A Feminist View
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| Wed, 09-24-2008 - 6:43pm |
http://www.salemnews.com/puopinion/local_story_266231148.html
>>My View: This feminist won't be voting for McCain/Palin
by Kathy L. Abbott, Salem Evening News, September 23, 2008
It's hard these days to figure out what a feminist looks like.
A hundred years ago any woman asking for the right to vote was deemed a feminist. Today it's not just going to the voting booth that makes you a feminist, but who you vote for once you're inside.
Fifty years ago demanding the right to work made you a feminist. (Even I remember the pain of hearing my high-school English teacher tell us that it made no sense to hire women. They were just going to get married, get pregnant, and quit anyway, so why not give the job to a man in the first place.) Today women are not only expected to work, they are also expected to pull double duty and raise their children at the same time.
Forty years ago asking for the right to choose an abortion automatically made you a feminist. Today abortion is often seen as a religious decision rather than a woman's issue.
Thirty years ago a woman had to fight to keep her maiden name. Today my lesbian niece fights to have the same last name as her legally married partner.
What does a feminist look like today? All my life I've been an active feminist. But these days when I advise women to breast-feed their babies for at least two years, people often think that my advice implies that I don't value a woman's right to work. (I'm a professional lactation consultant. Two years is the recommendation from the World Health Organization.)
When I was young I worked hard for a woman's right to work and to push through all those glass ceilings. Now that I've been a mother for 11 years, I find myself working equally hard for the right to stay home and do what only a woman can do — mother her own babies.
I find it scandalous that the United States is one of only three countries in the world that does not legally guarantee a woman's right to maternity leave (paid or unpaid).
For me, becoming a mother radically changed my outlook on what a feminist should look like. Because only women can get pregnant, give birth, or breast-feed, I now see the issues surrounding these events as not only women's issues, but as feminist issues. When women are discriminated against for choosing the "mommy track" or for demanding a decent six months off for maternity leave, or fighting for the right to pump their breasts at work (nurses and teachers have to fight the hardest for this one!), I feel compelled to raise my voice in solidarity. For me, accommodating the realities of motherhood is the greatest feminist issue we face today!
As for abortion, getting pregnant made me rethink that as well. Because I was 38 when I got pregnant I was at a high risk for Down syndrome. Before conceiving, my husband and I talked about terminating if tests showed a high probability of risk.
But then I actually got pregnant. Despite my husband's wishes I refused to even take the test. I was ready and wanted this baby, normal or not.
It shocked me that I would feel so strongly about this. But the bottom line was it was my choice, not my husband's, not my government's, but mine alone. It was a choice only I could make. I intend to fight for my daughter's right to choose as well.
So what does a feminist look like today?
On the surface Sarah Palin does look like a feminist. She's a working mom who not only votes but who has risen high in political office. But what I see is a politician who has taken a very strong stand against a woman's right to choose an abortion. What I see is the mother of a 4-month-old baby with Down syndrome who is not only working as the governor of a large state, but is now running for vice president.
Here I am fighting to give women the right to stay at home with their newborns for at least six months, and Palin is out there using her 4-month-old infant for photo-ops in a run for the White House.
Today a feminist looks very different to me than when I was in my 20s. Today, in my mind at least, a feminist is a person, male or female, who fights for equal rights for women, who fights for a woman's right to determine what happens to her body, and who fights for her right to actively mother her own children.
Times change, the things we fight for change, the face of feminism changes. Thirty years ago I would have been overjoyed to see a woman on the GOP ticket. I would have automatically assumed that she was a feminist and that we shared the same values.
But today it is clear that Palin and I do not share the same values. For 30 years I have let my feminist values determine which lever I will pull when I step into the voting booth, and this year will be no different.
So please tell Sen. McCain that even though I think it was a gutsy move to put a woman on his ticket, the woman he chose does not in my mind represent today's feminists. And because he chose Sarah Palin, Sen. McCain will not be getting my vote this year. <<



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Yep, it was another version of "Sarah Palin is a fake feminist". What I have to question is, do these feminists understand that by bashing other women they are actually alienating a large portion of the people they profess to be fighting for??
Yes, makes good sense.
>>I've read so many articles screaming how Palin is the anti-feminist that I don't see her as suddenly being thrust forward as the epitomy of feminism. <<
I guess I'm coming from the same place as the author, it seems as it Palin is being thrust as a representative feminist, and I haven't read a lot about her as anti-feminist. Obviously, when I do, it catches my attention.
I agree on both counts ...esp the general bashing of women and alienating them.
I feel that way mainly b/c in the process of reading it, Palin wasn't my foremost thought .. *I* was.
>>>"Here I am fighting to give women the right to stay at home with their newborns for at least six months, and Palin is out there using her 4-month-old infant for photo-ops in a run for the White House."
Are you fighting for this right so that women have a CHOICE, or were you planning to FORCE a woman to exercise her full six month leave? And if she chose not to exercise her "feminist-won right," would she be less of a feminist? Less of a mother? Less of a WOMAN?
>>>"For me, accommodating the realities of motherhood is the greatest feminist issue we face today!"
What about CHOICE in accommodating the realities of motherhood? YOUR reality of motherhood ISN'T the reality of motherhood for OTHER WOMEN! Accommodating the CHOICES of mothers to create a motherhood that works for THEM is something I can stand behind, but I don't want any part of the feminism of motherhood if I can't create the balance of work, child and family that meets MY ideals. Why aren't you and your motherhood feminists fighting for women to have the CHOICE to bring their children to work or stay at home? I brought my son to law school for 6 months and then to work for 6 months. I loved being with him more than I loved practicing law, so I quit and came home and had 5 more kids. Do I wish I had taken six months off? NO! I was a full time mother AND a full time student at the same time, and I never parted from my baby ONCE. Did I have options and take advantage of my freedom to choose for myself? YES. Did I allow men or society or you to tell me what to do and how? NO. Does that make me a free thinking woman who created my own ideal situation around my personal endeavors, my parental endeavors and my family endeavors? OF COURSE IT DOES!
Where there are no choices, feminism preaches tolerance and choices. But in every area where women HAVE a choice, feminism preaches intolerance to those who choose anything but what is the "proper feminist choice of the day." Feminism wants the right to choose abortion, but does feminism respect as feminists those who still don't CHOOSE abortion for themselves? No. Those are the women setting feminism back into the '50s with back alley coathanger jobs.
It seems, based on your issue with Palin's choice to work and be a mother at the same time, that your narrow description of feminism doesn't tolerate women who make choices with which you don't agree. I guess I am the wrong kind of woman to fit your little tiny definition. Sarah Palin sure is, because she doesn't fit into your tiny little scenario, and didn't make the choice YOU would have made, or that you WANT HER TO MAKE to forward YOUR AGENDA. That's NOT choice. THAT is bigotry as the dictionary defines it.
I thought feminism was about women being free to choose whatever their values lead them to choose without judgment, scorn or reprimand. I thought feminism was about a culture that was open to women letting their womanhood guide their choices without fear that their choices would be curtailed by their womanhood. Seems the feminists like to dish the reprimands for those women who don't make the right feminist choices.
Feminism isn't about freedom of choice, it's about limiting choice to attempt to create a single definition and a culture of women who all fit the same description. If you don't do it the feminist's way, you're doing it wrong, you're setting us back, you're destroying the culture, you're erasing years of burnt bras and free clinic abortions. I am a woman, and I decide what's right for me. And I don't want or need to be a part of your narrowly defined, limited option feminist exclusionist club to do so. My vagina is part of my anatomy, but what I do with it and how that impacts my life is only a part of who I am. I guess I'm not a feminist. But with feminists like these, who needs enemies?
It seems the real feminists are women who are willing to trade letting the MEN decide what's right for women for letting the FEMINISTS decide what's right for women. NO THANKS.
ITA!
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"...is the fact that she acts like a puppet. Her speeches are written for her..."
Just to let you know, every campaigning politician has dozens of speechwriters. If you think any politician writes their own speech, I dare say you'd be sadly disappointed.
>>>"it seems as it Palin is being thrust as a representative feminist"
By whom? The Republicans typically don't align with feminists, and don't typically thrust their candidates into that pool.
Please cite sources--I haven't read anything to that effect at all.
"if your post is the definition of feminist ... I am proud to declare I am NOT one."
AAAAAAAAAMEN, SISTER!!
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