I hate being in this position.
I truly do.
The blog I edit is an anti-racist one. That is our focus. It is staffed entirely by women. We prefer not to deal with sexism, either. So, in a nutshell, covering this election has been a pain in the ass. As the main moderator, I get in fights all the time with readers about everything under the sun.
“No, you don’t have to like Barack Obama to be on our site. No, we didn’t think that was sexist. Okay, I’ll put up a thread about it. No, that’s not true. No, I said stop that now. WTF? Why are you comparing him to OJ?!?”
“No, you shouldn’t use sexist language against Hillary Clinton. Yes, I can read, I saw those remarks. I don’t care if you don’t like her, there are other ways to make your point. No, that nickname is not cute. I don’t give a damn what you *think* you’re saying in the comment, spell her name right or it isn’t getting approved!”
The election cycle threw a spotlight on the uneasy territory alliances we have working around issues of prejudice, and every couple minutes, there is a new hotspot waiting to flare up.
I got sent an article last week, which basically read “Black women can’t complain about the sexism aimed at Michelle Obama because you didn’t stand up for Hillary!”
I had Nadra respond. In an even handed response, she notes: “It wasn’t that black women felt that privileged white women couldn’t speak out against sexism. It was that, during the primaries, such white women seemed to be doing so at the expense of blacks.” And even in that comment thread, tempers flared around all the past dealings and past hurts. (If you comment on that thread, please read *all* the submissions first, so you have an idea of the flow of the conversation.)
So, when Sarah Palin hit the scene, I was expecting a break.
She’s a Republican. An anti-choicer. She fully drank the kool-aid about Iraq, Oil, Iran and everything. There is no way I am going to have to argue against her AND defend her, right?
Wrong!
Carmen called it out first, noting in the comments section to the open thread:
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
A few random thoughts:
1) Palin (or her speechwriter) has a killer instinct for soundbites. There’s a reason every single media outlet is repeating that line about pitbull and lipstick ad nauseum.
2) I’m not down with criticism of Palin centered on her ability to balance the VP job and her large family and young baby (e.g. the last point in John Riley’s piece). She has a stay-at-home husband for god’s sake. We would not be asking these questions if she were a man.
3) Related to point 2, Obama supporters really need to avoid falling into the trap of using sexist and racist attacks on the McCain camp. I’ve seen a couple bloggers I otherwise respect using words like “cracker” and “ho” to describe McCain, his wife, and Palin. You can’t criticize sexist/racist attacks on the Obamas if you’re doing the exact same shit.
Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 12:00 pm ¶ (Edit)
Some readers agreed – some pushed back hard.
Nina wrote:
Carmen, I have to disagree that questions about Palin’s family and how it will afffect her leadership are off limits. Palin constantly brings up her son going to Iraq, her special needs newborn, and now her pregnant teenage daughter. She even gave a cover interview to People Magazine about these topics. Why should she not be asked about these situations and why should such questions be considered sexist? John Edwards was questioned about continuing to run for office when his wife’s cancer returned and that was far less of a political issue than the war in Iraq, abstinence-only sex education or the abortion debate*.
Furthermore, as a mother in the workforce, Palin should shine a light on the challenges faced by working mothers and possibly champion change in that area. She should not shy away from these questions nor claim they are sexist. These are womens issues. Millions of women have to make tough choices everyday about when to become mothers, whether to stay at home with their children or whether to work. If Palin can’t bring these issues to the forefront what kind of a maverick is she?
*I always find it interesting that Republicans refuse to respond to questions about their families (Cheney’s lesbian daughter, Bush’s daughters’ drunken antics) but have no problem attacking the families of democrats (remember the mud heaped on both Jimmy Carter’s and Bill Clinton’s wayward brothers?)
Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 5:52 pm ¶ (Edit)
Winn wrote:
@ Nina: cosign! I find it interesting that Palin has used her family as evidence of her conservative and traditional family values bona fides, but questioning her about how she will balance the demands of that family, particularly with respect to a special needs child and a pregnant teenager, with the responsibility of holding the second highest office in the land, is sexist and off-limits?
As was pointed out, John Edwards’ commitment to his family was questioned when he elected to stay in the race after the recurrence of his wife’s cancer. There were several articles talking about Rudy Giuliani’s strained relationship with his children, their failure to participate in his presidential bid, and wondering if his overarching ambition had irreparably damaged his relationship with his children. The clear implication was, he couldn’t manage his own household, so how fit was he to lead the country? I also recall reading articles questioning whether Mitt Romney’s “too perfect” family would backfire on him as the campaign wore on and people found him too difficult to identify with and suggested that something was phony about him. So how candidates present and interact with their families plays a role in how they are perceived by the electorate, for good or ill, and if carefully navigated, can be legitimate lines of inquiry to pursue.
In fact, in an article on Romney last year in the LA Times, an audience member at a stump speech in which Romney exhorted the crowd to encourage stronger families by teaching teenagers to marry before having children (natch!) nodded appreciatively and said, “If you can’t run a family, how can you run a country”? I’m not saying I agree with this sentiment, but I don’t think the people who do only feel that way about female candidates, especially ones who put their family at the top of their professional resume.
Michelle wrote:
Hey Carmen and LaToya and the rest…
I completely agree with you. No one would ask about her ability to lead the country with five kids at home if she were a man. However, and this is important to me, so far she has presented herself as someone with very traditional values. In a traditional, Christian paradigm, the brunt of the work of raising and caring for children falls on the mother’s shoulders. If that is not the case for her then she should address it. I only bring it up because of the model of parenting that she seems to present, not because she is a woman with kids. Because she is woman with kids who makes it seem like she doesn’t believe in childcare, that she can do it alone. Her husband does have a job. He has two. He works a union job and he is a commercial fisherman. I would like to know if he plans to quit both jobs and stay home with the kids. Lastly, even if he does, it takes a lot more than one person to care for an infant with special needs, a pregnant teenager, and two other small children. I think it only advances the cause of working women if Palin would say that she will need help, that her family will need adequate childcare, just like all working women need adequate childcare. I have a problem with women who make it seem like other women are “whining” when they complain about needing childcare so that they can work and care for their families. Lastly, and this is also important to me, she doesn’t believe in birth control. So, I think it is important to ask if she will be getting pregnant while in office. I think that is a very good question. While pregnancy is not a health issue in general, for someone of her age, it would be a high risk pregnancy. That is something that we need to really be clear on before her ability to lead the nation is really ascertained.
Our readers raise great points. I was still mulling over them, and trying to figure out a way to respond when I checked in with one of my favorite bloggers. Expecting a post on careers, I was a little surprised at the heading.
Penelope Trunk’s headline was “Palin’s children should take priority over being Vice President.”
Penelope Trunk has a lot of opinions. Some of them are fairly unfemininst. Some of them are off the wall. Some of them are fucking ridiculous. But I love Penelope Trunk, I bought Brazen Careerist, and I read her blog as soon as she posts something because she has a knack for thinking about things in a completely different way.
And she is the only career writer I know being honest about how hard these decisions to excel are for women. Not in a “stay at home and be happy” kind of way, but in a “understand the costs going in, understand you can’t do it all” kind of way.
So I was kind of shocked when she came out so hard against Palin, as she blogs so extensively about the issues women face trying to advance at work.
Penelope writes:
Okay. Look. I wasn’t going to tell you what I think of Sarah Palin, but so many people are asking, so fine. Here it is. She is nuts. And the Republicans are nuts for putting her on a ticket. She has a five-month-old kid with Down’s Syndrome.
Why is no one writing about this? I have a special needs kid. I have two. Here’s what happens when you have a special needs kid. You are in shock. You love the kid. I loved my first one so much that even though there was something like an 80% chance of having another kid with autism, I had a second kid.
And guess what? The second kid had a different disability than the first. Amazing. Statistically phenomenal, really. But my point here is that I’m very qualified to tell you what it’s like to be a breadwinner mom of a five-month-old special needs kid. And, it’s not just from my perspective. I am a magnet for breadwinner moms. They constantly write to me. And when I write about this topic—being the breadwinner and having a special needs kid—women come out of the woodwork. They all say exactly what I’m telling you now: it’s insane. It’s insanely hard.
She then talks about the strain on the marriage, and the difficulties with having a stay at home husband who is accustomed to working. (Penelope Trunk is currently going through a divorce with her former stay at home husband. She has also blogged about this extensively.)
I know that I’m going to be reminded me that I have a nanny, a house manager, and a cleaning woman (who actually shows up every day). But I also have a job that allows me to leave at 2:30. It’s a compromise for me. Because every parent in the world has had to compromise, and it’s fair to judge public figures on the choices they make.
Fair point. She has written about employing home help as a way to continue with your career. Many women get tripped up trying to be supermom, to do everything, to keep the house spotless, all of that – and Trunk argues it is wasted energy. Figure out how much you earn per hour, and what you can pay someone else to do for less. That frees up your time to earn more. But back to Palin -
Why is no one talking about this? The Republicans should dump Palin. She’s got too much responsibility at home.
Don’t tell me that this is not fair to women. Because you know what? People should have railed against John Edwards running for President when he had two young kids at home and a wife fighting cancer. Fine if she wants him to run for office while she fights the cancer. I get it. But I don’t get how the President of the United States was going to have time to console two school age kids about their mom’s death while leading the country. It’s irresponsible.
I know it’s not cool to tell people how to parent. I know it’s not cool because every day someone asks me how I run my company when I have two young kids and what they are really saying is “you suck as a parent.” It’s hard to hear every day, so I have empathy for the idea that everyone should shut up about how other people parent.
But it’s absurd how extreme these presidential-wanna-be cases are. I don’t want someone in the White House who has kids at home who desperately need them. I don’t want to watch that scenario unfold on national TV. So at some point, it must be okay to speak up. At some point we have to say that we have standards for parenting and we want the community to uphold them.
Penelope seems like she is on shaky ground here, but if you look at her archives, she is actually a very strong proponent of holding both genders accountable for child abandonment in the name of work:
Recently, Wellpoint dismissed its CFO, David Colby. Wellpoint cites personal reasons. The LA Times tells us that it’s the numerous mistresses he was leading supposedly exclusive relationships with. The problem here is not that executives cheat on their wives. They do it all the time. What we can take from the Wellpoint dismissal is that big companies value discretion when it comes to cheating on a wife. Three at once, and they’re all talking – that’s too much for a board to take.
But here’s the bottom line from all this corporate discipline hoopla: Senior executives must lead their personal lives in accordance with the values of corporate boards. Their personal life is no longer their own, according to Shelly Lazarus, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather.
Thank goodness these boards do not value fathering, or else there would be no one to run the Fortune 500. Because there appears to be little room for parenting if you’re at the very top.
Fortune magazine ran an article about Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony. He is married with two children and is quoted as saying at company meeting, “I don’t see my family much. My family is you.”
Fortune ran a profile of Jeff Immelt, chief executive of GE. Immelt said that he has been working 100-hour weeks for the last twenty years. He also said that he is married and they have an eighteen year-old-daughter.
I can’t decide which is more pathetic – the way these men approach their role as a parent, or the way that Fortune magazine writes about it without any commentary.
How can there be no mention of the fact that these CEOs are neglecting their kids?
We have a double standard in our society: If you are poor and you abandon your kids you are a bad parent. But if you are rich and you abandon them to run a company, you are profiled in Fortune magazine.
And she’s right.
I am absolutely chafing that Palin is being targeted as unfit for the Vice Presidency because of ideas rooted in gender norms. But I feel like Penelope (and my readers) also have a point.
So, maybe we should be changing the narrative a little.
Instead of “How can Sarah Palin run for VP and manage a family?” should we ask “How can we define family values when running for public office?” (Especially when dealing with the party that wraps itself in “family values.”) Or, should we even be asking these questions at all?
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I don’t worry about all that domestic shit because, as our current President shows, executives can exist merely as figureheads to sock-puppet the monstrous ideas of neo-conservatives, oil company executives, and the avaricious upper-upper-class at the expense of 99.998% of the electorate.
A McCain campaign adviser recently said that “this campaign is not about ideas,” which only works to the GOP’s benefit if the bullshit notion that somebody’s life story trumps health insurance and sane foreign policy prevails. As Senator Biden said inresponse to Governor Palin’s speech: “I didn’t hear the phrase ‘middle class.’ I didn’t hear a single word about health care. I didn’t hear a single word about helping people get to college.” The GOP wants to keep it that way, obviously.
When feminists tell women that they can not have a career because they have to raise the kids first, then I have to ask, what is feminism about?
I covered something like this in a short blog entry the other day: I usually don’t think that a politician’s familial situation should matter at all. Under normal circumstances, a person running for vice president should be judged on her policies and track record – neither of which endear Sarah Palin to me, anyway.
I don’t think that “it’s wrong for her to do the job” is a valid argument. Her ability to do it might be, but not a moral judgement on her. “She should look after Trig” is not as valid an argument as “She’ll abandon her duties for Trig”. Harsh as it may sound, you’re electing a vice president, not telling a woman how to raise a child.
But when someone’s running on ‘family values’, then it becomes fair game: when someone’s famly situation demonstrates that their policies are a) hypocritical or b) not viable.
If McCain and Palin were espousing a law to force mothers of disabled children to be full time carers, or some other policy that created problems for Downs sufferers and their families, I’d want to see conversation about Trig. Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, he’s off limits. However, they are running on an anti-choice, abstinence-only platform, and therefore I think it’s entirely relevent to point at Bristol Palin and decide whether that approach appears to have worked in her case.
It’s natural to concern ourselves with Trig’s well being, but it’s more important to worry about the well being of the country or (for concerned outsiders like myself) the world.
(I’m not sure why, but my comment preview shows certain sentences and paragraphs in bold when I have not added any coding.)
I have to agree with the Racialicious comments you highlighted. My problem with Sarah Palin and her socially conservative supporters is the hypocricy.
Yesterday, Robin Smith of the TN Republican party said:
“An acceptable female candidate for the Democrat party and the liberal media is an angry, shrill woman who doesn’t see a child as a blessing, but as a burden. A woman that puts her career first. Who is on the fringes of a lot of issues. And what we are seeing in Sarah Palin is essentially Ronald Reagan in heels. And a woman who puts her family, her god, and her faith first.”
This makes absolutely no sense. Clearly Smith is referring to Clinton in contrast with Palin. Chelsea Clinton was a teenager whilst her father was in office. Palin is running for the office of VP with more than one little children at home, including a newborn. And yet she is the one described as putting her family first? I don’t have a problem with working mothers; that should be obvious. And I don’t think that having a demanding job is proof that one doesn’t love her family.
But these people want to have it both ways. They want to criticize SOME mothers with career ambition whilst holding others to a completely different, illogical standard. They have decided, based on pretty much nothing, that Palin is a fantastic mom, and they have used that to pad her resume for the job of VP.
One minute they insist that mothers belong at home while fathers belong in the breadwinner role, and the next they are deifying this woman who lives the opposite model. And apparently Todd Palin tried being a SAHD but grew sick of it, so now they boast of “farming” their children out to relatives. Hmmm… so they might say “it takes a village?”
Sarah Palin’s family would not be an issue if she and her supporters did not make it an issue, and point to it as evidence of what a great VP she’d make.
Of all the controversial issues that swirl around the Palin nomination, nothing strikes me as more ripe for scrutiny than the rearing of her youngest, Trig. Disregarding the rest of her family, this child alone will require much more parental attention to have his special needs met. It’s disheartening for me to think that his Mother, if she is successful in her venture, will likely have even less time to spend with him than she had to spend with her previous children. Who’s next 4 years are more important – Sarah’s or Trig’s?
Well, I disagree that this should be up for debate, since women are constantly the targets of moral scolding when it comes to work vs. family. However, I don’t see anything wrong with pointing out to Palin and the GOP that when other women do this, when mothers do this, they are pilloried for being selfish and for being bad parents, and that much of that crap comes from the right-wing. I don’t see anything wrong with pointing out the hypocrisy without engaging in it.
I’m more horrified at some feminists’ embrace of Palin as a way to stick it to Obama. I’m no fan of Obama or the Dems (sorry, they’ve sold out for far too long to have any credibility with me), but this is sickening, considering the very misogynist BS to come from the GOP (Citizens United Not Timid! HUR HUR HUR).
Cynthia McKinney is running for President. It sure would be nice if some of the women bending over backwards to praise Palin would throw a progressive Black woman some support. But I won’t hold my breath.
I also think it’s worth pointing out that Palin is making these choices with a wealthy safety net, while her party ignores/stomps on/cuts social support for working mothers. If Palin’s position was recognizably feminist in any sense (ie pro-working moms) I’d be less apt to criticize her choices/stance, but as it stands she is firmly in the fundamentalist anti-woman camp, while not even modeling those values personally.
It’s more of the same “for me and not for thee” crap that we can get any day of the week from Phyllis “women should be in the home except when they’re on a book tour for a book about women staying in the home” Schafly and her ilk.
I have been thinking about Chelsea Clinton a lot through all of this. Maybe it’s because I was the same age as she was and I had two working parents, but I remember very vividly how much the Repubicans tortured her in the early to mid ’90s. And the Clintons didn’t use Chelsea as a campaign prop the way that Palin is using her family. But no 13 year old should have to go through what Chelsea went through–constantly having your mother accused of abandoning you, not to mention the endless commentary she got about her looks.
So I don’t know how to react when Palin demands privacy for her family. Because she’s totally right on one level–her family does deserve privacy, and she’s so horrible in so many ways it’s not like she can’t be effectively attacked in a trillion ways that don’t involve her personal life.
But then, she should stop using her effing family as a political prop. When half of every speech she gives is devoted to talking about her family, she’s kinda making it a valid political thing to talk about. I still think it’s a bad idea to talk about her family, but it’s just because I think it’s a bad political move. She’s made her parenting fair game, but criticizing it is just going to validate the conservative victimization complex to onlookers.
Palin is the most right-wing candidate to come along in my lifetime. She scares the living shit out of me.
So what do the “left” and the “feminists” do? They attack her for being a BAD MOMMY who should be taking care of her widdle baby and forcing her teenage daugther’s legs shut so she could stop being such a big ho!
Great idea – let’s attack her from her Right!
Dear God, please don’t let McCain/Palin win because the liberals are so stupid. So, so, so FUCKING STUPID!!!!!!
WRT the family question, I’d just keep hammering Palin and the GOP on this: “We don’t give a crap about your family situation. Why are you using the kids as props? Why are you thrusting them into the limelight?”
And if they say the family shouldn’t be attacked: “We agree–the kids should be off limits. Maybe we can ask Chelsea Clinton what she thinks of that, since she was the GOP’s verbal pinata when she was thirteen.”
Actually, if I was Chelsea, I’d very vocally point out what these asshats said and did to and about her back in the nineties.
So, my solution is to just call them on it. Repeatedly. Don’t let them squirm out of it. Call them on it and bring up their own sexism, double-standards, elitism, and attacks on families, and ask them why it’s okay for them to engage in this. Ask them when they plan to declare a change in their behavior, and when they plan to apologize for their past behavior, and when they plan to desist in their behavior.
I think feminists can say that good parents should be able to have power in both the public and private spheres, and that they should have egalitarian access to resources, without saying that we have to be stuck in the current framework about how work and the public sphere should operate. That whole framework is patriarchal and based on exploitation of workers.
Feminists could advocate for an entirely different model for public and private life, where universal childcare was available and where children weren’t banished from the adult world altogether. Why not bring young kids to work? Why not have universal childcare subsidized by the government and available at your workplace? Why not have maternal and paternal leave policies that are based on developmental milestones instead of capitalist convenience? Those ideas have not been considered because men arranged working life around their needs, in a culture where they weren’t expected to care for their kids. There’s no reason we can’t reform the working world.
It isn’t so much she is a woman, it is the kind of woman she is.
There are so many unanswered questions about her actions.
She, in a speach to millions told numerous lies about her
stance on big oil, earmarks, etc.
She tried to get certain books banned from the library.
She does not support sex education, touting the
unsuccessful belief in abstinance.
She has abused her power as governor.
She fires anyone who is not in total agreement with her.
She and her husbands business was closed because
they did not follow required documentation etc.
She supports and gives bounties to hunters who shoot
wolves, bears from helicopters and planes, one
requirement being they present a leg from a wolf.
She believes global warming is not man made.
She initially supported the bridge to no where.
As mayor her little town received $57 million in earmarks.
She cut substantial amount of funds from the special
needs budget.
She is anti-abortion.
It just goes on and on. As a woman, I am not happy with her or
her representing us. She would put us and our cause back
many years.
But, most important, she appears to say and do anything
that will get her into a position that she is unqualified for.
I am an educated career woman (PhD), a wife and a mom of 2 young children. I know (as so many of my fellow hard working career mothers do) first hand how difficult it is to balance personal life and professional life. We do it… not because the right wing or the left wing or the conservatives or the liberals say that we should or need to… we do it because individually WE want to, for ourselves and for the good of our families. One might think that I am appluading the Republican party and Sarah Palin – saying “You go girl!” or “You can do it!”… but I’m not. Because I think I have a more firm grasp on reality than she does. Look – I will be the first to admit that my job is not the most demanding and stressful job in the world. I’m not running a company, or a town, or a state, much less a country. But my job is demanding and stressful enought to put real, bonifide, touchable, feelable strains on my family at times. My husband knows this, my children know this, my extended family knows this, I know it. I do my best to mitigate it and balance it as best as I can – as do most working moms that I know. But I also know that the balance is delicate – and one extra thing on the wrong side will send the teeter-totter in the wrong direction, and I NEVER want that direction to be compromising my children and my family.
Sarah Palin is about to place a 20 ton weight on her teeter-totter… and I firmly believe that her family is going to suffer for it. It would enough to be dealing with a son going off to war. That’s a huge weight on a family. It would be enough to have a young daughter facing an unplanned pregnancy (I can only assume it was unplanned) and possible marriage at a very early age. That’s an even bigger weight on a family because my sister faced that when she was 18 – I know what it can do to everyone in the family. I don’t personally know what it is like to have a special needs child – but I sure as heck know what it is like to have an infant and maintain a career. Even a healthy baby can be CRAZY demanding at times. To have a special needs baby has got to be like having triplets or something – I really can’t imagine that either. But I know from other women that have children with Down’s Syndrome that it is really a full-time job and takes a tremendous amount of patience and committment. Even more so than raising a healthy child.
The point I am trying to make and what I am suggesting to women out there considering voting for the republican ticket because of Sarah Palin is this… What will happen when those kids and her family really need her – as I know that they will MANY times in the coming years? She will have to consider making a serious compromise. Will she compromise in favor of her family, or will she compromise in favor of her country? Do we really want the leader of our nation going through that mental exercise on a regular basis?
I know I don’t.
I’m voting for the team that I believe will be running the country with MY needs in mind – giving their most attention to their jobs with the least amount of strain on their personal lives. The job is too important to risk any compromise for personal reasons.
“If Palin’s position was recognizably feminist in any sense (ie pro-working moms) I’d be less apt to criticize her choices/stance, but as it stands she is firmly in the fundamentalist anti-woman camp, while not even modeling those values personally.”
Exactly. I haven’t seen any self-described feminists attacking her parenting; I’ve seen them attacking her faux-feminist, right-wing hypocricy that’s actually more like Palinism.
But the question isn’t really how can she manage a career and a family. The question is, how can anyone who runs on the “traditional family values” platform – one the derides parents (usually woman) putting anything before their families – significantly up the ante on her political ambitions when it is obvious that her family/children may need a little more support from their parents at this point in time?
I’m a boss who has no children. I go out of my way to work with my direct reports to help them achieve a work-life balance. I am as supportive of those who have children as I am of those who do not and, when looking at promotions and increasing responsibilities in their jobs, I do speak to them (male and female) about how work and home-life can impact each other as well as how to best handle the associated stresses. This includes letting them know that it’s most definitely OK to delay a move to management to be more available for their current (or anticipated) family needs and that they can do so without impunity (in other words, go for it when you’re ready not because you think to not go for it now will negatively impact your long-term career goals). Had Todd Palin been the one selected as the running mate, I would have questioned his judgment and overly aggressive ambition the same as I question Sarah Palin’s now.
I think it is ridiculous for anyone to say that having a five-month-old special-needs child is somehow a disqualifier for office. Yes, by all means bring up Chelsea Clinton and how badly she was treated. Yes, by all means call out any slams on Sen. Clinton’s parenting–it looks like she and the former president raised a fine daughter. But why isn’t Todd Palin good enough for their children?
My problems with Sarah Palin?
-She lied about her support for the bridge to nowhere. She supported it during her campaign, and although the earmark was removed, in office, she continued to support the bridge until she defunded it in favor of other projects. But most importantly, she didn’t say “No, thanks” to Congress at any juncture, instead, Alaska kept the money.
-She lied about not raising taxes. While there is no income tax in Alaska, she did raise taxes on oil companies, and proposed paying every Alaskan $1,200 with the surplus from the new tax.
-Although she does support contraception, she is anti-choice, even in cases where the woman’s health is at risk, or the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape.
-The attempt to ban books in Wasilla sticks in my craw.
-She cut funding for, among other things, Covenant House by 20%, which is a place for troubled teens, pregnant teens, high-school dropouts, and other teens and young adults who are trying to get their lives back together and finish high school or learn a trade or both. Alaska has one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country. (Disclosure–I volunteered once at Covenant House when I lived in Alaska.)
-She belittled Sen. Obama’s community organizing experience. Turns out he worked for a consortium of Catholic and Protestant Churches serving laid-off steelworkers (as one article pointed out, her husband is in a steelworkers union). I really don’t see why she wants to look down on the charitable efforts of churches, their parishoners, and others who choose to work with them to serve the poor. I thought the republican party was all about private charity helping the underserved communities. Among other things, Obama was credited with helping to heal the rift between the Catholic and Prostestant churches, and leading a protest that resulted in asbestos testing in apartments after the inhabitants learned that an on-site office was having asbestos removed.
-She flat-out lied about his passage of major legislation, saying it had not happened in either Illinois or the U.S. Senate. In the U.S. Senate, he passed the most far-reaching ethics legislation since Watergate, and co-wrote an important anti-proliferation bill with a leading republican senator. He also authored amendments (some of which were taken from bills he had written that did not pass) which provided: 1) free meals and phone calls to family members for military personnel receiving physical therapy in VA hospitals; 2) mandatory mental healthy screening for all soldiers within 30 days of return from overseas; 3) government financial assistance to help put homeless veterans into homes. In Illinois, he passed two ethics bills, and he also authored the bill that required police to record interrogations in death-penalty eligible cases (if you recall, this was around the time that the governor cleared Illinois’ death row due to unreliable convictions, freeing some prisoners entirely, and commuting the sentences of the rest to life.
In regards to Trig, I am a little confused as to why everyone is so worked up.
She probably has a nanny, maybe 2, highly trained and competent.
That is what working parents do when they can’t be around.
Nannys, boarding school, relatives. It is fairly normal.
Also, so assume that she is the primary caretaker seems strange, just because she birthed the baby doesn’t mean that she and her husband didn’t work something out ahead of time. Maybe she is a bad mother, maybe she has no nurturing instinct (not all of us women do).
I don’t care if she has babies and kids and more babies.
She has terrible, frightening policies and ideas that scare the shit out of me. That is why I won’t be voting for her.
Let’s clarify–has McCain (or Palin, for that matter) ever made a policy statement that suggested an enactment of this “family values” new-momism in law? I don’t recall one. (You could argue for abortion here, but that’s a different issue from the one at hand.)
Maybe conservatives believe that women should always put their children before themselves and any ambition. But we do not believe that. And we should not believe that judging how a woman raises her children constitutes a legitimate political attack. Maybe conservatives will worry about that.
But when we start believing that Sarah Palin can’t make decisions about her family, and her abilities, and whether she is willing to make the sacrifices she needs to make to do the job, it gets scary.
If she decides she can balance her family and her responsibilities, I think we need to respect that. If she believes that she can do the job and be a good mom, we need to respect that. This isn’t our decision.
Jill,
Respectfully… That is PRECISELY our decision. The pure essence of the democratic voting process is that we get to decide who we think is best equipped to do the job and who we think will do the best job for us. As a working mom, I don’t think either McCain nor Palin will do the best job for me and my family, and I don’t think Palin is equipped to do a very good job at all. If it were not our decision to make, why else would we villify a politician for infidelity – it’s certailnly their decision to cheat on a spouse? But when it comes down to it, we all question their ability to lead if they can’t be honest with the ones they supposedly love.
There is some hypocricacy built into this whole discussion – there is no doubt about that. The discussion would be very different of it were Todd Palin running for VP and not Sarah… but the harsh reality is that we don’t live in the United States of Utopia (not yet at least). And until we do, women are going to be held to different standards than men. It’s OK to admit that sometimes. We don’t have the luxury of taking each of these candidates out of context and consider them in a vacuum. We have to consider their entire package. For Palin (and for Obama, McCain and Biden too) that means her personal life and her family situation is part of the package. I can completely respect Palin for believing that she is quailfied and capable of being the VP. But I think she is quite naive for thinking that she can do it just as well, if not better than her oponent – especially given her family context.
Speaking of race versus gender and Sarah Palin, Stuff White People Do has a post on Palin called (Stuff White People Do:) ironically resent affirmative action. The author, Macon D, suggests that Palin is another example of an unqualified white woman who was hired over a man, because of gender affirmative action. I don’t understand enough about the job responsibilities of politicians (the qualifications of senators versus governors), and I’m not American, so I may be missing something, but I don’t think she’s an example of affirmative action for white women. Am I seeing sexism in the post where there isn’t any?
Latoya, you bring ups some GREAT points!
Personally, I think that if you publicize your family (hello, the covers of Us and People magazines) and run on a family values platform, your family is fair game. Esepecially if you (and your party) pulled similar ish on Hillary (”how can she run a country if she can’t contorl her husband?”).
Well the Republicans are really upset about the US cover and story. Seriously, there was one on Bill O last night complaining about it and implying it was some sort of news magazine (more liberal bias). Jeebus, it’s bad enough that the entertainment shows interject themselves into covering politics and some non-entertainment related news stories but when someone starts treating US, People, etc as legitimate sources of political coverage we’ve really dumbed things down.
I find this issue very similar to the whole Larry Craig brouhaha in that it’s not the actions or decisions that are wrong… Homosexuality is not wrong… Being a working mother is not wrong… It’s the hypocrisy. These people talk about traditional values and an America that only ever existed in 50s television… Women working is not new or unusual! They’ve been doing it throughout history! Even mothers! Homosexuality is not new or unusual! There have been lesbians, gays, bisexuals and yes, even transgendered people throughout history!
Sorry, sorta off track there, but… Larry Craig has worked to pass anti-gay legislation. Him having gay sex isn’t wrong, but he’s a hypocrite. Sarah Palin doesn’t believe women who are not her or her daughter should have the right to choose what to do with their pregnancy. She’s a hypocrite.
In both of these cases, the choices these people made for themselves are not wrong. What’s wrong is that they want to legislate those choices for everyone else. And I’m so tired of seeing so-called liberals take the intellectually lazy way out and criticize their choices rather than their hypocrisy. Take a minute and think about your criticism. Would you feel it is unfair for someone to criticize the choices you’ve made that you felt were best for you life?
I dunno… We all make choices every day and sometimes they’re the right ones, and sometimes they’re the wrong ones, but we have the right to make them and we have to live with the consequences. We can all speculate as to what we would do in someone else’s place, but we will never have all the information or know all the factors that drove someone else to go one way rather than another, so ALL we can do is speculate.
I don’t have a problem with Sarah Palin having a child at her age, even if she knew he would have Downs Syndrome. I don’t have a problem with her deciding to run for VP 5 months after giving birth to that child. She knows best whether that child will receive the care he needs and I hardly think someone running for VP will have a problem finding help in that department. But she is in a party that criticizes women for not being full time stay at home moms. She is in a party that believes only a child’s biological mother is capable of raising a child. Men have to work! Men aren’t emotional! Men aren’t nurturing! Women aren’t logical! Women don’t have the balls to make the tough decisions! Women have an innate NEED to raise children and clean a house! THAT is why she shouldn’t be VP. She’s a hypocrite and if she were anyone else watching herself she would be out there talking about how irresponsible it is to run for VP with a 5 month old with Downs Syndrome.
I guess that’s the main reason I can’t be a republican. Republicans are perfectly within their rights to live a 50s TV show life. Dad working to bring home the bacon isn’t bad. Mom staying home to raise her kids isn’t bad. Mom having a child and raising that child alone while working isn’t bad. Dad marrying second-dad and adopting a child isn’t bad. But we, as progressives, or at least me… I recognize their right to make choices I would never make. But they can’t do the same for me, and THAT is why they are dangerous and wrong and why they suck.
Our job as citizens of this country is not to determine how Palin’s family dynamics will work out. Our job is to determine if she is fit to be the Vice-President of the United States. Get over the hypocrisy, her family is just as complicated as every one of ours. And who said the POTUS or VP had to be absolutely perfect anyhow? I’m instantly suspicious to such perfection as it is usually contrived and hiding the truth beneath the surface.
Obama has young children in his family, little girls who might get sick or want their daddy to read them a bedtime story. Does that mean he shouldn’t run, because his kids are too young and not self-sufficient? Oh wait, he is a MAN and has a WIFE to take care of the kids. Now I see why his family situation is much more accepted. Got it.
I’m with Barack Obama on this:
Stay the fuck away from the families, and fuck knows there’s enough to attack her on without it.
My objection to Palin using her working status as a bludgeon over our heads is that she doesn’t support policies that help working families, especially working women. She’s consistentlyvetoes social services. So what if she has nannies? She doesn’t believe in subsidized day care for, let’s say, the woman who cleans her office. But she sure as hell would be screaming her head off if that same woman went on welfare because she couldn’t afford day care.
If Sarah Palin decides to run, we need to respect her and need to move past our opinions on what kind of mother that makes her. We do need to focus on whether we believe she will make a good VP, not whether she makes a bad mother for choosing her country over her kids. Let’s not fall back on the old double standard for women and men. Remember Bill? Who gives a fuck whether he had an affair (and hence had a stormy personal life!?), he was still able to govern admirably. Sarah Palin’s crazy zealot politics are what’s at issue, and what we should be scared of.
I agree her political views are really what is at issue, and I have to say they should scare the living daylights out of everyone. However, the question of career and family makes for an interesting discussion point. Firstly, although I agree the pregnant teenager should be off limits, I think it is the hypocrisy of the religious right on this issue that really annoys, hence the reaction. I heard a television guest (cant remember who) pose this question…..”can you imagine the reaction of the right wingers if Chelsea Clinton had got pregnant while in the White House?” Yep we can and it would be ugly.
Interestingly a couple of my friends made the point the other night that they would actually question a man, if he was running for this position with family including a special needs baby, pregnant daughter etc. They really felt that the same question would apply to anyone, male or female with such enormous family challenges. I worked with special needs children for about 8 years, and the commitment required from the families was huge for both mother, father and siblings.
It raised the question of career and family, maybe my friend said it best. VP or President is not a career, it is a life.
I am not a U.S. citizen but like the rest of the world views of the importance of the outcome of the US presidential elections, I am intrigued with Sarah Palin’s candidacy. Is she running as VP or as spokewoman of John Mcain? It appears from her several speeches to date that she is of the latter.
She accuse her opponent of talking about her family, but she is on stage parading her family including her child of special needs. Is it her kind of campaign strategy? If it is so, then she better shut up when her family is being talked about. Afterall, she is the one driving people’s attention to her private life.
correction: spokewoman should be read as ’spokeswoman’.
Fantastic thought-provoking post! A really good read, thank you.
I totally agree with katiec. It is about the kind of woman Sarah Palin is. Not only do I disagree with her on every single issue, but I think her background and experience as mayor and governor call into question her ethics and honesty. She seems to bring a vindictiveness into politics that is characteristic of Republicans, but is particularly negative in a woman. I do not want this person representing me with other heads of state or making decisions that profoundly affect me. I object to her religiosity, her personality, her positions. It doesn’t matter at all that she is a woman. She harms all the causes that move us collectively (men, women and children) forward.
Look, I’m just disappointed. Here we now have a VP candidate who is a joke, doesn’t support funding to help pregnant teenagers (gee I guess only certain pregnant teenagers are worthy), has lied about her qualifications (what little there are) and now the national news is making this a “white” woman issue. Is it that “white” women can only vote for another white woman? I doubt that. And I truly hope not. But, if history serves me right the majority of people will go into the booth and vote out of fear of someone who may not look like them. This country has gone straight downhill for the past 8 years and now we’re going even further downhill and backwards if you ask me.
Such Anger! and toward a woman that we all barely know. I think it is so hypocritical to keep bringing up the family issue. I live in a neighborhood where there are many stay at home dads and they don’ t seem to be hitting up the family counciling center every week. I oppose obama’s policy yet I don’t feel such a deep animosity for the gentleman. Remember folks, Obama comes from a very corrupt state of which he did nothing to reach across party lines and help destroy this political machine we have here. Sarah, whether or not she takes full credit for this, did help ( I emphasize help) break some of the corruption in Alaska. I guess I am one of the few who don’t believe that people are either all good or all bad. I will support her if only to oppose irrational hatred. I am thrilled that someone running for vp has so much going for her. Even your good friend Bill Clinton said she is not to be underestimated.
I think Sara will be fine and I am voting more for her than McCain.
And yes, I am a grown 41 year old man of mix race and I happen to feel that if Condoleeza
Rice were running I would vote for her too!!!
In her interview with Katie Couric, Sarah Palin could not name a single supreme court case she disagreed with (including the one that came out earlier this year that DIRECTLY AFFECTED Alaska). And yet she is running for a position in which she will potentially be appointing justices.
In what way is she qualified to be vice-president? I mean this sincerely. What about Sarah Palin makes you think she is qualified?
PLEASE do not answer this with an attack on Barack Obama. His qualifications are irrelevant to hers.
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