Alaskan Women are Trying to Tell Us Something
Originally published at Exponential. You can comment here or there.
From Broadsheet:
Last weekend in Anchorage, the Alaskan Women Reject Palin demonstration drew a crowd of close to 1,500, according to protesters who were there, including a local blogger, who writes: “Basically, in Anchorage, if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it’s a success … Never have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage.” The Washington Post reports that protest signs included: “Candidate to Nowhere,” “Rape Kits Should Be Free,” “Community Organizers Are the Real Patriots,” “Sarah Palin: So Far Right She’s Wrong” and “Hockey Mama for Obama.”
You completely need to see the photos on the blogger’s page.
I never realized I was this active a feminist. Seriously - sure, I don’t get paid the same as my male counterparts, get treated like crud at doctor’s offices, and have experienced all the sex and relationship double-standards and violations. But it didn’t occur to me that I might still have to be part of the fight.
Then this Hilary thing happens, and I think - this is awesome. Finally, a candidate that is viable AND a woman. But I didn’t really agree with several of her methods, and Obama did. Because, we vote on the issues.
Suddenly, Palin happens and I am incensed. Feminism and everything it stands for is being USED and ABUSED to promote anti-feminist agendas. All the real feminist issues (sexism in the media, double-standards, etc.) can be used as weapons to defend Palin, undermining feminism at its root.
Feminism is not about putting a woman in the white house. It’s about putting the RIGHT PERSON in the White House, regardless of gender. It isn’t about putting women first, it’s about giving them equal opportunity. It’s about dropping all the pre-existing judgments about what a woman is or should be/do/say/feel and paying attention to the quality of the person.
I cannot stand in silence while everything my mother and her mother fought for is thrown away to further a sexist, classist agenda that prevails only because it represents a myth about Americans that NEVER existed. The War Hero Husband and the Small Town Values Wife are prejudices and stereotypes that are not real.
Don’t buy into it America. Don’t buy into it Women and Men.