Watching the political theater surrounding Sarah Palin's nomination has been head-spinning in many ways.
I have worked my entire life to ensure that all women have opportunities and choices - about having children, raising families, pursuing careers, moving into professional and political leadership. To me, this represents the heart as well as the concrete accomplishments of the feminist movement. As a result of our work, and those of millions of women activists in whose high heels I followed, my daughter understands that she can pursue any dream -- mother, astronaut, computer geek, (Vice) President - the possibilities are endless.
But over the course of that struggle, it hasn't only been men who have resisted that change. Activists like Phyllis Schlafly rallied opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and insisted that women with children should stay home, that women were meant to be mothers first and should be judged on that criteria.
Now the very same Phyllis Schlafly - and her male compatriots in the Religious Right political movement - have suddenly embraced the same feminist arguments that we've been making for decades--simply to rally around John McCain and his vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.
I guess it's a sign of our cultural success that even ardent right-wing ideologues (with the notable exception of Dr. Laura) are embracing the feminist notion that a woman can simultaneously be a mother and pursue a career at the highest levels. But it's a jarring conversion. Of course, it isn't really a conversion on the principles of equality and choice but rather a political tactic that cynically uses the widespread appeal of those feminist principles to ultimately undermine them.
It's all about electing John McCain, who has repeatedly pledged to nominate Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade. It's about electing John McCain, who is promising more federal judges like those who were named by President Bush and who are systematically undermining individual Americans' legal and constitutional protections - including the principle of equal pay, environmental protection, racial justice. It's about electing John McCain, who has little regard for many of the civil rights and civil liberties that lie at the heart of the American way.
Ironically, Sarah Palin herself seems to be even more anti-feminist than McCain. She opposes equipping young women with information about potentially life-saving contraception. She opposes women having the legal option to choose abortion even in the case of rape or incest. She used her line-item veto to strike funds for a social service agency that provided assistance to young unwed mothers. She would use the power of the state to deny legal protections for women and men in same-sex relationships.
And while I am remarkably pleased that the success of our movement has been so adopted by mainstream America that even my opponents pretend they agree, I'd hate to see John McCain and Sarah Palin succeed, and have the political power and bully pulpit to impose their dangerous policies on the rest of us - and limit the choices that future generations of women will be able to make.
Women shouldn't go to war - they might die. Women aren't as strong as men so they can't go to war.
Me die, men are weak too. Aren't we using alot of technology these days?
Women need to stay at home and raise babies. Shouldn't men do that too? My dad raised me alone and it was fine.
Abortion is murder and so is birth control. So is war and killing civilians at random and dumping shovels on them and calling tehm terrorists, but that is ok I guess. So if men kill, it is ok, if women do it, it scares them.
If I am not allowed to control my body, then why should men be allowed to control there bodies? Why give them orgasms and not me? Why can't we decide that spilling seed is murder and force them not to do it?
Why didn't we put more women in power in Iraq? Why wasn't it equal so that women would be safe? It just seems to me that none of the candidates value the poor or women very much at all. They really seem to not value my civil rights or my pocketbook.
This is as rediculous as saying that there is a conservative feminism. Femist fought for equality and yes, the ability to have control of one's own body. Because without that right, we can never be truly equal. It wasn't simply about being able to work and procreate at the same time.
You can stand up for women in certain areas. You can even disagree on the issue of abortion. But you can not say you are a feminist if you stand for a party that fights against equal pay, turns its back on rape and incest victom's (and makes them pay for thier kits), or debates the rights of women to be able to use hormonal contraceptives, classifying them as abortion.
Women are not a homogeneous group - but femist are. You can't call yourself an environmentalist if you don't even recylcle. So stop stealing the name that or mothers and grandmothers fought for!
...... unless they're welfare mothers. Then they should go out and get a job.
But one political ideal that feminists can't embrace is conservatism--it is absolutely against the core of all feminist philosophies. As long as conservatism is about upholding traditional views of the authority of the father/husband and patriarchal authority in the wider cultural sphere, supports the belief that women are primarily mothers, wives and daughters (where the woman is expected to scurry back from the office to fulfil these roles), where religion restricts abortion rights, then you are not a feminist. And any party that does not stand for equal pay for equal work has no space for feminists.
Like any intellectual system, feminism has its own boundaries. If you want to jump on board, then you have to shed some beliefs. Of course, feminists will come to your rescue if you are ever in trouble, but you can't become a card-carrying member.
My mother is an amazing woman but my mother is a staunch republican and a walking contradiction.
My sister and I would jokingly call her "Thatcher" which I think she thought was a compliment. The women like Palin, Thatcher, Schlafly, and, I dare say, my mother see their professional and familial successes circumstantial. If they were not forced or compelled by a calling, they are convinced that they wouldn't have done it.
Of course this is delusional. These women are unable to deal with their ability, ambition and self worth. My republican mother boarded a ship to America at age nineteen to escape an arranged marriage, taught herself English, and became an accountant.
These women are stuck in a paradox; guilt for leaving their traditional role but also emboldened by feeling that they are fighting the good fight; "the likes of themselves" back into the dark ages.
Has anyone watched a more desperately confused woman than Ann Coulter? "I want to look like a Barbie, strip myself of rights, act like a drunken sailor (the vicious kind), and get ahead when no one's looking." She'll tear down anyone, even 9/11 widows to prove to everyone that she is a serious crusader, and real crusaders, should have no restraint, (Uh, Oh another success, whoops!).
Plenty of friends for me to have a beer with. I'm looking for leaders that understand and are able to react to the complexities of this world much better than I ever could.
And stop categorizing all feminists in the man-hating category. That's usually reserved for us lesbians.
And yes, I'm a single mother, raised my child without child support because reciprical child support laws weren't in existence then.
Also, she's lucky she has the luxury of reproductive freedom, the right to choose her destiny, something the anti-feminists, fundamentalists seek to deny every woman in the US of A.
Why don't you list all the "other victim-oriented issues" that make her eyes glaze over so we know about which you are talking.
Congratulations! You've succeeded in raising an unfeeling, ungrateful little snot.
But of course REAL feminists know that feminism is about giving women choices in the roles they want to play. For a real feminist, being a bad mother/wife does not subtract from her professional success—just as being a bad husband did not impact on people’s perception of Bill Clinton’s ability to be a good president. For a real feminist, a woman doesn’t have to be a (good) wife and (good) mother if she doesn’t want to.
There is an extreme urgency in women taking back the meaning of feminism. A couple of days ago, a Fox News anchor said the trouble with Democratic Party women is that they insist only on their brand of liberal feminism, and can’t see that conservative women can have their own type of feminism. There is no such thing as a conservative feminism—that is a contradiction in terms. Conservatives are anti-choice in abortion, and feminism is about giving choices to women. Conservatives prop up patriarchal culture, and feminism is about dismantling that.
Conservative 'feminism' insists that women are primarily mothers and wives. That is anti-choice. Choice is an essential, core feature of feminism. There are many schools of feminism: liberal, radical, Marxist, queer and cyber feminisms. But they are ALL on the side of choice. That's why I'm saying conservative feminism is a contradiction in terms. Conservative 'feminism' encourages careers for women, BUT NOT at the expense of their 'primary' roles. Rather it identifies feminists as those that can be mother/wife AND career woman (the superwoman). Expose Palin as a neglecting mother and wife, and conservatives wouldn't consider her a 'feminist' any more. That's very different from AUTHENTIC feminist positions, which don't believe that women need to be superwomen any more than men have to be supermen. The 'superwomen' concept is a strategy to make women work harder than men for the same rights and privileges.
Women are absolutely free to choose to be good wives/mothers. But as soon as they tout that as a superior or essential way of being women, they are not feminists.
Conservatives are free to come up with their own brand of 'womanism'. As an intellectual movement, feminism arose in opposition to conservatism. Why can't conservative women invent their own name for their own movement? Why do they insist on stealing the name of an intellectual movement when they can't honour that movement's core beliefs?
And let’s face it—is it truly possible for anyone to raise five children, one of whom is a child with Downs Syndrome, and make it all the way to the top in that man-eat-man world of politics? Of course not. I’ll wager she has PLENTY of help (from husband, mum, in-laws, siblings) in raising her family. I’ll wager that she plays an extremely marginal, a token role, in family matters.
It is feminists who made it possible for women to hold a claim over thier own children. It was feminists who won the vote for women. It was feminists who won the right for women to own property, it was feminists who made it dishonorable to beat your wife for any old reason you wanted to.
Kathryn, Your article doesn't convey for me the political urgency for women of what is happening here with the McCain-Palin camp--the very concept of feminism is being hijacked, and re-interpreted in right-wing terms. If the Republicans win, the signifier "feminism" is going to mean quite the opposite of what it now stands for, and it will be a long time before feminists can take back that word. This is a war of semiotics but, unfortunately, there appears to be so much ambivalence about feminist theory even among progressive women that nobody is throwing their hat into the ring to challenge the republicans' understanding of that term.
Feminism is not just about equal rights and equal opportunities. It is also about challenging the hegemony of patriarchal culture. It's about women being given the space to live kinder lives, to push for a more compassionate society, to challenge the patriarchal mindset that is brought to governance. You CAN'T be a feminist and a conservative/fundamentalist. Being feminist is about pushing against conservative/fundamentalist boundaries.
Re equipping young women with information about contraception, Palin favors distributing information about condoms. see: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-sexed6-2008sep06,0,3119305.story
She opposes gay marriage, but she vetoed a bill that would have denied employee benefits to same -sex partners.
Question: New car shows, wrestling matches, ads for most anything, vice squads on a raid, John McCain. What do these all have in common? Answer: They all use a woman to lure the people in. Darn feminists!
But seriously, Sarah Palin set us back by decades when she implied that she can take care of a family and a career, no problem. Truth is, nobody can, man or woman. In order to carry the responsibility for two important careers, parenthood and, say, governor of a state, you need staff. You need it at the office, and you need it at home. You become a parent manager, and you have staff (spouse, oldest siblings, nanny, housekeeper, diaper service, takeout food etc) to do the heavy lifting. Someone still has to get the kids to hockey practice, talk to them about safe sex, and tuck them in at night, even if you are out of town, or sick, or in a long meeting at work you can’t break out of. This is the same for men and for women. How many men can you name that hold a demanding position in government and also take care of their home and children single handedly? Without a spouse and/or domestic staff and fee-based services? In high heels? Now, how about just regular men, middle class men? Let's share the load equally, it'll be good for all of us.