As a woman who has spent much of her adult life lobbying for and writing about equal rights and opportunities for women, I am distressed that some candidates for the upcoming national elections make me sick to my feminist stomach. I am talking about people like Michele Bachmann and the omnipresent Sarah Palin.
I want to see women in the highest offices in the country, I really do. But I feel obligated to evaluate female presidential candidates by the same standards I use to evaluate male candidates. They should be experienced, appropriate, articulate, and knowledgeable in domestic and foreign policy so they can effectively represent this nation in critical national and international forums.
This means that people who don’t realize Concord, Mass. is different from Concord, N.H. or who insist Paul Revere’s famous ride was to warn the British flunk the test.
Add to this the fact that neither of these women supports any of the issues American women have fought so hard for, for decades, and you have the Equal opportunity, child care options, reproductive freedom, and freedom from sexual harassment are just a few of the issues American women are still fighting hard to obtain and/or preserve: neither Bachmann nor Palin seem interested or informed on any of them. It seems unconscionable that women could rise to the heights of power as these two have and still be depending on vapid qualities for their popularity. Ask any man who likes either or both of them and the first thing he’ll tell you is how “hot” they look!
Will America now return to the old “casting couch” method for moving women up in the political pecking order?
I had a lifelong friend, an evangelical right-winger, chide me for not supporting Palin in 2008. When I suggested Palin actually opposed many of the issues critical to women I had spent my life fighting for, my friend said, “But you have to admit she’s a “pretty girl.”
I know looks have a role in political success, stupid as that is. It is one of the reasons men like Hubert Humphrey never got to be president and why JFK won the Nixon-Kennedy debates. I didn’t just fall off the political turnip truck, but I want to raise a big red flag over that truck that says, “Get Real, America!”
The idea of Sarah Palin of Michele Bachmann in the same sentence with President of the United States doesn’t make any more sense to me as a voter and a woman than nominating Barney Frank to the diplomatic corps. People are who they are, with qualities and liabilities. Intelligent, mature observers must separate the world as they would like it to be from the candidates as they, in fact are.
I am willing to do this on the left and I implore those on the right to stop trying to support the policies they believe in through candidates totally unqualified for the full presidential responsibility.I, for one, don’t want to hand the red phone to anyone who can’t even spell “nuclear holocaust.” Do you?
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I can see the bumper stickers already, (BPO) Bachman-Palin Overdrive.
Your friend's remark about Palin's looks reminds me that many people voted for Dubya because he was the guy they would most like to have a drink with (ironic since he was a guy on the wagon). As a man who has spent more than a few evenings in bars, let me assert that I have had many pleasant drinking companions that I wouldn't want anywhere the red button.
Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?
Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
Couric: What, specifically?
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.
Couric: Can you name a few?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, “Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?” Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
Sarah Palin could not name the magazines and newspapers she reads. And the world exists beyond Washington, DC. After all these years, Ms Palin's response still astounds me. Perhaps, in the digital age, reading magazines and newspapers is not important, as long as one has a Twitter space and a Facebook account. [I am being facetious.]
While I believe a more even mix in terms of gender in elected office is to be vigorously encouraged, it's no guarantee I'll vote for all of them. I wouldn't vote for a man with whom I profoundly disagreed with, so I'm not going to vote for a woman I profoundly disagree with simply because she IS a woman. Both Palin and Bachman are excellent examples of how you can be a woman and still set our rights and freedoms disastrously backward. I consider Sarah Palin the attractive external packaging for a lot of really ugly ideas. Bachman doesn't even get that much from me. And no, if they can't spell, they really don't get my vote; makes me wonder what else they can't figure out if a dictionary stumps them.
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Ummm…that is being fair to her, right?
Shiral- Such a thoughtful and thought-provoking comment. I agree: it's important to vote for the person, not just the genitals of the candidate. Thanks for checking in.
Frank- George W and Dan Quayle as role models?? I rest my case! Seriously, though, I'm amazed that the Reagan camp isn't incensed that Palin is now presenting herself as the guardian of Reagan's legacy. He wasn't my favorite president, but next to her he's Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln all rolled into one! Thabnks for the read/comment
Sometimes I feel that men are not allowed to say the kinds of things you express here. Thanks for expressing what would never attempt without lots of padding and a catcher's mask--and for doing so in such eloquent fashion.
I presume there are lots of sane, intelligent women laboring away in politics, but we never hear about them. Just Palin and Bachman (and others of their ilk - O'Donnell, the gov. of Arizona, etc.)
Is it progress, perhaps, of a dismal kind, that good looks in a woman used to disqualify her from being considered capable. Now it's enough to counteract all sorts of awful stuff for the most powerful post in the world! I have a headache...
Myriad, I don't think promotion based on looks can ever be called "progress." And you're right, most men who take shots at Palin or (to a lesser degree) Bachmann, wear kids gloves usually...probably because they are afraid of being labeled misogynists. But then again, people wera the same kid gloves when criticizing a black person (even if it's Mike Tyson, the batterer and rapist) and they are cautious to be too hard of veterans, the clergy, etc. because these are groups we are supposed to "respect" even when they behave badly.
I don't own any kid gloves and, as far as I am concerned, idiots are idiots-- whether they are in the Vatican, female, veterans, physically challenged, whatever.
In Italy most courts have the inscription "La legge e' uguale per tutti" carved somewhere on the building (the law is equal for all.) That's a nice thought, though one seldom applied there, here, or anywhere. Thanks for the read/comment
Glad you're back! R
Here's food for thought, Mary Ann, maybe you could do it more justice than I could: I wonder if they don't, on some level, make Hillary's blood boil. Hillary is head and shoulders above damn near everyone in terms of raw intelligence, knowledge, education, skill and ability and she has been all of her adult life. She's also a liberal who runs in liberal circles. Yet these two flashy, classically "girly" conservatives who, in terms of ability, are not worthy of shining Hillary's shoes, are taken seriously and have achieved easy success quickly, without anything like the effort she's had to put into it. I wonder, looking around me at what the world has become, where women are, (with deep cleavage usually somewhere in view,) how things would have worked for Ms. Clinton if she'd been more interested in fashion frivolity.
I'd love it if someone else would think about that ... it's going to be a few days before I can and I'm not sure I trust myself on the subject anyway...
Whaddaya all think??????
"Ask any man who likes either or both of them and the first thing he’ll tell you is how “hot” they look!"
♥R
I go through stages. Idiot, imbecile, apolitical,
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I depend on news-junkies to keep me informed.
I wonder if red beet-dry (Bio) wine is less moist?
We wish the world's false economy to crumble?
We ought to vote for tenderloin pot-pig-roast.
These news bobble newt-heads are diabolical.
We better dig caves. Crawl inside for decades.
We gonna survive? Trouble loom on horizon.
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