We are right here.

Standing up for Palin's right to choose. Not to have an abortion and not to force her unwed, pregnant teenage daughter to have one.

Standing up for Palin's right to juggle motherhood and family in the way she sees fit.

Standing up for Palin's right to accept the nomination of her party, despite the criticism of some that she's a thinly qualified woman.

Like I said, feminists are standing up for Palin. Even Christian feminists (womanists), like myself.

What we are not doing is letting others make us think that to raise questions about Palin's stand on abortion and what that might mean if the GOP wins, that questioning her budget cuts against pregnant teens in her state, and that shining light on duplicitous flip flopping on her part-- is to be sexist, anti-woman, and unfeminist- like.

Check out SomethingWithin (www.somethingwithin.com/blog)

I'm a feminist who has repeatedly said that these attacks on Palin's "time to mother" or "quality of mothering" issue is a non-issue.

I won't be voting for her, but I will stand up for her right to be a working mother.

and I know feminists, and feminists are my friends, and Sarah Palin is no feminist.

She's the dream Republican female candidate: she's a beauty queen, she does a very believeable job of parroting the line the men around her (Stevens, McCain, Rove) feed her, and she doesn't challenge them.  She has no original ideas.  Not to mention her church (Assembly of God), which is very conservative and patriarchal and whose values she thinks should be perpetrated throughout the rest of the country.  She's an enemy of women's progress, and she's utterly hollow.

Now, should Palin stop being a good little Republican woman, and the party drops her like a hot potato--that's when she might get some sympathy and support from folks like me.  So many women have to be badly burned before they understand just how they've been used and discarded by the old-boy network.

All this negativity about a talented woman, makes me want her ticket to win even more.

And the attacks by women?   I wanna hand them the book "She Wins, You Win" by Gail Evans.    Articles like Gloria Steinem's made me sad.   How can people have so much ill will and sleep at night?

I see "me" in Sarah.  And every time they attack Sarah, I feel like they attack me and what's important to me. 

I liked Sarah Palin from the start.  Now I rabidly LOVE her : )     

But attacking her policies should be fair game. I've read plenty from feminists who have said the same thing. Plenty of feminists are outraged about how the focus has been on whether Palin is a "good" (good, of course, being relative) mother. And the outrage should be there.

But I will attack her on the policy issues that I have problems with. Which is very nearly everything. We don't expect men to band together just because they have similar anatomy. Men are always disagreeing about policy decisions. But I'm supposed to support Palin because we both have vaginas? 

I disagree with Palin on some very fundamental policy issues. That's sort of thing I'd like to see covered. I agree that she shouldn't be attacked by what her kids are doing or her personal life choices. But don't expect me to like her just because we're both women. 

And don't turn questions about her policymaking into questions about sexism. (The Republican Party is starting to do this.) Investigating Trooper Gate and wondering about how she would implement sex-ed funding is not sexist. Those are valid questions we'd ask a male candidate as well. 

This Time, It's Personal

YieldingWealth.com

Can you attack her policies while still standing up and saying "that's sexist, that's misogynistic" when she is attacked in those ways?

That's the question.

I don't think anyone who supports Governor Palin (though I can't speak for everyone) wants you to stop debating the issues or questioning Palin on her political or social ideas.

What we, or I, want to know is can those of you who do not plan to vote for her point out misogyny when you see it aimed at her? Can we all stand together to fight that one thing? Is it possible for all of us to stand together against sexism?

We didn't do a good job of it when Senator Clinton was in the race and I don't think we're doing a very good job of it for Governor Palin. If we don't take a stand on this together, right now, when will we? How many more women will run for higher office and be faced with sexist treatment by politicians, by media (both new and old) and by voters?

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

Feminist here and I stood up for her http://sandradginzburg.typepad.com/inner_city_mama/.

Doesn't mean I'm gonna vote for her.

Sandy

Not in her role as a woman, mother, or wife, but as a candidate. In a speech that begged the Democrats to attack her, she (and Guiliani before her) attacked Senator Obama with ridicule (making fun of community organizers) and used blatant lies. She said that Obama would raise taxes and make it more difficult for people to make ends meet. (Obama's plan calls for raising taxes for those who make more than $250,000 year and for lowering them for everyone else.) She said she turned down the funding for the infamous Bridge to Nowhere (only after campaigning for it). In warm, fuzzy, I'm a wonderful Mom moment, she said she
would be the friend to all those people, who like herself, were rasing
a child of special needs. As the govenor of Alaska, she cut funding for
Health and Education. And at no time did she talk about her anti-abortion, anti-choice views. But what really irked me was how she had the gall to make fun of Obama, laugh at him--what is she, a late-night talk show host? I understand that at the Convention candidates can say outrageous things and the audience will wildly cheer no matter what is said. But, come on.

The McCain/Palin ticket scares me. With his documented memory lapses, Palin is poised to become President sooner than anyone thinks if they prevail in November. Give me a calm, rational, thoughtful, intelligent community organizer (MLK was a community organizer and so was Gandhi) any day over a pair of emotional and impulsive community disorganizers.

She has an ideology regarding abstinence and sex education which did not work for her and her family, a policy of this kind  is something we do have the right to question her about. We don't have the right to bother her daughter, but yes in this case we certainly do have the right to question her on this, and she should be questioned fully on what she thinks of the women without the supportive family, without the moony , whose boyfriend took off, a women whose economic potential because of it will be forever affected, a women who has thought long and struggled with her decision. I'd like to know what she has to say because what can she say but she doesn't really give a crap about those women because she believes what she believes.

It's election time. I'm going to worry about not electing a group of people whose policies I abhor.
If I see something on my site sexist or racist I smack it down, but I don't see that often. I would comment on it if I saw it, but I'm not  going to go searching far and wide for it just to make an issue out of it when right now it is not as significant to me as the answers to questions on healthcare, choice, education, civil liberties, corporate welfare. Iraq, foreign policy, NAFTA, and pork spending

cooper

I love you kid but I don't believe you are that naive.  This is not a simple issue.  First off, it is my perception that Palin is taking more hits from the fundamentalist right than from the liberal left regarding her parenting choices vis a vis her suitability to lead.

Maybe I haven't watched enough hours of television, read enough newspapers, or spent enough time on the web.  But it appears to me that most of the criticism the democrats/feminists/liberals (the ephemeral "them") does not discuss her parenting choices so much as it questions her right to freely bash others without receiving the same sort of treatment. 

I don't agree that attack merits an attack in kind.  But when the values that people hold dear are belittled and held up to ridicule, the average person tends to defend herself. 

I disagree with the commenter who sounds as though the fact that Palin is not a feminist means feminists have no obligation to defend her right to make her own personal choices.  On the other hand, I feel no obligation to support her simply because she is female.  As a woman who has chosen to run for public office, she must take her licks like a grownup.

She cannot freely (and I think unfairly) slam Obama and expect to not experience some backlash.

My question is this.  Is this really about misogyny?  Or is it about a shameless manipulation to woo unhappy Clinton voters?  Frankly, I do like Palin.  I don't like her politics.  And I don't see her as presidential material at this point in her career.  That's an opinion and not a judgement of her as a person.

I do not think that questioning Palin's ability to lead our country in the right direction is misogynistic.  The questions about her family are simply red herrings.  It is imperative that democratic and/or feminist women take a look at her, as well as at Obama, with regard to their platforms, their agendas, and what they have to offer this country in the way of competent leadership.

Being an old fart, I am truly more comfortable with the thought of Hillary Clinton in office than either Obama or Palin.  But silly as it may seem, my heart cries out for a president who has some concept of what it means to be "The Other."

I might like the idea of a woman in such a powerful position.  But I care deeply that it be a woman with whom I feel some political alignment.

Really, I'm trying to understand why women are so drawn to Palin, her mothering experiences aside.  So far, what I have seen of her record is disheartening when it comes to issues of education and healthcare. 

I don't think either side will ever truly believe that the other person has the country's best interests at heart.  And that, my dears, is why the political process will continue to be fraught with emotion, high rhetoric, and wild accusation.  We are, after all, talking about our lives.

Always in trouble...

are sometimes on the mark.

But sometimes, like
when her positions and experience are the issue, the complaint of
Sexism is a handy tool used by the GOP and their supporters to distract
from the real issues.

She's an engaging speaker. But she's not Veep material.

Period.

http://maurhoffbarney.blogspot.com/2008/09/so-where-do-i-begin.html

~Margaret

Shelly P - you wrote:

PS The next time someone in one of these discussion threads at Bloger comes along and talks about Poor Sarah Palin and the sexist attacks against her: you'd better be prepared to have link, and specifics handy. Because I'm tired of you controlling ths conversation with innuendo and hearsay.

I apologize - I have two kids dancing around me screaming, and although it might seem calculated that I don't link or give specifics, I just can't juggle like most women do.  But I decided that it was important  enough to at least give a quick shout out how I felt.  I was just responding to the post, not trying to debate/argue with the other posters.   

I'm a feminist who is defending her. 

On my girl empowerment blog I'm encouraging all mothers and fathers to speak respectfully of Sarah Palin whether the agree with her politics or not.

My hope is that our daughters never see another election with 4 men on the tickets and how we react to Sarah Palin will stick with our daughters in a fundamental way. 

http://traceesioux.blogspot.com/2008/09/i-hate-sarah-palin.html

Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

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