Todd Palin - A feminist icon?

Hey Rachel,

Please keep Oprah out of this. She should not have Sara or her husband on her show. For what???????. We do not want to see another woman with all those kids reek havoc on national / worldwide tv. Those of us who have no children just don't get it. Everywhere we turn, ( now even in the ofice ) kids,we are very tired of this drama.

Say at home and controll your children!!!! - Mighty funny that all of a sudden it's in vogue for white women to have all these kids. Race card - you bet

You know that Palin is one step above trailer trash. She is a Moose killin, polar bear starving, oil suckin yes woman. Oh Yeah, nobody tells Oprah what to do, she got hers honest. ----- L. Clark

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I'd like to clear up a few things about the DIRTY word "feminism."

1) Feminism is NOT the belief that women are BETTER than men (or any manifestation of that idea) it is that we are and should be treated as *equal.*

2) Feminism is just as much a women's issue as racism is a brown peoples' issue.

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Rachel, if I were you I'd fire ParentDish. What a bunch of trash we have posting here.

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To return to the matter at hand:

"That's why I cannot understand why feminist icons like Gloria Steinem could not put aside their politics on abortion to celebrate, if not this historic nomination."

Because Sarah Palin is running for vice president. I don't care that she's a woman. I don't care if her husband is nice and helpful. I don't care about the personalities of the Palin family. I care about the issues, and I find Palin's stances on many issues deeply troubling, if not downright offensive.

I hear what you're saying, and I would like to agree that it's a big step forward to see a woman in the running for the VP and a husband supporting her and pulling his weight domestically; if the Palin's time in the limelight helps folks re-think the domestic structure of the American Family, then that would be great. But none of this makes me excited about Palin, or makes the prospect of her being VP less frightening to me. I'm voting on the issues, and when it comes to the issues, I couldn't disagree with Palin more.

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I totally agree with you! I've always admired you for being willing to speak out on your views, no matter what insults people may throw your way. That takes a lot of courage. Stay strong!

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Re: JHZ to LClark

JHZ, for your information I am a female. And most 44 year olds these days and times do not have 5 or more children. As a matter of fact all of the 40-45 year olds I know ( many ) do not have children or husbands because they are to busy working on Masters or PHd education. I know it's ugly, but the real fact is, women that don't have children do not respect the fact that we have to put up with this so called multi-task crap.

1.Get up early (5:00am)
2.Feed everybody, get homework, pack lunch
3.Drop everybody off (somewhere )
4.Get yourself to work ( flying like a bat out of hell)
5.Arrive at work ( in a bad mood )
6 Phone calls all day re: something going on with your kids
7.Leave work early - because of the kids
8.After school drama (got to keep up with the Jones kids)
9.Swing by for fast food or microwave something
10.Get home bath time - homework etc.

Honey,when do yall SLEEP. - you have got to be kidding me (or yourself) Ok, lets do the math. Daycare for 1 kid is what - about $125.00 per week ( more in some places) times 3-4 , I rest my case. With this type of out go you would be better off staying at home and yes out of our way. Buy the way, your reply to me has no merit. Maybe your next reply will be to explain to me how Palin and her husband plan to pay for, and take care of two stupid young kids and their newborn baby in the next 4 months. Sounds like a welfare case to me. Oh, I forgot, she is counting on her new job as VP to handle that. Yeah, Right. By the way your reply said nothing about the fact that it seems to be in vogue to have all these kids if you are a white woman. L.Clark

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I hope that in this 21st century Mr. Palin is supportive of his wife's career. I also hope that he is an active father in his children's lives.

However, that's all I can do is HOPE...I don't KNOW that he is or he isn't. I can only speak of my own family situation, not that of others. I'm not sure that any of us currently participating in this discussion are qualified to determine exactly how supportive he is.

He maintained a job for most of their marriage however. He IS NOT a stay at home dad who is diligently vacuuming and cooking dinner as Rachel depicts her own husband doing.

According to Wikipedia: "Palin is a union member belonging to the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union (United Steelworkers).For 18 years, he worked for BP Oil in the North Slope oil fields of Alaska. In 2007, in order to avoid a conflict of interest relating to his wife's position as governor, he took a leave from his job as production supervisor when his employer became involved in natural gas pipeline negotiations with his wife's administration. Seven months later, because the family needed more income, Todd returned to BP. In order to avoid potential conflict of interest, this time he accepted a non-management position as a production operator.He is also a commercial salmon fisherman at Bristol Bay on the Nushugak River. Financial statements filed in 2007 show that Palin earned $92,790 from BP and fishing."

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Here is why Gloria Steinem cannot "put aside her politics":

From the Los Angeles Times
Opinion
Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is
Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem

September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there
through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a
boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is
owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that
he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq;
someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot
wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle
Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the
Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

For many of us, our politics are partly our ideals. Ideals are a combination of what we learn from our faith, our upbringing, and our worldview. They cannot or should not just be tossed aside b/c a candidate has the "right anatomy" or a husband who helps at home (big deal - many husbands these days are full partners in their own homes and do not consider it helping, anyway).

Please, please, please, women! If you truly agree with all that Palin stands for as a PERSON and as a CANDIDATE, then by all means, enjoy your constitutional right to vote for her. Your minds will not be swayed, I realize. "Values are faithfully applied to the facts before us, while ideology overrides whatever facts call theory into question" (from The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama). Truer and sadder words have never been spoken and it applies to both sides.

But if you are just intrigued by her or whatever, for whatever reason, please do the research and find out if she really represents you as a woman. Do you really agree with her extreme views? If not, please carefully consider the price we all will pay for so many being so "intrigued".

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l clark,

I am responding to your IDIOTIC comments: "explain to me how Palin and her husband plan to pay for, and take care of two stupid young kids and their newborn baby in the next 4 months. Sounds like a welfare case to me. Oh, I forgot, she is counting on her new job as VP to handle that."

My, my, tough words, I guess you told us something...except for one thing...you may want to make sure you have at least SOME idea what you are talking about before you write such stupid things and make yourself out to be a fool...Sarah Palin is still receiving her salary as Governor while she runs for VP...just as Obama is still getting his salary for Senator...they are still "holding" that office, and thus get paid. Not to mention the fact that her husband holds a position at BP Oil...I strongly doubt they will be needing welfare...you make no sense. For someone who claims to have so "many" friends with "masters and PHd education", you don't present yourself as someone that is altogether educated on anything besides hateful, ignorant comments...get a clue.

I must also say, that your reference to Palin's young children as "stupid" just shows what a low class person you are...I couldn't help but notice that you didn't have any negative comments on the fact that Obama has children, or as you refer to them, "stupid young kids", or question his financial status. Furthermore, why is it okay in both of your blogs to comment on "white women" and how many children they choose to have??? If negative or snide remarks were posted on this site referring to "black women" overpopulating, I have no doubt you would be calling it racism, which it WOULD be...why is it okay for you to so blatantly attack an entire race in reverse??

Bottom line, there are plenty of families, black, white, or any other skin color that have numerous children and take amazing, responsible care of them...there are just as many families of numerous nationalities that have just one child and fail miserably in their responsibilities...you generalize to the point of absurdity. I would say that your comments pushed the women's movement back about 100 years, but then again, I doubt any logical person reading your blog would actually take you seriously...thanks for the laugh.

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WTF idiot Republicans! You think that Palin running for VP is historic??? Did you forget that the Democrats broke that ceiling over almost a QUARTER CENTURY ago!? Remember Geraldine Ferraro in 1984!? Nice to know it has taken the Republicans 24 years to catch up to the times!

So tell me, which is more Historic for the 2008 election: a woman running for VP or a black man running for President?

THINK PEOPLE. God gave you brains... USE THEM!!!

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Sarah Palin’s extramarital affair rumor was elaborated by National Enquirer and Alaskan Abroad. Sarah Palin’s friend has been named.


Alaskan Abroad, written by an Alaskan journalist, alleged that the Sarah Palin extramarital affair story picked up by the National Enquirer referred to the time when Sarah Palin was Mayor of Wasilla in mid 1990s.

Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd Palin, owned a snow mobile dealership business with his partner, Brad Hanson. Brad Hanson was a married man. Alaskan Abroad had sources which said Brad Hanson and Sarah Palin got along well. Todd Palin discovered their friendly relationship and dissolved the partnership. Todd then sold away the dealership. Brad Hanson is currently a member of the Palmer City Council. The National Enquirer has an anonymous source who claimed that there was an extra-marital affair. Some people in Alaska gossiped about the rumor of a relationship between Sarah Plain and Brad Hanson and how Todd Plain quickly swept it under the carpet.

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Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson, of the singing duo Heart, object to the Republicans’ use of their hit song, “Barracuda” as the official rally for Sarah “Barracuda Sarah” Palin.


Heart sent a cease-and-desist official notice to the McCain-Palin campaign office on Thursday, Sept. 4. “Barracuda” was chosen because the name was Sarah Palin’s nickname in high school and the Republicans thought it was a powerful warning to the Democrats. Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson stated that they did not endorse Sarah Palin’s views. There will be no “Barrucuda” for Palin.

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Rachel - We will disagree on a TON of things but one thing we can agree on - my husband and I are also for a partnership in a marriage!! I hope everyone has what we have - the teammate on a level playing field that shares everything and makes everything possible and happier! I don't know what to make of your comments on the Clintons' and the Palins' marriages - you can romaticize the Palins all you want but who really knows what goes on behind closed doors. Rarerly are things as they appear (on both sides of the aisle!) And don't get me started on the long list of so-called "conservative moral leaders" (the preachy "pillars of society") who have been caught doing very naughty things, sometimes in icky airport bathrooms.

You may have a point about Gen X, though - an interesting article in the WSJ last week (see link below) notes that our generation (male or female) is not so interested in 10 hour workdays and the family-unfriendly lifestyle that goes with it. The authors note that it isn't so much that we are hostile towards Palin's seemingly manic and nervous energy, but we are more exhausted by it. This "I-can-have-it-all-and-birth-it-all-and-do-it-all-and-hunt-it-all-and-never-sleep-at-all" attitude isn't shared my most of this generation (male or female), nor the Y generation. Most Xers and Yers like balance in our lives and so many of us will see Sarah Palin as something as a relic - a throwback to a less modern and less balanced time for women and their families. But neither this nor Palin's marriage should be how we judge her, or any potential VP (or P). It's about how this badly this country will do with a McCain/Palin ticket. And you should know that I'm one who would personally and fiscally prosper under such an administration. But I'm not voting my pocketbook this Novemeber, I'm voting my conscience because I despair for this country and the path it is headed down. We should be more concerned about the deficit and the economy, particularly in terms of how it will affect our children.

You can take all the nasty swipes you want at the Clintons' marriage but how well this country did during President Clinton's administration is all you need to know, not how the marriage worked (a private matter). Debt and unemployment were low and jobs and prospering families were high (by the way, big war = big expensive government so please don't pretend the Republicans are going to trim down this insane government spending going on right now!!).

One could conclude that Todd Palin is obediently standing on the stage and staying quiet because that's what the Bush/Cheney handlers told him to do. For better or worse, Bill Clinton is a thinking kind of guy who speaks his undeniably brilliant (if adulterous) mind. And while I think a marriage is a private thing that shouldn't be judged by those who don't know it from the inside, I'd say from all indications the Clintons have an amazing partnership (even if completely different from the kind we'd have or want with our spouse).

Rachel, I like your persona lots (since Real World) and I don't doubt your dedication to your party, but I do tend to think you use your strong and loaded words in this blog (not exactly a "weekly column," by the way) to promote and publicize yourself and your career more than your party.
Good reading here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122066114889205873.html() Nina Totenberg commented on

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Woo Hoo - you go girl! I totally agree and I'm holding out for one of these real men! No more "big babies" - no more egos to fluff - just a real man who knows how to be a real partner. Yes!

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