Gloria Steinem, My Hero, on Sarah Palin September 15, 2008

I love Gloria.  She just rules.  I just don’t think I could have said it anywhere close to better than she did in this LA Times Op-ed piece:

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message

Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008

Here’s the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing — the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party — are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women — and to many men too — who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the “white-male-only” sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won’t work. 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. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie.

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  Photos: Sarah Palin, north star

• Join the reader discussion on Gloria Steinem’s Op-Ed article

• Sarah Palin as Alaska National Guard commander

• Palin appears to disagree with McCain on sex education

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s candidacy stood for — and that Barack Obama’s still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, “Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.”

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can’t do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn’t say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden’s 37 years’ experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn’t know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, “I still can’t answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?” When asked about Iraq, she said, “I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.”

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. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate’s views on “God, guns and gays” ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

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; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin’s value to those patriarchs is clear: She 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. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don’t doubt her sincerity. 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.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, “women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership,” so he may be voting for Palin’s husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can’t appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can’t be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women’s Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

Thank you so much Gloria for clarifying those points for me, and for many other voters.

Come to Long Beach, Sarah Palin! Check Out Our Ports!!! September 12, 2008

I last posted about my annoyance with Sarah Palin’s insinuation that small towns are the only towns that matter, and today I’ve had my worst concerns confirmed.  It seems further that Sarah Palin would have the urban residents of Los Angeles and Long Beach suffer health problems so that her rural Alaskan residents can have cheap goods.  I guess we just aren’t as important as Alaskans.

The LA Times just published a story about Sarah Palin’s recent letter to Governor Schwarzenegger asking him to veto Senate Bill 974, which would charge $60 per 40 foot container moving through the port of Los Angeles (including the ports in Long Beach), using the approximately $400 million annually generated for pollution-reduction projects.  As a Long Beach resident I take issue with politicians from other states urging our Governor to go against the wishes of the citizens of this state.  Especially politicians who apparently don’t really know what a city looks like.

The ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach are busy…and that is good for everyone…but the pollution created by such business is not good for everyone.  Recently NPR did a story on the negative health effects of the pollution in the Long Beach port.  You can read it here.  There is a very good reason why our lawmakers, particularly Alan Lowenthal (who offered to amend the Bill by cutting the fee to $30 for the loading of goods from one container to the next without the use of rail or truck, roundly rejected by Palin), want to tax these containers…because the residents in these areas are feeling the effects of the pollution created.  The residents have spoken to their respresentatives and Bill 974 is their answer.

I’ve seen the effects of the pollution firsthand.  People who live close to the ports often have severe allergies and asthma.  Of course, they put up with these ailments because the rent in the area is so cheap.   There are families who live in these areas…families with children as small as Palin’s little Trig.

Why should Long Beach and Los Angeles families pay with their health because Alaskans want to live in rural areas and get cheap goods?  Build your own port!  Live closer to the coast!  Come check out Long Beach, Sarah Palin!  If you want to live in a rural, small town, there’s a price to pay too.  Maybe you all can use those nice oil dividends to pay for your pricey goods.  Palin doesn’t seem to have a problem taxing industries for the sake of the citizens in her state…why should we do something in California that Palin would never do in Alaska?

I’m very curious to see how Schwarzenegger handles this one.

Palin’s Myth of Urban Immorality September 4, 2008

Sarah Palin did a good job last night. She came out swinging and, as a liberal, that makes me nervous. She’s a surprisingly good speaker, considering that her usual audience is much smaller. I’m liberal, but I try to stay open-minded. A lot of what Palin addresses, I’m just not decided on yet…take Alaskan oil drilling. I think Palin and the Republican party might have something there…there is something to be said for using our own resources, rather than expecting developing nations to ruin their ecosystems and deplete their resources.

But there was something else that Palin said that shocked and angered me…

Said Sarah Palin:

“A writer observed: ‘We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity.’ I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.

I grew up with those people.

They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America … who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars.

They love their country, in good times and bad, and they’re always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town.”

I grew up in a small town too. But I don’t live in one now…and for very good reasons. The kind of small town that Harry Truman came from is very different today, and even very different than the one I grew up in in the mid-80’s, during the Reagan years.

It may be true that many small-town Americans grow our food, and even some run our factories…but people who live in the city fight our wars too. People who live in the city work hard too. It IS a privilege to live in a small town. Many people who live in the city can’t afford to live in those rural communities. That’s why they are in the city…for the jobs. Many live in cramped quarters because they can’t make a living in those rural towns. There are factories in small towns and in big cities. Big cities are where those products made in factories are sold and distributed to the world. Big cities are where you can see the ingenuity, the ambition, the hard work and the industry that America is famous for demonstrated in the daily comings and goings of every resident.  We are a busy, industrious country and there’s no better place to witness that than in the city.

Palin would have us believe that people who don’t live in small towns aren’t patriotic, don’t work hard, and don’t fight our wars. She’d have us believe that small-town people are somehow morally better than “city folk,” as if all small-town residents spend their entire lives in small towns, as if “city folk” didn’t come from small towns, as if living in the city taints you and makes you a bad person. Well, there is more crime in the city, isn’t there? I mean, don’t people in the city do bad things?

In the small town that I grew up in, a man was murdered during a drug deal, there was prostitution, there was drug smuggling, there were gangs. There were also class divides and corruption of city officials. There were illegal immigrants, and just about every farm employed them, along with the restaurants and businesses in town. Not everyone was religious, but the good people who went to church were often at cultural war with those who didn’t share their brand of faith. There were also many wonderful things about that small town…it was beautiful, many people truly were hard-working and up-right people. (Then again, that small town was in rural California, and according to many conservatives in other states, California isn’t really in America, or on this planet.)

When I moved to the city to go to college, I met the love of my life and we stayed. It just seemed right that we settle where we fell in love. It felt like home to us. I’ve lived in the city now for about ten years, and I find that many of the hard-working and up-right people I knew in my small hometown are here in the city with me too. My neighbors love our country just as much as the Americans who live in those little towns in Alaska and the Heartland. On holidays the American flag flies proudly from our lawns and flag holders. We have families and jobs. We get married and go to church. Young men and women straight out of high school enlist in the military. City people even pray.

Cities are a part of America. Cities provide our military with enlisted men and women. Cities facilitate industry. Cities provide jobs for millions of people. American cities are part of what make this country great. I’m sorry, Sarah Palin, but small-town America isn’t the only America. Think of the Big Apple. Think of the port of Los Angeles, shipping and bringing in all those goods from the coast to the center of America. Think of the gorgeous majesty of San Francisco. Think of the rich history and legacy of cities like Chicago and Detroit. Think of the home of our president, Washington D.C. Sure, there are downsides to these places, but I think Palin is overlooking some of the reasons why cities are so attractive to millions of Americans. Small-towns aren’t without their share of problems. Oh, and one more thing…people vote in cities too.

Palin’s Daughter is Pregnant?! September 1, 2008

What kind of an example are we setting for teenagers across the world when we endorse a candidate who couldn’t seem to model the very morals and socially conservative platform that she hopes to sign into law for everyone else in the nation?  What conclusion can kids come to except, “What’s good for Bristol Palin must be good for me.”

This ticket is becoming too much like a Jerry Springer episode.

What’s Wrong with this Palin Picture? September 1, 2008

Many of the pictures I’ve seen of Sarah Palin, Republican vice presidential candidate, on the internet have been very close to cheesecake shots. In fact, I’ve seen already some air-brushed pin-ups of Palin in a thong bending over a football. I’ve also seen her hot-to-trot head shot baring her shoulders, and I’ve seen her up-do’s, the Vogue cover and family photos with the Alaskan landscape beautifully rolling itself out behind them. There’s no doubt she’s a beautiful woman. Very photogenic. Her family looks like a happy and healthy one. But pictures can be deceiving.

She’s being marketed as a perfect mother, qualified statesman and the dressed up version of those bikini-wearing, machine-gun toting babes who smile at us from websites like Gungirls.com. I’m wondering today, how that represents middle America exactly. Yes, it may be that Americans living in the Heartland want the right to tote guns and consider themselves pro-family, but how many middle American women would leave their three-month child with Downs syndrome home with Daddy (or nanny?) to campaign on the road…even for the vice presidency? Where are the family values there? I know we need women to represent in politics, but this seems to fly in the face of all the “family values” rhetoric that has been slung at working mothers for the past few decades…basically as a backlash against the women’s movement, and the idea that women can work and have a family.

Don’t get me wrong…I believe that women can work and have a family, but we need the rest of society to get in line with that idea, mainly so that women, like Sarah Palin, can spend the time with their newborn babies without having their careers penalized. I’m all for the ‘whole package’…husband, family, career…I think we can do it. But when we have groups of Americans (mainly conservatives) slandering women who work (whether they have to or not), and then Palin, who presumably represents these Americans, on the campaign trail with such a small baby…well, I have to ask, where are the critics now? Working women, like Sarah Palin, need support…both from their families and from institutions…in order to make the ‘whole package’ work.

We need government institutions and individuals alike to support paid maternity and paternity leave for all mothers and fathers of babies under one year. I think it’s wonderful that Palin is working and has the support of her husband and family (and maybe even a nanny, that remains to be seen), but not all American women have that kind of support. Not everyone has the family structure and support that Palin does.

Take me for instance.

My mother helps my sister to raise her son alone. Like Palin, when my sister found herself pregnant, but in a less than ideal situation (Dad wasn’t really around to help and wasn’t sure he wanted to participate), she decided to have the baby anyway. As a result, our whole family had to woman-up (as I call it). We rallied around her. We babysat while she finished her college degree. We took turns shuttling my nephew around town. After college my sister moved back in with our mother and went to work, and now my mother and our other sister help offset the outrageous cost of childcare. When I decided to get married and have children of my own, I had to take time away from my career as a college instructor and writer to stay home with my children. That also meant that there was one less babysitter for my sister. While I wanted to be close to the kids for the first year anyway, even if I hadn’t wanted to stay home for the first year, I had to because my family was centered around helping my sister…and rightly so since she needed the help more than I did. Our entire family makes do. I make enough at my job to necessitate working to help pay the bills (our mortgage being increasingly difficult to cover), but the childcare that we must pay for in order for me to work is just insane.

Nevertheless, you can see the difficulties there. You can call me a “whiner,” but I’m not whining. I think we are lucky, because I’ve heard from women in much more difficult and desperate situations.

I hope that when Palin’s riding that anti-abortion platform in the next couple of months that she thinks of the consequences of reversing Roe vs. Wade. How will all these women support their saved babies? With divorce rates settled around 50-60%, how will all these single mothers work and raise their children without affordable childcare, health benefits and government institutions that help single mothers and fathers afford food, shelter and utilities? I hope Palin thinks about all those dreaded taxes and government institutions that the country will need to help support the families that are created with such legislation.

I also wonder how good it is for Sarah Palin’s little child to have his mother campaigning at such a critical juncture in his life. Before we all start calling Palin “one of us” let’s think about what our lives are really like as mothers. How much is her life like ours? Clearly, she’s a politician first and foremost, and her other roles take a backseat. That’s fine with me…but how do social conservatives feel about that? I’m just wondering out loud.