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Shopping Resumes

By lex, on October 5th, 2008

The president of the LA chapter of the National Associate of Women endorses Sarah Palin as vice president.

“America, this is what a feminist looks like.”

She’ll never work in that town again.

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October 5th, 2008 | Tags: | Category: Politics and Culture

8 comments to Shopping Resumes

  • Marianne Matthews
    October 6, 2008 at 9:12 am

    I saw that film clip yesterday. I love it, and Sarah’s mischievous comment about Madeline Albright as she held up her coffee cup. Even the strangest people sometimes say something right, as the quote on the coffee cup proved.

    I want to pay tribute to the chapter president of NOW. That took guts to do and she did it. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton would be proud of her, even if Gloria Steinem wouldn’t. But then … what does Gloria know anyway? She says a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. We know better.

    Marianne

  • km
    October 6, 2008 at 10:20 am

    I think the point is, feminists can come in many forms…y’all tend to have a very generalizing notion of what feminists are…at its base, feminism is a political movement, and just as there is a range of beliefs that coexist under the umbrellas of “Republican”, “Democrat”, “Green”, “Marxist”, etc., there are competing factions within feminism…as there were when Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Gage, and Susan B. Anthony were leading debates within the movement. Even then, there were graduations between those who supported contraception but not birth control (abortion is a form of birth control, not contraception), those who supported birth control, and those who did not. The present is little different from the past.

    One of the advantages of this blog is that Lex tends to encourage open debate with the hope of everyone walking away with some sense of the range of perspectives out there.

    Instead of blasting feminists as some sort of homogenous group, it would be more helpful to simply understand which branch of feminism you agree with and those that you don’t (there is a fixation on Gloria Steinem that continues to confuse me…it would be like holding up David Duke as representative of all Republicans.)

    …given that folks on this site tend to be upset by the violence that happens to women within certain cultural traditions, it appears to me that there are some feminist sympathies within the readership.

  • Marianne Matthews
    October 6, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    km … of course there are feminist sympathies within the readership of Lex’s blog. What woman among his readers wants violence against women? As his oldest commenter, I have watched the course of modern feminism since I went to work after I graduated from college in 1951, if not before. I spoke out for equal pay for equal work, greater opportunities for women in various fields, as did my contemporaries. But, I must emphasize, the difference between modern feminism, as exemplified by the activists under Gloria Steinem et al, is that today’s feminists seem to demonize men, all men, as directly complicit in the “oppression” of women. I’ll debate that any time.

    When I went to work full time in 1951, yes, there were sweatshops that exploited women; yes, men were sometimes promoted over women who shared the same skills. So what? In the real world this will always happen, but it’s not always gender-related. Talented men can be passed over for less talented men as we all know.

    An intelligent woman can find ways to succeed, no matter what the odds. What I object to about many of today’s feminists is that they’re using the “victim flag” to march under and hide behind, as certain other groups do. And all that’s going to do is delay their personal growth and progress in their particular field. And, as Madeline Albright said, all successful women should welcome the appearance of other promising women on their particular horizon. Which is why I find the hateful attacks on Sarah Palin by such feminist journalists as Maureeen Dowd, Sally Quinn, and a whole bunch of others too numerous to mention particularly offensive.

    And why I admire the President of the LA Chapter of NOW so much.

    Marianne

  • Bou
    October 6, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    I have given lectures recently on Women and their Issues, usually starting it with ‘we are all women and we all have issues’. Those women who came before me have allowed that I don’t have to be an active feminist. I get equal pay (yes, I do), I am in a male dominated field that 50 years ago would never have happened, I vote, I have equal rights…

    All things some woman before me fought for.

    I have run across my shares of injustices, but we all face injustices in our lives. I openly fought for other women against these injustices… and won. I expect there would be no one here who would not have done what I have done…

    But a modern day ‘feminist’, as it gets labeled, I am not. I do not hate men, I love their company. I do not blame men for the injustices I have dealt with nor the sexual harassment… I blame the individual or people who doled it out. Against them I will fight… but I have many men, that fight along side me.

    I applaud this woman for doing the right thing. Not all women like Govenor Palin and it is our RIGHT to decide whether we like her or not. Someone should not decide that for us.

    And for those ‘feminists’ who think they have the right to declare who *I* as a modern, intelligent, independent thinking woman, should choose to respect as a woman making progress, is no better than a man telling me how to think 100 years ago.

    A pox upon them and may they rot. And kudos to a woman doing the right thing…

  • mac III
    October 6, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    My grandmother was up before dawn every morning and after pulling on the our family source of “the lacting fluid of the bovine species” she would have breakfast cooked for all of us that lived on her farm. She managed the farm; took care of the bookkeeping, planting schedules and maintenance records of vehicles and equipment. She cooked three meals a day, sewed, made butter, hunted small game in the wood lot behind the house. She would kill and clean yard chickens for the pot. She made her own clothes and ordered ours from a catalog. She had a garden which provided for our table and our less fortunate or unable neighbors.

    She wrote to me once a week when I went off to the Naval Academy. In her letters she would include postage stamps so that I would not have to spend my money to write back.

    Today, I see my sisters and nieces who are buisness executives and engineers. My own daughter is an attorney, my son is an educator. On our farm, as on most family farms, there were very few things that were gender specific. Each and every child learned to drive in pickup trucks and on tractors.

    When I think of my grandmother, I think about those early mornings but I also think about how every night, she would kneel by her bed, bow her head and clasp her calloused hands. When I look for an example of an independent and strong female, I look to the one that taught me how to be a man.

    It was a short walk when my brother, my cousins and I carried her to her final resting place. If ever there was a woman that needed a rest, it was Grandma, but her labors work on in all of us that she nurtured and have her nature.

    I think Grandma would really like the governor.

  • Marianne Matthews
    October 6, 2008 at 8:23 pm

    Bou … thank you for telling your story. It thrills me to hear from someone who proves that all the struggle for equal rights was worth it. My husband and I attended the first NOW convention in Houston in 1977, and talked with Steinem and some other feminists in her suite afterwards There was a yeasty sense of expectation then — great things were in train to be accomplished and the world looked more hopeful than before.

    But like most idealistic dreams, reality intruded, and the present-day results are less, far less than was hoped for. Maybe that’s why I feel so bitter about the small-minded cruel treatment of a fine young woman who has tried to do good things for her family and great things for the rest of the country.

    These feminist journalists are in *my* business, journalism, and they’re selling out everything they’re supposed to be practicing — objectivity, good, careful, research, and honest presentation of facts. That’s why I have sounded so bitter about this at times when I have posted here. Back in 2004, I realized that my daily newspaper was selling me down the river, so to speak, that everything they wrote was so slanted that it was an editorial, not a news story. That’s why I went on the ‘Net and discovered weblogs, stumbling around until I could piece together some picture of the War that at least resembled reality. I think that this search has been duplicated all over the country, by older folks like myself who want a picture of what’s really going on in our country today.

    You, and the other commenters on Lex, as well as Lex himself, have been lifesavers for me. You all have given me a picture of our country today that’s not so different from the country I knew and loved when I was young.

    Thank you …

    Marianne

  • KM
    October 6, 2008 at 11:04 pm

    I’m just saying…whenever feminism comes up, the same themes…without evidence beyond citing two or three people, who are of questionable relevance to modern feminism, always come up (we know the media today is lazy–Steinem comes up because she’s in the rolodex and doesn’t have anything else to do but give interviews and talks–doesn’t mean she’s actively DOING anything).

    I do consider myself a feminist. I like men fine, (and like fine men) thank you. I wear lacy undies (yes, including bras–haven’t burnt one yet), and look good wearing them. I shave my legs and wear heels (on occasion–not practical for work). I’m not a victim, I like being a woman. I’m considered one of the best in the world at what I do–by men and women alike– and yes, its a male dominated field, so I’ve done my share of fighting, for myself and junior female colleagues. And yes, I have to do more work than my male colleagues for significantly less pay…old boy networks are harder to permeate than glass ceilings are to break.

    I believe that equality should mean that women have as much freedom to pursue as many different paths as men do without having to face more obstacles then men just because they have two x chromosomes.

    Sorry for the rant…a lot of men and women have benefitted from the feminist movement…but just like other women’s work, it tends to get undervalued.

  • Bou
    October 7, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    Marianne- It was all worth it. Every last bit. All of it… Never doubt that.

    KM- I don’t think anyone I know undervalues it… but I do think that people get sick of a lot of the ‘anger’ that is projected from the movement today. That has always been my peeve with Hillary… she just always seems so daggum angry. To get to the top, you don’t have to seem like a bully. You can still be a lady and wear a skirt and heels, and be pleasant.
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