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When did you first call yourself a feminist, and what helped influence that decision?
I have always been a feminist. The question is asked often these days, and I find it so peculiar. Would you ask a person of color if they believed in equality? Would you ask a trans person if they believe in LGBTQAI Civil Rights? I would rather ask why one would not want to be a feminist. I can think of only one legitimate reason, and it is because they are really stretching the boundaries of US thinking to drop all labels and make that their mission. (gender fluid!)
Did I ever think women or men were innately unequal? Never. Nor people of different races, ages or classes. Certainly my deeply devotional childhood influenced me. I look at the books I read, the saints I admired, and they were all people who worked with making life better; Mother Seton, Vincent DePaul, Catherine Laboure, even St. Nicholas and St. Valentine worked with the oppressed, the poor. It just seemed like the obvious choice. When I got older and found out that the word and meaning of Christian had been entirely co-opted, I converted to Buddhism. Funny thing is, it makes more sense to me to think of John XXIII, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem as all practitioners of Buddhism. They are all invested in Self-Discovery. (I digress)
In the spirit of the upcoming elections, stay informed at: The Culture Wars: Abortion Edition. Laura continues to bring together the important variables.
This is the new ad from the “yes for life” campaign in South Dakota. It’s a minute and 40 seconds of a whole slew of (white) doctors sharing their support for measure 11 and imploring the viewer to “stop abortion from being used as a form of birth control”…funny, I thought the bill was a ban on all abortions statewide. Oh I get it, they think ALL abortions are being used as birth control. I guess, in their estimation, no responsible person ever gets pregnant when they don’t want to. I must admit I’m personally offended by this assumption.
My favorite part is the use of a cardiologist, an allergist, and a otolaryngologist (fancy name for an ear nose and throat doctor) to speak out for measure 11. How are these people relevant at all? They happen to be doctors, but their expertise is completely irrelevant. How is a pediatrician relevant for the matter? Abortion is about women’s health, which is not in a pediatrician’s job description.
It just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser as we slide deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.
Haven’t been to The Culture Wars: Abortion Edition recently? Check out the latest tactic employed by those parties interested in voting passing Prop. 4. (see why Prop. 4 is dangerous for teens), the proposition that mandates parental notification in cases of pregnancy termination among teenagers. This advertisement is absolutely ridiculous, misleading and characteristic of the fear mongering and scare tactics that the conservative right has been waging in the months leading up to this election.
As always, Laura Frankel keeps us informed and provides excellent commentary. Click here for the complete story.
It’s uncanny how they’ve turned an issue of abortion into an issue of fear by using the idea of a sexual predator taking advantage of California’s daughters and getting away with it because–there’s no parental notification in CA. Look at that. My favorite is the very beginning where in small print at the bottom of the ad it reads: “Dramatizaton Based on Actual Facts.” REALLY?! Show me the facts. I want to see where it says that older men in California are more likely to have sex with/take advantage of younger girls because they know that the girl’s parents won’t find out if they take her to get an abortion after.
Katie Couric interviewed Sarah Palin and John McCain on September 29. Couric questioned Palin on abortion, gay rights and feminism. It seems Palin has changed her position on a few items and contradicts herself repeatedly.
Case in point:
Katie Couric: Do you consider yourself a feminist?
Sarah Palin: I do. I’m a feminist who believes in equal rights and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed and to try to do it all anyway. And I’m very, very thankful that I’ve been brought up in a family where gender hasn’t been an issue. You know, I’ve been expected to do everything growing up that the boys were doing. We were out chopping wood and you’re out hunting and fishing and filling our freezer with good wild Alaskan game to feed our family. So it kinda started with that. With just that expectation that the boys and the girls in my community were expected to do the same and accomplish the same. That’s just been instilled in me.
Couric: What is your definition of a feminist?
Palin: Someone who believes in equal rights. Someone who would not stand for oppression against women.
I’m not sure how you can call yourself a feminist and define feminism as a belief for equal rights and a firm stance against sexism and oppression when your record clearly indicates that you have not supported equal rights and you are in favor of eradicating choices for women. This woman exhausts me. I’m ready for Thursday’s debate.
Go to 5:20 to here her response to Couric’s question asking her which publications she reads to inform her worldview.
Transcribed on the Huffington Post:
Katie Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, 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?
Sarah Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
KC: But, like, what ones specifically? I’m curious.
SP: All of ’em, any of ’em that have been in front of me over all these years.
KC: Can you name a few?
SP: 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 and it seems like, ‘Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C. may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska?’ Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
