Palin as a Feminist Nightmare

I have not always been a fan of Rebecca Traister, but her recent nightmares feel very familiar to me and many of my friends. A taste:

In this strange new pro-woman tableau, feminism -- a word that is being used all over the country with regard to Palin's potential power -- means voting for someone who would limit reproductive control, access to healthcare and funding for places like Covenant House Alaska, an organization that helps unwed teen mothers. It means cheering someone who allowed women to be charged for their rape kits while she was mayor of Wasilla, who supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution, who has inquired locally about the possibility of using her position to ban children's books from the public library, who does not support the teaching of sex education.

In this "Handmaid's Tale"-inflected universe, in which femininity is worshipped but females will be denied rights, CNBC pundit Donny Deutsch tells us that we're witnessing "a new creation ... of the feminist ideal," the feminism being so ideal because instead of being voiced by hairy old bats with unattractive ideas about intellect and economy and politics and power, it's now embodied by a woman who, according to Deutsch, does what Hillary Clinton did not: "put a skirt on." "I want her watching my kids," says Deutsch. "I want her laying next to me in bed."

Welcome to 2008, the year a tough, wonky woman won a primary (lots of them, actually), an inspiring black man secured his party's nomination for the presidency, and a television talking head felt free to opine that a woman is qualified for executive office because he wants to bed her and have her watch his kids! Stop the election; I want to get off.

A Requiem for Moderate Republican Women

With all the talk about glass ceilings these days, and with the Republicans having achieved something the Democrats did 24 years ago, I think it is time to extend our formal condolences to those fine Republican leaders who have had their place in the universe demonstrated so unequivocally: Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Olympia Snowe, Christie Todd Whitman, and others -- all Republican women with much better qualifications than Palin who happen to be pro-choice moderates.

The Republican party has become dependent for its survival on the army of the religious right, and no pro-choice candidate will ever be considered viable as long as this is true. The party will continue to marginalize itself in that way (are we really going to elect someone who wants to teach creationism next to science?!) And so be it.

So to all those moderate Republican women out there -- we welcome you aboard should you decide to play in an arena that has no ceiling.

The Mommy Wars

Interviewed on NPR today, David Brooks responded to questions about Gov. Palin by saying "Oh, I thought we were over the mommy wars."

Once again progressives, and feminists in particular, get to choke till we vomit on the hypocrisy of the Republican right. It appears that all the Christian wingnuts are rallying around Gov. Palin, and suggesting that anyone who criticizes her, her choices, or her qualifications, is sexist. This is a logical extension of the enormous outcry on the part of Christian Conservatives at the media treatment of Hillary Clinton.

Or did you miss that?

So we have Phyllis Shafley, founder of the Eagle Forum, “Patton” in the mommy wars, the woman who led an entire battalion of preachers and pundits and psychologists in the second-wave assault against any woman who had the audacity to suggest that women were equal to men, making a statement for the NY Times today defending Palin’s ability to juggle her particular family’s need with her skyrocketing career.

“It changes your life and gives you a different perspective on the world,” said Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative organizer who helped defeat the equal rights amendment nearly three decades ago.

“People who don’t have children or who have only one or two are kind of overwhelmed at the notion of five children,” Ms. Schlafly continued, mentioning that she had raised six children and run for Congress as well. “I think a hard- working,well-organized C.E.O. type can handle it very well.”

But Phyllis, for years (and YEARS) you told any woman wanting to have a career (like yours, perhaps?) that they should wait until after their children were grown, just like you did. You charged any of us who lacked the freedom or inclination to be stay-at-home moms with the utmost selfishness – putting our careers ahead of our family.

And you claimed great backup: Teen pregnancy, the divorce rate, and any number of other social ills were laid at our feet – all the fault of those uppity women – by countless Dobsons, Fallwells and Reeds. And these are not the judgments of three decades ago, they are the same judgments levied today. Remember the reaction when Jamie Lynn Spears became pregnant? If women learned to take responsibility for every stupid decision made on the part of a teenage child, it’s because the Christian conservative right spent the last 25 years telling us it was so.

So I know that we are all progressive feminists, and have evolved beyond using the weapons of the right against them as is their due.

But I would like to figure out how to make them choke as much on their own words as I choke hearing them.

Hostages for Choice

Carly Fiorina has is backwards when she claims that the Democratic party has held women "hostage" over the issue of choice.

It's the other way around. It's the Republicans -- who have made the assault on a woman's right to choose a central mission for the last 20 years, and who have brought themselves very close to victory with recent Supreme Court appointments -- that have forced any self-respecting woman who wants to maintain control over her own body to vote Democratic.

One last insult before they leave

The Bush Administration has drafted new rules that would force Planned Parenthood and other health care providers to hire people who disagree with their most basic mission. From Nancy Pelosi’s blog:

While current law allows health care providers and professionals to refuse to provide abortions based on their religious beliefs, this provision would threaten the funding of organizations and health facilities if they do not hire people who would refuse to provide birth control and defines abortion so broadly that it would include many types of birth control, including oral contraception.

So as they prepare to bring their “scorched earth” strategy vis-à-vis the federal government to a close, the Bushies want to ensure that family planning organizations are forced to hire some percentage of the loonies who picket them. Great idea.

I think I’ll put on my witchiest outfit and see if they will hire me at the local Catholic Archdiocese.

What would Golda say?

I heard a story many years ago about Golda Meier, former Israeli Prime Minister, that proported to be from her time in the Israeli Parliament. I have no idea whether it is truth or folklore.

At the time, there had apparently been a steep rise in the reported number of rapes, and the concerned representatives felt moved to respond. They suggested a country-wide curfew for women, to “protect” them from the apparent predators. Rather than arguing with them about the obvious sexism that even made that suggestion a possibility, she turned it around. Golda responded that she thought it a wonderful idea, but that it seemed obvious that, were a curfew to be extended, she thought it should apply to the male half of the population. “After all, it is men committing these crimes, don’t you see?”

The proposal was, of course, immediately abandoned.

I couldn’t help but think of that when I read this, via Salon.