Palin and Women's Rights

The runaway popularity of Sarah Palin, especially with women, is enough to throw the radical feminists into fits. In some cases, feminist may be mistaken as sufferers of Tourette syndrome. One blogger characterized her as pure evil. Then there is this rant at the Daily-kook.

In an Aug. 29th press release, NOW PAC chair, Kim Gandy, emphatically pontificated that Sarh Palin is no more a supporter of women's rights than John McCain, but admitted that "like Sarah Palin, not every woman supports women's rights." Which rights? Apparently, only the right of a woman to flippantly murder her unborn child.

Chicago Sun Times columnist, Mary Mitchell, echoed the same sentiments yesterday in a piece entitled Palin should be laughingstock to all feminists. Rather than comprehensively prove the 'laughingstock' premise of the title, Ms. Mitchell spends a good portion of the piece lamenting the much chagrined popularity of Sarah Palin. The following are a few examples of this:

"Sarah Palin makes me sick. I hate that she was able to
steal Barack Obama's mojo just by showing up wearing rimless glasses and a
skirt."


"I hate that she makes Joe Biden look like John McCain
and John McCain look like the maverick he is not."



"I hate that Palin reminds me of Susan Sarandon's
feisty character in "Thelma & Louise." I loved Sarandon in that movie, yet I
couldn't stand Palin's feistiness at the Republican National Convention."


"Sarah Palin makes me sick -- not because she may speak
in tongues -- but because she is a fast talker."



"It irks me that Palin is being painted as some kind of
"New Age Feminist" by the so-called 'elite' media."


"She isn't."


"Palin is a fresh face on a weary campaign trail, and a
jack-in-the-box in this election.
But Palin isn't running against Barack
Obama. McCain is, and the media seem to have forgotten that."

Having delt sufficiently with her 'cry baby' issues, Ms. Mitchell moved on to more substantive matters, like the claim that Palin is a reformer.

"But we know that the "reform-minded" is a bit of a stretch.
Palin is under investigation for allegedly abusing her power by trying to have
her ex-brother-in-law fired."

Ms. Mitchell fails to site any instances in which feminists have opposed the firing of a dangerous, child abusing, male, state trooper. Ms. Mitchell continued her piece by pointing out the ways in which Sarah Palin is a typical politician, but fails to recount the long list of atypical politicians that feminist typically have supported in the past.

From this point on in the article, Ms. Mitchell waxed hypocritical. She tried to cast doubt on whether Palin could be both a career woman and mother. How does doing that which feminists have always supported and encouraged women to do make her a 'laughingstock' to feminists. Even a former Leftist like myself cannot explain the logic.

Finally, at the end of the piece, she gets to the real heart of the matter.

"Palin's extreme views on abortion (she once said she
would be against her daughter having an abortion even in the case of incest or
rape) and her support of abstinence-only programs should make her a
laughingstock to feminists."

Yes, it is true that a woman who chooses to give birth to a child because she believes that abortion is wrong, is a choice that feminists mock. It is true that the notion of preventing a pregnancy through the advocation of abstinence is repugnant to feminists. It is also true that feminists are the the advocates of women's rights save but one; the right of a woman to have an opinion which differs from the feminazi party line.