Last Day for Early Voting in Tennessee, and Maternalism
So, those of you who live here and haven't voted yet better get the lead out unless you want to stand in long lines next Tuesday. If you've got friends who are eligible and haven't voted, give them a swift kick in the pants and drag them with you to the polls.
Go.
Matt and I voted on Monday. (I still didn't get a sticker, damn it.) It took about fifteen minutes from the end of the line to post-ballot casting. Maybe.
I'm sure other states, if they haven't already, are coming to the end of their early voting weeks as well. So, again, those of you who haven't...what are you waiting for?
~*~
I was reading The Week Magazine that someone had left on the table in the break room. There were some interesting articles. One on why Americans/U.S.ians hate our own culture. One of the split inside the Republican Party. And then I found a little blurb from Sonya Michel on Sarah Palin's "feminism." I think it's one of the better thoughts I've seen.
Here's the link to Michel's actual column: Michel on Palin - Maternalism
Quote:
Mrs. Palin, despite her membership in the organization Feminists for Life, is not really a feminist. She is, rather, a "maternalist"- a woman who accepts the gendered division of labor but uses her assignment to home and family to claim the right to public participation.
Maternalist politics first appeared in the 19th century, as Victorian women sought to escape from the private sphere by arguing that their responsibility for domestic order should extend to all of society. Women's "tender, watchful care ... now jealously secluded by each man … is to be unloosed, expanded, spread far and wide throughout the world," wrote the pioneering economist Charlotte Perkins Gilman [Note: If you haven't read "The Yellow Wallpaper," go read it; and yes, I do know about the racial bias] in 1913. Denied the vote, activist women used philanthropic organizations to address maternal and child welfare, helping to build welfare states throughout the modernizing world.
....
Like maternalists of the past, Mrs. Palin does not reject her gender role but turns it to her advantage. As a "hockey mom" as well as the mother of a son deploying to Iraq, a special-needs child and, yes, an unmarried, pregnant teenage daughter, she must enter politics to fight for her family. Using this gambit, she is trying to disarm several camps of critics simultaneously: religious conservatives who fear that she is abandoning her husband and children, male chauvinists who don't believe that a woman could or should fill public office, and the average concerned citizen who simply wants to know whether she has the requisite experience.
....
Ms. Mandell's endorsement implied that this vacuum could be filled by Mrs. Palin, who stood by silently as Ms. Mandell portrayed her as a champion of women's rights. But Mrs. Palin has given no evidence of such commitments, and in fact has clearly demonstrated her opposition to abortion rights and equal pay, key tenets of modern feminism.
Mrs. Palin may be a woman in politics, but as her refusal to challenge gender conventions shows, she is no feminist.
~*~
I have quite a few things I want to blog about. Mostly in the realm of the political-feminist.
I'm trying to find my creative blogging side again. The writers group has its own blog now and I've had moments of thought to contribute something and then the thoughts disappear and I can't find them again. Something to work toward.
I think, today, I'm going to turn on the mp3 player, put it on shuffle and do that music meme in hopes of garnering some original flash fictions. (From an aforementioned project idea.) I haven't written a one since the idea came about near the end of September. Guilt.
I've had ideas. I've got a line here and there. But no substance.
And...here. we. go.
Go.
Matt and I voted on Monday. (I still didn't get a sticker, damn it.) It took about fifteen minutes from the end of the line to post-ballot casting. Maybe.
I'm sure other states, if they haven't already, are coming to the end of their early voting weeks as well. So, again, those of you who haven't...what are you waiting for?
~*~
I was reading The Week Magazine that someone had left on the table in the break room. There were some interesting articles. One on why Americans/U.S.ians hate our own culture. One of the split inside the Republican Party. And then I found a little blurb from Sonya Michel on Sarah Palin's "feminism." I think it's one of the better thoughts I've seen.
Here's the link to Michel's actual column: Michel on Palin - Maternalism
Quote:
Mrs. Palin, despite her membership in the organization Feminists for Life, is not really a feminist. She is, rather, a "maternalist"- a woman who accepts the gendered division of labor but uses her assignment to home and family to claim the right to public participation.
Maternalist politics first appeared in the 19th century, as Victorian women sought to escape from the private sphere by arguing that their responsibility for domestic order should extend to all of society. Women's "tender, watchful care ... now jealously secluded by each man … is to be unloosed, expanded, spread far and wide throughout the world," wrote the pioneering economist Charlotte Perkins Gilman [Note: If you haven't read "The Yellow Wallpaper," go read it; and yes, I do know about the racial bias] in 1913. Denied the vote, activist women used philanthropic organizations to address maternal and child welfare, helping to build welfare states throughout the modernizing world.
....
Like maternalists of the past, Mrs. Palin does not reject her gender role but turns it to her advantage. As a "hockey mom" as well as the mother of a son deploying to Iraq, a special-needs child and, yes, an unmarried, pregnant teenage daughter, she must enter politics to fight for her family. Using this gambit, she is trying to disarm several camps of critics simultaneously: religious conservatives who fear that she is abandoning her husband and children, male chauvinists who don't believe that a woman could or should fill public office, and the average concerned citizen who simply wants to know whether she has the requisite experience.
....
Ms. Mandell's endorsement implied that this vacuum could be filled by Mrs. Palin, who stood by silently as Ms. Mandell portrayed her as a champion of women's rights. But Mrs. Palin has given no evidence of such commitments, and in fact has clearly demonstrated her opposition to abortion rights and equal pay, key tenets of modern feminism.
Mrs. Palin may be a woman in politics, but as her refusal to challenge gender conventions shows, she is no feminist.
~*~
I have quite a few things I want to blog about. Mostly in the realm of the political-feminist.
I'm trying to find my creative blogging side again. The writers group has its own blog now and I've had moments of thought to contribute something and then the thoughts disappear and I can't find them again. Something to work toward.
I think, today, I'm going to turn on the mp3 player, put it on shuffle and do that music meme in hopes of garnering some original flash fictions. (From an aforementioned project idea.) I haven't written a one since the idea came about near the end of September. Guilt.
I've had ideas. I've got a line here and there. But no substance.
And...here. we. go.