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Hey ladies! Did you know that you and your hard work accomplished absolutely NOTHING? Everything you have today, you can thank second wave feminism for. Had that never happened, I know I wouldn’t have accomplished any of the things I’m doing today. Thank God for second wave feminism, because surely I’m not capable of building my own future.
Apparently, this is how women are required to think. Just ask Katie “Boys are stupid and violent” Granju. The real reason women “hate” Sarah Palin? Because she thinks she’s the one who accomplished everything in her life, and doesn’t worship at the altar of feminism! DUH!
For the millions of American women in their 50s, 60s and beyond who remember workplaces before second wave feminism, Palin’s attitude toward women’s issues is just plain offensive. These women toiled in work environments where bringing a child to work would have been unthinkable. In fact, they were generally fired as soon as they became pregnant. They remember the days before the law protected female workers against sexual harassment and blatant discrimination. They know that it’s only in the last generation or so that more fathers have, like Todd Palin, begun taking an equal role in childcare and household management so their wives can go out into the world as professionals. These are women who had mothers and grandmothers who told them what it was like to live in a country where women had no political voice, or even the right to vote.
Sarah Palin is undoubtedly accomplished and charismatic all on her own. However, for her to smugly act as if she doesn’t owe a debt of gratitude to the generations of American women before her who marched and organized and protested and brought lawsuits and ran for office themselves so that she could stand on a national stage in 2008 – while at the same time successfully mothering five children – is just plain rude. And it irritates a lot of us who share her gender.
I am younger than Sarah Palin, but I am also a working mother with four children, ranging in age from 14 months to 17 years. However unlike Sarah Palin, I am well aware every time I am able to take a break at work to pump milk for my baby that other women before me who spoke up and changed workplace policy deserve the credit for the more mother-friendly working environment I enjoy today. I am grateful. …
Feminism isn’t about “whining.” It’s about courageously raising issues and breaking barriers so that our daughters will have more opportunities and credibility than we have today, just as we have more than our mothers had 25 years ago. And smart women, gracious women, know when to give credit where credit is due. Sarah Palin does not.
And that is the real reason why a lot of women can’t stand Sarah Palin.
God, the horrors. You mean, Sarah Palin doesn’t kiss her framed photo of Betty Friedan? That’s just so insulting, for her to think that she’s the only manufacturer of her own life!
OK. Now, in all seriousness, of course I am grateful to feminists whose work obviously paved the way for much of what women are able to do today. But do I sit here and constantly thank them for being able to work in sports or politics? No!
Look, regardless of your age, race, or gender, there are people whose sacrifices and hard work helped to pave the way for the doors that have been opened to you. But what Ms. Granju cannot seem to understand is that it does not define who you are or what you do. I give Sarah Palin big kudos for being the master of her own life and not constantly looking over her shoulder making sure she’s giving the appropriate props to the “right” people. You can be grateful for the sacrifices of those who came before you without showing it outwardly, too. What is Palin supposed to do, open every speech with a “Truth to Power” speech saluting Second Wave Feminists? The whole concept is ridiculous.
And of course, Ms. Granju has to throw in the “we have a long way to go” schtick. You know… “we have a long way to go before ALL Americans can afford healthcare”. Dude. Seriously. HEALTHCARE. IS. NOT. A. RIGHT. No one has a right to healthcare, or even good health for that matter. No one has a “right” to be making a lot of money. No one has a “right” to their employer giving them flexible hours. Sure, it would be nice if everyone had these things, but its not a “right”. And what’s insulting is deriding Sarah Palin for having these things (uh, “wealth” envy much?!), or saying that she owes everything she’s accomplished to feminism. It’s ridiculous. And it’s condescending.
So, at the risk of being subjected to the ire of grumpy feminists who think I should be bowing down to them, I’m just going to say this. I don’t think I owe anything to any feminist. What I’ve accomplished in my life so far has been accomplished because of me: not because of Susan B. Anthony, not because of Betty Friedan, and certainly not because of Gloria Steinem. I’m very grateful that feminists fought for equal rights, but I’m also thankful to a lot of other people. I’m thankful to our military, those serving now and those who served in previous generations. I’m thankful to those who fought in the Civil Rights movement. I’m thankful to conservatives who are fighting today. But none of those people who fought in the past and in the present define me. I don’t owe them anything, and I’m certainly not going to be worshipping at their altars as if my life would be nothing without them. I am the master of my own destiny, and it only makes me love Sarah Palin that much more to know that she feels the same.
Seriously, feminists: GROW UP.
Hat Tip: Instapundit
Kevin M says: Granju: “…it irritates a lot of us who share her gender.”
That says it all.
You think it bothers me that Hitler slaughtered millions. Yes, it does. You think it’s because he “shares my gender?” NO!
Not good enough?
Look at the feminist collectivism. She shares “her gender,” therefore she has to get on board with the program. Women, it would appear to feminists, aren’t allowed to think for themselves. If you aren’t a feminist, you aren’t completely female.
Still not good enough?
Gender refers to the sexual identity of personal pronouns. Granju should have said “sex,” but I’m sure that topic is too touchy for her as well.
What an ignorant cow.
Matericia says: You are worshipping at the altar of Sarah Palin. Perhaps you would have different feelings in 20 years when your uterus is worn out from your 14th pregnancy and you can’t take care of your 4 grandchildren.
Knott Buyinit says: “Perhaps you would have different feelings in 20 years when your uterus is worn out from your 14th pregnancy and you can’t take care of your 4 grandchildren.”
– Wow. Uh, is anyone keeping an eye on grandma? She’s sounding a tad bitter these days….
Concerning the article, it was a completely gratuitous attack, providing not even one example of ingratitude shown by Governor Palin. Therefore, using the great G. Gordon Liddy rule, I may provide an equally gratuitous response:
‘Ms.’ Ganju displays so little logical or writing ability that she obviously finds it necessary to present herself with as ‘mannish’ – even ‘mulish’ – an appearance as possible to have any hope of keeping her position in the mainstream media. For her sake, and that of her career, I hope that she can snap out of it at some point; I don’t think it’s possible for a female to ‘ugly down’ any farther than she already has, even considering the incredible head start ‘mother nature’ has already given her. I mean, if she get any uglier, she could get a job with PETA guarding those cages they put the pretty, naked girls in down at the bait store. I wonder if she could get a job at a dairy turning milk into sour cream just by looking at it? Or maybe with Consumer Reports ‘ugly-proofing’ cuckoo clocks? I wonder if she’s ever really thanked her ugly momma and her even uglier sperm donor for giving her all those ugly genes – and thereby opening her up to an entire world gender-hustling employment?
Knott Buyinit says: “Perhaps you would have different feelings in 20 years when your uterus is worn out from your 14th pregnancy and you can’t take care of your 4 grandchildren.”
– Wow. Uh, is anyone keeping an eye on grandma? She’s sounding a tad bitter these days….
Concerning the article, it was a completely gratuitous attack, providing not even one example of ingratitude shown by Governor Palin. Therefore, using the great G. Gordon Liddy rule, I may provide an equally gratuitous response:
‘Ms.’ Ganju displays so little logical or writing ability that she obviously finds it necessary to present herself with as ‘mannish’ – even ‘mulish’ – an appearance as possible to have any hope of keeping her position in the mainstream media. For her sake, and that of her career, I hope that she can snap out of it at some point; I don’t think it’s possible for a female to ‘ugly down’ any farther than she already has, even considering the incredible head start ‘mother nature’ has already given her. I mean, if she get any uglier, she could get a job with PETA guarding those cages they put the pretty, naked girls in down at the bait store. I wonder if she could get a job at a dairy turning milk into sour cream just by looking at it? Or maybe with Consumer Reports ‘ugly-proofing’ cuckoo clocks? I wonder if she’s ever really thanked her ugly momma and her even uglier sperm donor for giving her all those ugly genes – and thereby opening her up to an entire world gender-hustling employment?
John Kirmoto says: I am “offended” by her blatant disregard for history. The logic that some Mothers were in the workforce when women didn’t have the vote is somewhat ridiculous. The 19th amendment passed in 1920- for a woman to have been in the work force at that time (other than a family farm or similar) meant she would have been at least 15 years old. Simple math means that by 1965 she would already be 55 and while it is not unusual for the current generation to wait or have later children it certainly wasn’t in the pre-boomer era. The logic free enviroment of their statements seems to escape them
I think she’s also straining to find abortion in the Constitution. Feminists keep insisting it’s in there.
Gee Matericia, there’s this thing now call ‘the Pill’ that women can take so they won’t have kids if they don’t want them.
I know, it’s a newfangled thing that you feminists don’t know about because you were too busy worshiping Gloria Steinem’s harry armpits. Besides, you probably don’t need the pill anyway since I am sure intercourse with the enemy is probably verboten in Femland anyway.
RH Omea says: WOW!!!!!!!
Here is the REAL scary stuff as told by the leading Conservative voices of the day:
The Palin choice “is political bullsh*t”
— Peggy Noonan, longtime Reagan confidante/speechwriter & WSJ conservative columnist
Palin “is absolutely not ready to be president or vice president… scorns not only liberal ideas but all ideas… is a fatal cancer to the Republican Party”
— David Brooks, conservative commentator on PBS, NYT, WSJ and ex-editor of the National Review
“you really got to have some people in charge that have some sense of the bigger scope of the world, I think that’s just a requirement… I think it’s a stretch to, in any way, to say that she’s [Palin’s] got the experience to be President of the United States,”
— Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Ranking Rep. member Senate For Relations Comm.
“If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself… Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons”
— Kathleen Parker,
Conservative columnist for Townhall.org & National Review
Obviously, for all the talk about Sen McCain’s experience: the first, (and some would say for a man with cancer who will be 76 before his term is over) possibly most important decision of his potential Presidency has shown, to be polite, extremely poor judgment.
God help us all if that “cocky whacko” (former Senator Lincoln Chafee R-RI) ever gets within 3000 miles of the White House.
Steve L. says: This isn’t about Palin failing to acknowledge the efforts of previous feminists. This is about a group of women who resent the fact that a woman who is everything they are not has suceeded, albeit on the wrong side. It’s envy plain and simple. In Palin, they see everything that they failed to achieve in their lives, and they hate it.
mojoe says: It’s only the “feminists” that believe that womens rights begin and end with their ability to use their uterus as a death chamber that seem to have a problem with Sarah Palin.
And the fact that she took her husband’s name instead of hyphonating.
RA says: Women don’t hate our wonderful Sarah. Man hating, baby killing, feminazi, harpies hate Sarah. They are anything but real women!
DMacP says: RH Omea said : “Here is the REAL scary stuff as told by the leading Conservative voices of the day”
Calling David Brooks, Lincoln Chafee and Chuck Hagel leading conservative voices is quite a stretch.
The fact is SP is more of a feminist than Hillary Clinton, or Nancy Pelosi by any stretch of the imagination. She got her position on her own, without the money, connections, or political influence of her husband and she did it from outside the political establishment (not from within it).
I R A Darth Aggie says: If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulder of giants.
For a bit of balance, you might enjoy this piece from The Times in London.
From The Times
October 7, 2008
Shallow, fake… Sarah Palin is beyond parody
The kid-glove treatment of the Republican vice-presidential candidate is an insult to women
Martin Samuel
There is a time when it is necessary to take the gloves off and that time is right now, said Sarah Palin in Colorado. Interesting that she did not want the gloves off before her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden. Oh, gloves on then. Headgear, too. Maybe some of those big shoulder pads that quarter-backs wear; and throw cushions for a softer landing. In fact, Palin and her minders could not have demanded a safer arena for debate when the opposition was within striking distance. Biden appeared with his hands tied, his intellect muted, his manner subdued, lest he should seem smarter, better informed or more competent than his opponent, a move which was inexplicably deemed undesirable. This shows how far we have come. Intelligence is now viewed as a threat. Isn’t that how Pol Pot operated?
Meanwhile, the Republican lobby put pressure on the debate moderator not to go heavy on foreign policy, perhaps fearing that Palin would repeat her view that experience in this area was linked to proximity to a coastline, and expectations were lowered so that just avoiding intellectual humiliation would be seen as victory. And it worked. She got the name of the Nato commander in Afghanistan wrong and Biden smiled politely. She pronounced nuclear the same way that Homer Simpson does and he had to find it charming. She failed to answer direct questions, while advancing a carefully moulded image as a straight-talking maverick, and it went unquestioned. Now, from a safe distance, Palin wants the gloves off. Of course she does, with no chance of instant scrutiny.
Palin is the queen of misinformation, delivered with faux folksiness as authentic as a three- dollar bill. She is not the pitbull in lipstick of popular myth; she is Deputy Dawg with a forked tongue, engaged in a war against intelligence. Those falling for this act are her collateral damage. Barack Obama did not pal around with terrorists. He did not vote to increase the tax burden on families making $42,000 a year, or vote 94 times to increase taxes. Palin’s statements on these subjects are not a reality bulletin from Main Street, Wasilla. Palin’s statements are lies. Madeline Albright did not speak of a place in Hell reserved for women who do not support other women. Palin misquoted her. Albright said help, not support. And there is no such place as Hell.
Even so, for those American women who worry that they risk damnation if they don’t vote the Republican ticket, it should be explained that eternity with a pitchfork impaled in your rear is still preferable to a vote for a politician who aided her political career by using her Down’s syndrome child to cover her daughter’s pregnancy bump. And it is at this point that we need to talk to the Democrat women considering joining Palin’s ranks and ask: what the hell is wrong with you? People were imprisoned and trampled to death by horses for this? They marched, they demonstrated, and for what? A vote cast on the basis of a Y chromosome?
You go, girl. Go? Go where? Go to college? Go back to that Republican cramming camp to be told what newspapers to say you read and be fed another set of fake statistics where real knowledge and opinions should be? It is easy to parody Sarah Palin, wrote one commentator last week. No, it isn’t. It is near impossible because so much of what she says reads like a satirical script anyway. Tina Fey, the finest Palin imitator, was reduced on Saturday Night Live to using Palin’s exact words in response to a question about the bailout package last week, because they were beyond imitation.
“That’s what I say that I like every American I am speaking with we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bailout, but ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, um, helping the, oh, it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and, and putting it back on the right track; so healthcare reform, and reducing taxes and reigning in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade we have we got to see trade as opportunity not as, a, a, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today we, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity, all of those things under the umbrella of job creation, this bailout is a part of that.”
Genuine answer from potentially the second most powerful politician in the free world. How can anybody parody that?
Tina Fey is at least attempting to do the job of nailing Palin’s shallowness, her falseness, her studied populism and the way the standards and expectations of public debate have been lowered to accommodate her. Yet if there truly were this liberal media elite to which Palin makes constant reference, it would have bounced her out of the building by now. Anyone who thinks Palin’s performances since her catastrophic CBS interview have been adequate must also believe the American public are stupid. By any normal yardstick of political discourse – substance, accuracy, coherence – she is a bust.
Against Biden she was judged a success, not on what she said, but on the connection she is believed to have made with a fictional Joe Six-Pack: so those giving the thumbs-up must also believe Americans to be simple suckers for a wink, a dropped “g” on a verb, and the use of the odd folksy phrase. You betcha. Doggone it. She’s a bump on a log. Darn right.
Also check out my take on the kind of freedom Sarah Palin and the neo-conservatives favor
http://calvininjax.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/press-denied-access-to-palin-supporters/
dave™© says: “Women” “hate” Sarah Palin because she’s a fucking idiot.
The rest of the electorate “hates” Sarah Palin for the same reason.
Wingnuts hate Sarah Palin because she’s dragging down Johnny Mav.
Step one to advancing this whole issue is for everyone to just fess up and acknowledge that true “equal pay for equal work” is a fraking myth. it’s never going to happen. ever. EVER. i don’t mean because women will never get what they deserve, it’s because men and women will never be doing truly equal work. best example of this: military service. it shouldn’t get any more equal in pay or work than that right? trust me, it isn’t. we’re all equal until someone needs some furniture moved.
posterior_sling says: Sarah Palin is the right choice. I’ve every confidence in her should the need arise she were to be President. I am of the opposite gender and my name indicates where our great Nation may well be headed if someone doesn’t get ahold of it with two hands. And the point I would like you all to indulge in is this:
SELL THE COW NOT THE FARM
MY TAKE ON ELECTION ‘08
What a candidate says he may or may not do is of no relevance, whether he does it or not. What the man is is what you get. Example: a stranger offers candy to your children from his car. Should they take it? The candy is good, the man is (assumption for this case scenario) bad. Accepting the candy results in what? How critical is it if we as a nation are stolen away in this election? We impeached one President and he didn’t leave. What if the powers behind the man are too great to defeat? Or, I should say, what if our faith is not pure enough to confront them? Or, what if we have compromised too much already? I’ve not quite figured this out yet: What is it when you blend right and wrong, righng or wroght? Probably the latter, pronounced ROT. Yeah, probably, wroght, from eating too much candy. When will we stop taking candy from strangers? For that matter, how do we expect our children to listen? Oh yeah, I forgot, it’s not politically correct to make them do that anymore.
In any case, just what has the stranger in store for us, once he’s got us in his hand? I read a very good book called Peace Is Where The Tempests Blow. Such a parallel it may scare you to death! Written by Valentine Kataev in 1937. Go, see the transformation of Russia from freedom to tyranny. See needs created and supplied by the stranger. See the candy taken and the child stolen. See the fall of a nation. Compare. By what token ought we accept candy, not knowing what’s behind the stranger? Just a little i.e. on this thought: where is the undisclosed money for the campaign coming from (who will he OWE his election to?) and what has been revealed other than the word ‘change?’ Beggars ask for change. Maybe he has some pennies for us. Like when we were offered “no new taxes,” since it was verbal, I heard it translated as meaning “gnu taxes” and our gnus were not taxed, so it was true.
“What a tangled web” is woven. To say “we weave” in completing the quote is to say we are the spiders. In this case we may well be the prey. And, oh, what a tangled mess it is! A complex network of sticky, impenetrable issues spanning not only our nation, but the globe. Perhaps the net is out to trap America into the existence of a state in a global union. For the record, I’m for global coexistence, peace and harmony, our participation in that being a leading example of a FREE AND INDEPENDENT NATION, the only obligation owing to our own people, flag and freedom! I’m not sure who’s twisting the arm of the United States, but it needs to stop NOW. We are being lead into an economic depression by the same that would ‘rescue’ us if we allow it. Better to be broke! Better to be broke and banded together than standing individually in line for rations. How is it we draw such a taught line between sports and politics? I love sports, but the energy there is being more and more directed to the commercialization and the individual careers than the team concept. And we follow. How did me and my neighbor become me versus my neighbor? Don’t lie. Control the individuality and get back on the team!
How did I get way out here? Back to that stranger. What’s his name? Ah, it doesn’t matter. All I know is I see a piece of candy and a large empty bag. Then I spy ulterior activity the mainstream ignores. Not only ignored, but in the case of the LA Times, apparently GIVEN PRIORITY BY DELETING AND PREEMPTING THE TRUTH WITH RHETORIC LIES! And then, they want to establish “Truth Squads” in Missouri? ( http://www.kmov.com/video/index.html?nvid=285793&shu=1 ) Why will organizations like these, and not limited to these only, put integrity at risk unless they answer to someone more powerful than the American citizenry, or think we are all bark and no bite?
What is it America? WHERE HAS THE POWER GONE? Is it BY us, OF us and FOR us that we will be caught in the web? Are we so ignorant, or has our complacency traveled to the point of complete idiocy? God forbid we actually think candy has become nutritious and that every stranger’s motive is toward our well-being. It’s as though we are in a trance, hypnotized by some subliminally broadcast chant: “Take the candy. Take the candy. Take the candy….” How long need I go on?! The words are flowing to my fingertips faster than I can type. Yet, the use (as in what’s the ___) is waning twice as fast. Who, in God’s name, is interested in the truth anymore? It’s like all that’s out there is, “Shut up, get outta my way and let me grab the candy!” I feel like I’m wasting my time.
Please, just do the right thing. Close your ears to the hypnotic chant. Cast your vote for freedom and be free. Together we can deal with the rest. May God Bless America. Lastly, include the “May” so it is a request and not an order.
NVJoJo says: “What I’ve accomplished in my life so far has been accomplished because of me: not because of Susan B. Anthony, not because of Betty Friedan, and certainly not because of Gloria Steinem.”
You are utterly delusional if you believe that you would be where you are today without those women.
What you would be is uneducated (though I am not sure you even are educated), married women whose sole purpose is to have babies and take care of your husband. You sure as hell wouldn’t be allowed to post a picture of yourself in a bikini or for that fact be allowed to wear one. Actually your life would look a lot like women’s lives in Iran.
Amelia says: Katie Granju, the more I read of her, strikes me as a fool. A pitiable fool.
She’s reaching for a way to justify her dislike of Sarah Palin without mentioning that it all comes back to abortion.
But I am consoled by all the maaaaany comments Granju got that blasted her for her idiotic screed. It’s heartening to know that so many others see through Granju’s crap.
Commenter Matericia is just funny. The paranoid hyperbole is comical. How silly do you have to be to think that Sarah Palin as VP would have any effect at all on the legality of contraceptives?
Gary Baker says: “You are utterly delusional if you believe that you would be where you are today without those women.”
I’m not attempting to minimize the accomplishments of any individual woman, but my personal opinion is that entirely too much emphasis is placed on a select few. While their courage was admirable, their cause still essentially rested on convincing the men that equality was a winning proposition. That wasn’t done in the marches. That was done in the home. If most women displayed the attitudes prominent in modern gender feminists, the Americas might very well have adopted policies towards women similar to the Islamic states simply for self defense.
Katie Granju and her ilk hate Sarah Palin because Sarah is smart enough to know that the “bad old days” Granju is talking about are largely gone.
NVJoJo says: Well you are certainly entitled to your opinion, even if it is wrong.
Ah yes, nothing new there. Republican men would rather women have no rights than impede on their “penis privilege”.
Gary Baker says: NVjojo,
The marvelous thing about opinions is that, absent conclusive evidence one way or the other, my opinion is just as “right” as yours. Let me know if you would like to discuss the matter on anything but an emotional level.
NVJoJo says: If you were interested in discussing this on an intellectual level you should have respond with facts rather than your emotional opinion.
Gary Baker says: I’ve seen very little outside of opinion from you. Please go ahead. Demonstrate some intellectual reasoning if you dare…
Ms. Fiano,
I am a Feminist. I am also a Conservative.
That said, my mother (And grandmother. And, come to think of it, all my male relatives as well) taught me to earn my own as a person, with my gender having nothing to do with my capacity for success. My mother is, by the way, a “first wave Feminist.”
It is my opinion that women such as Ms. Granju have been raised by “Steinem Feminists.” This means that she is operating under the delusion that she is owed preferential treatment and special rights because of her gender, and that men OWE her, and furthermore, a man should be punished if he refuses to give her what she belives he owes her.
I find Mr. Limbaugh’s reference to N.O.W. as “N.A.G.s” amusing. I’m not partial to taking personally the slanted, sexual remarks of my predominately male colleagues. I don’t think it is a negative reflection on my gender when a man cuts me off in traffic, holds a door open for me, flirts with me, or offers to pay for dinner on a date.
Ms. Granju, in my opinion, would sue Mr. Limbaugh, her male colleagues (for remarks and also for daring to make more money than her – the cheeky bastard!), and any other male-gendered person she felt oppressed her right to preferential treatment and favors, if only she could find a court in all the land that wouldn’t look at her like she was (obviously) off her rocker. A look that would, of course, serve only to perpetuate her grandiose self-image as a Breasted American to Whom All Others are Obligated and reinforce her self-righteousness.
The point of the Feminist Movement was supposed to be about giving American women a voice, a right to choose (please don’t simplify that remark to being about abortion, it is meant far more universal than that), and recognition for the choices and successes and accomplishments we achieve as individuals.
You and I, and every woman of our generation, benefit directly from the Feminist Movement and the “first wave Feminists.” Even Evil Steinem the Harpy for showing how it ISN’T done. They paved the way for us, even if the pavement is still rocky and a bit off course occasionally. And our obligation to them is this: be successful at whatever you choose to do; don’t blame men (or other women, for that matter) for your failures or your achievements; and educate these self-loathing, self-righteous, delusional failures of Feminism.
Thank you ever so much for holding Ms. Grandju accountable for her failure as a Feminist. Let’s hope that someday, she understands that Governor Palin, and so many other American women, are true Feminists. We get it, you see. No one OWES us anything – we have the right to earn it ourselves.
NVJoJo says: I have to keep it semi-shallow (I am at work and have to pretend to be earning my keep).
But my original point is that you can’t say that you got somewhere *all on your own* because no one has. Nearly everything I am today is because of the sacrifices someone made yesterday. From my clean water to my education to my right to vote, they are all due to other people.
Of course Cassy climbed to the top because of her own hard work but the foundation for her success was put there by feminists.
Gary Baker says: “Of course Cassy climbed to the top because of her own hard work but the foundation for her success was put there by feminists.”
And this is where the factual content of your argument breaks down, at least to the point that you can substantiate the statement to any certainty. While it is true that everything that has come before has an impact, or perhaps because of that, you cannot trace an individual’s success to any particular person. Who is more important in the scheme of the things? The women who campaigned for the vote, or the men who approved the legislation that gave them the vote. (And I wish to stress at this point that I do not believe that it was fair, right, or moral that women were denied the vote, any more than it was right for any other group to be denied basic rights. I am simply referring to the facts. Women did not have the vote. They did not take it by force of arms. They were dependent on using the legal process and men.)
By saying this, I am not implying superiority of men or inferiority of women. My firm believe is that the sexes are equal, though certainly not “the same.” So, in the same way that you cannot say technically that anyone made it without some kind of help from the past, it is equally foolish to claim that the loudest or most noticeable voices were the truly influential. I read that the publisher who received “Harry Potter” threw the manuscript in the discard pile. His daughter pulled it out and read it and told him he had to publish that book. The rest, as they say, is history. If you wish to assign high adulation to a particular few, that is your privilege. To me, the past and current crop of loud, shrill types do far more harm to the cause of equality than the most blatant chauvinist.
Ok so just how far back do we want to take this “you couldn’t have gotten where you were today without someone paving the way” argument?
I mean, the feminists are mad because Sarah will not give the old guard their props on what they did and yet, i don’t really recall any of them giving out props to the people who made it possible for THEM to exercise a freedom of speech to achieve what they achieved in their lives. ironically enough, they spent their time bashing the men who made their accomplishments possible and they bash them to this day. i’m sure they use the line “they didn’t do any of that for woman’s freedoms!!” line to justify this rubbish. which of course begs the question “do they really think we’re stupid enough to believe Steinem and her crew did all their work just to see a REPUBLICAN woman in the White House?” yeah, i didn’t think so either.
so, just as the old feminist guard feels no obligation to toot the horn of the old white men who worked to achieve rights and freedoms they have benefited from and used to accomplish all they have in their lives, i see no reason Sarah should feel any obligation to toot the horns of some women who didn’t work to give the White House to a woman who loves the bible, hates abortion, and feels that she can be a worker AND a mother.
I remember the same silly arguments about Condi Rice: How dare she not sing the praises of affirmative action when she obviously benefitted from it. Sarah Palin is the Uncle Tom of feminism. Sad.
posterior_sling says: Making gender the center of anything is so far off the mark that all sound like fools, dividing from one another. What happened to equality, stand together, rah rah and all that jazz? Seems the true enemy has us exactly where he wants us. That’s my last comment, I won’t argue the point.
Carrie_L says: Why worry about whether or not she is giving credit to women that have set the foundation for her? She is not vp yet. Dont focus on her credit sheet now. Worry about her political intelligence and desision making skills. Stop bitching. Start Listening. When the time comes go on and bitch. Right now your whining.
Adam says: You don’t think she dealt with social pressures throughout her political career? Did you see women in politics 100 years ago? No. So you must assume something happened between now and back then right? You are hating on the very cause that allows you to be employed and able to raise 4 children. Some employers a couple of decades ago wouldn’t even have employed women, or if they did they wouldn’t pay them a sufficient amount. By sufficient, of course I mean enough money to make a living. Something you may not realize, is this still occurs. Women don’t get paid as much as men in many currently existing businesses. How’s that for condescending? If you want to make a point about wealth, that’s just given that any politician needs wealth. You spend millions of dollars on a campaign, obviously that wealth won’t be coming all out of your pocket. You need to develop a reputation, for people to truly believe in you and fund your campaign. Sarah Palin is obviously more aware of the barriers she had to cross than you are.
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