LA Times and it prompted me to write a respons on my blog, about the new leader of the feminist movement. I hope you take a look and let me know your thoughts…thanks!
Move aside Britney and Paris, America has a new female role model; Sarah Palin–the anti-Carrie Bradshaw
For too long America has not had a great American female role model to which young girls can aspire to emulate. During the past ten years, Hollywood’s version of the good next door was a real life incarnation of the Bratz dolls: Britney, Paris and a slew of other chain smoking, anorexic, starlets who were more likely to show up on the police blotter than deliver a great commencement speech. Today’s girls next door are not the wholesome American girl that reflects our nation’s ideals, instead they are a realtiy show on E and have to date an 85 year old man in order to get famous.
But now, thanks to the Maverick pick of John McCain, Sarah Palin is riding to the rescue of popular culture, offering America’s daughters a true role model who is confident, cool and Conservative. Someone who is as good looking as any of the vapid stick figures in Hollywood, yet has real substance and charisma.
She is the 21st Century, female version of John Wayne–pro American, good person, who can get the job done.
Now, fathers everywhere, whether liberal or conservative, have a national figure who will set a great example for the youth of America. She personifies Girl Power and is the antithesis of the type of woman put forward by Hollywood as a Star. She is the opposite of the urbane sophisticated character of Carrie Bradshaw who Hollywood wanted to be the role model for America’s young women.
Liberals are going to despise Palin because she has done it her way. Liberal women had their hopes dashed when Obama retreated in fear and picked Biden over Hillary. Now, a Maverick has ridden to the rescue of the feminist cause, picking a woman who is going to bust through the glass ceiling and enter the White House as Vice President.
Sarah is the anti-Carrie Bradshaw. A devoted family woman who finds happiness through marriage and family and spends time serving the public not a self-centered, lonely woman who finds superficial happiness thru fancy shoes and snarky comments. Women like Carrie Bradshaw read the Rules, Sarah Palin makes the rules.
Her life isn’t spent on an endless quest to find meaning and happiness through a string of shallow relationships. Sarah Palin found happiness through achievement, monogamy, and being true to herself and her Conservative beliefs!
What a welcome change for American pop culture. In all the great moves made by John McCain, this is the one that will have the most staying power because he has picked a woman who is going to fundamentally improve the American culture. I am a conservative today because of Ronald Reagan. MIllions of girls will be conservatives in twenty years because of Sarah Palin. This pick doesn’t change only the election, it changes the path of our popular culture. Instead of moving down the path towards more coarseness and vulgarity in our society, Palin will light the culture’s way to one based more upon respect and American ideals.
For too long our popular culture has failed to live up to our national character. Now, we have a chance to bring our culture back in line with our national character.
Liberal writers control Hollywood and they have created the perfect template for a female President in their minds. But now, that template has been come to life in the form of a Conservative. That is why the convention is so excited. That is why our base is fired up. Because we know Sarah’s selection will transcend this election and will change the direction of our culture.
mrod // September 4, 2008 at 11:54 pm |
@RC That’s a great narrative with Hollywood archetypes (Mavericks, Carrie, Anti-Carrie) that sounds like you would buy a ticket to go see, but polling of independents and suggests that they would not buy, to continue the analogy, a ticket to this movie (links to polling info at end of this comment).
Pop culture references aside and to speak substantively here, none of what you’ve written addresses Steinem’s and many feminists fundamental points of contention with Palin. And lets avoid hyperbole–”Obama retreated in fear…” I mean, what’s your citation on this?
Until Palin can answer and resolve the gap between her positions and that of Steinem’s and many other feminists, it is a bit of a perversion of that word and legacy to anoint Palin the “new leader of the feminist movement.”
The new leader of the conservative movement, sure. The new leader of the conservative female movement, sure.
And as for the whole Sex and the City/Carrie analogy, and I say this in the nicest light, it’s uhm, kind of dumb. It’s vapid.
Palin’s speech was great for energizing her own base. Nothing more, nothing less at the moment. One great speech, as Obama knows himself, is just the beginning. One great speech is not a coronation.
Sources:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/michigan-indepe.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/04/female-clinton-supporters_n_123794.html
krunkymunky // September 5, 2008 at 9:53 am |
RC … have you even heard of: hillary clinton? ann richardson? kay bailey hutchinson? elizabeth dole? christine whitman? jennifer granholm? nancy pelosi (currently a heartbeat from a heartbeat from the oval office)?
liberals don’t dislike palin because she’s a conservative woman. they dislike her because she seems totally hypocritical (and snarky to boot). trust me i’d take christine todd whitman as president over sarah palin as vice president any day.
news flash: there are as many sex scandals among conservatives as among liberals. if you want to get into a “family values” debate … break down obama and biden against mccain and palin. which families do you think make better models for our country?
conservatives don’t own good moral values. i’m a christian believer from a small midwestern town. oh, and i’m a liberal.
i also believe that as we do to the least of our brothers, we do unto Christ. frankly, i generally see that attitude a lot more in liberals than in conservatives, and more in Obama than in John McCain or Sarah Palin.
Louise // September 6, 2008 at 10:15 am |
I am not a Palin fan, as her platform would set this country in a backwards tailspin. She reminds me of Christie Todd Whitman. As a New Jersey resident, I can honestly say Christie and her Palin-like ideas made New Jersey take that backward spin. NO TO MCCAIN AND PALIN!
David Plumb // September 9, 2008 at 10:41 am |
Palin is transparent. What we do with it is the deal.
From my blog:
A hint of drama rode the Republican chariots Wednesday night. The ancient gladiators appeared suit-ready. From Huckabee to Guliani, to lunacy; crisp Sarah Palin Ms. PTA with rifle made the chariot tough on turns. The Romans cheered. The placards humped the night. Fists pumped her promise to drill and procreate. VP select, Palin proudly announced that two of her kin would soon march to Iraq, heralding cheers of Republican rebirth. While she spoke, the 19 square mile 45,000 year old Markham ice shelf ran adrift and President Bush had just promised a billion to Georgia aid because, “Georgia has a strong economic foundation and leaders with an impressive record of reform.” This cross-eyed agenda served on a POW plate with perfume, teen pregnancies and a side order of Katrina whitewash.
RC Lightning // September 9, 2008 at 3:23 pm |
MROD
have you seen the latest polls that now give McCain a double digit lead with independents? The anti-Carrie Bradshaw reference was not dumb, it was extremely witty and more importantly insightful. It’s not vapid, it’s dead on in that Palin is the antithesis of the female role models put out by Hollywood in the last 10 years and of all the fictional role models the last 10 years none was lionize more as the model of the empowered modern woman than the Carrie Bradshaw character…the embodiment of vapid. Sarah is the exact opposite and will be the new role model for girls and women everywhere.
Krunky, I think the difference between the women you mention and Palin is that she has that Reaganesque charisma necessary to lead a movement. She has done the unimaginable: stolen the mantle of change and inspiration away from Barack Obama. Sarah makes Barack seem boring. McCain in a landslide. No more ACLU judges for the Supreme Court. Reason enough to believe in intelligent design.
Thanks for allowing me to post on your blog…it is very well done.