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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
Let me first say this: Sarah Palin is not a champion for women's rights. Anyone who dares to insinuate this, either male or female, has obviously not been a victim of the policies that Palin stands in front of.
This is not an attack on her ability to lead. I regard her as a strong defender of her family. Any mother who ventures into the laborious world of PTA must be a creature of barbaric instinct. She stands to fight for her family. Family is not the debate.
And while we're at it, let's leave religion alone, too. The constitution makes it clear that religion is no prerequisite to political office or political activity in this country. Pentecostal or not, everyone has a right to participate in this system.
This is a question of the future of women in the United States. Not those of voting age, but those who in the future might step into a polling booth or mail their ballot in, declaring their voice.
Electing a woman who advocates taking sex education out of public education is an abomination. For those afraid of the word "sex," here's a wake-up call: sex education is not simply a class where adolescents learn the mechanics of sex. It is a class where the mechanics and care of the reproductive organs of the human body are taught.
What happens to a woman who doesn't know her own internal processes? It is a setback to women's rights when young girls do not know how to properly care for their own bodies. It is a setback when a young girl doesn't know the basic ways to protect herself from STDs or unwanted sexual advances.
Knowledge is power. Ignorance is the absolutism of abstinence-only sex education and the unconscious and persisting oppression of women. Palin has become the willing participant in this system.
Not only has McCain made her the newest pet for the Republican Party, he has also offered her the services of a speechwriter who has masterminded the last eight years of political dredgery and more. Matthew Scully, the brains behind the profusion of terror, enemy and victory as seen in Palin's acceptance speech, has also been the voice of such right-wing heroes as Dick Cheney, Dan Quayle and, the current leader of the Republican Party, George W. Bush.
If Palin was to be anything other than a short-lived shock, party leaders and the McCain campaign could have at least given her the benefit of a female speech writer. I assure you, there are many.
Our nation stands on the cusp of a serious self-identification crisis. The baby boomers, often known as the "generation of seekers," have yet to find their political soul, and it seems some might be more willing to vote for Sarah Palin because she can field dress a moose rather than be an advocate for refurbished foreign policy.
What the Republican campaign has so far ignored is that political self-identification is no longer an inherent thing. Situational self-identification has been identified as an area of study in the American Political Science Association, in conjunction with a study by Stanford. People do not inherit their political affiliation from parents or friends, the study shows. It can be non-strategic and unconscious. Voters "self identify simply because one idea is more cognitively available in a given situation," states Alex Kuo Yotam Margalit, author of the study.
I will not vote for Sarah Palin because I'm a woman and she's a woman. The political identity of the United States has become more recently a study of situation rather than tradition.
It seems that there is some desire to harness the anger of the 18 million women left in the wake of Hillary Clinton's defeat. It's anger that occurs on a level that should never be allowed to determine the political future or doom of this country.
It's as instinctual as sex, but the Republican Party has it all wrong. This anger existed before Hillary Clinton. This anger will exist even after this election is over. It has everything to do with the incomplete war for women's rights. Yet, these are the very basic things you will not hear Sarah Palin address.
She will continue to stump about the pride of being a hockey mom. If the McCain-Palin ticket succeeds, expect to have a pit bull with lipstick in the office of the VP. But if you're a woman, the last thing you should expect is an advocate.
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