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This is what a feminist looks like?

Jill

The president of Los Angeles NOW — but not the actual LA chapter of NOW — endorses Sarah Palin:

Excuse me, this is a woman who will fight for women’s rights? Which rights would those be? She’s on a ticket that is anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-pay-equality and generally bad for women. Having women in positions in power is crucial to empowering women more broadly; but when those women are anti-feminist, it’s not a feminist move to elect them.

To be clear, NOW’s LA chapter is endorsing Obama/Biden, not Palin. The Palin endorsement is an individual, personal one. But of course right-wing sites are already celebrating this “new feminism” — because apparently, “same-old” is the new “new.”

19 thoughts on This is what a feminist looks like?

  2. Most of this endorsement speech is meaningless gibber-jabber phrases like ‘she’ll shake things up,’ showing how little someone who identifies as a feminist can actually say in Palin’s favor other than “she’s a woman!” Seriously, LA NOW president – how will you sleep at night after telling the nation to vote for an anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-equal pay candidate? What an embarrassment.

  3. Thank you for posting the link to the CA NOW statement. No chapter of NOW has endorsed McCain/Palin, and we are working to clear up the misconceptions that Shelly Mandell’s personal support for Palin have caused.

  4. Has Mandell lost her mind? Seems to me that she lost her moral compass in 30 years of “women’s rights advocacy.”

    Since when did being anti-woman become “what a feminist looks like”? As Governor, Palin slashed funding for orphanages, young mothers, and public schools.

    Mandell should be ashamed of herself. Or at least do her frakking homework on who she’s endorsing.

  5. Backing up CA NOW. According to federal election rules, as I know them, no local chapter or state chapter can endorse in a federal election. NATIONAL NOW PAC endorses for president and they endorsed Obama. It would be great if you could edit the LA chapter line in the post. thanks!

  6. There are people who applauded at a Palin rally when the Equal Rights Amendment was mentioned? That seems…incongruous.

    As an aside, what on earth is that opening music?

  7. This is a big fat doubleyoo tee eff.

    CA NOW, I don’t know anything about the structure of NOW, but could the LA chapter of NOW move for inpeachement?

  8. Re: the right wing sites you mention celebrating.

    This is what I don’t understand. If Obama gets an endorsement from people or organizations that right wingers usually describe as radical or opposed to traditional family values or whatever term they use to describe entities who refuse to uphold the hallowed white-male-on-top-of-everyone-else hierarchy, it’s a sign of how nefarious and leftist-extremist he is. But Sarah Palin gets an endorsement from the president of a NOW chapter, a supposed representative of an organization that singlehandledly taught women to hate men and eat their babies (or whatever the current mythology teaches), and it’s worthy of celebration?

    My mind, it can’t take it!

  9. But, Elle, in the week of the Repubican convention did we not learn that, in fact, the Liberal Media Elites and the Democrats are the Real Sexists?

  10. If this is what a feminist looks like, then America is in bigger trouble that I thought. I am suprised that such a long-time, it seems women’s campaigner, would endorse someone like Sarah Palin who is so obviously not standing for rights of women. I too have blogged on the Sarah Palin phenomenom which is like some bad dream. Thanks for clearing this up.

  11. People, when was the last time that any vice presidient of the united states stepped into office and “overturned” any law in this country? NEVER! Take solice, we do after all have a court system. It has been 24 years since a woman has even made it to the presidential ticket…that’s only the 2 nd time in the history of the country.
    Many americans would love to see a woman president, let’s let her try first!

  12. Yes we have a court system, but it’s been so stacked with right wing assholes that in many cases, it’s virtually impossible to tell the difference between a federal court proceeding and a Bush cabinet meeting.

    As for a woman in the White House, I would love to see it too. But only if she is competent, which I don’t think Sarah Palin is. And any politician – regardless of race, gender, religion, parental status, orientation, etc. – is only going to get my vote if I believe he/she stands for the things I think will improve the country and beyond. That’s not how I feel about the McCain-Palin ticket. I will not sacrifice my children’s future so an asshole and an airhead can play maverick.

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  15. The idea that a woman can only be a ‘feminist’ if she supports unfettered abortion is totally absurd. Why do you women tie the so-called ‘advancement’ of females to the ability to have an abortion?

    How can you honestly say that Sarah Palin becoming the Vice President of the United States (the 2nd most powerful person on earth) would not advance women?

    Why does everything live and die by the abortion issue? It’s totally ridiculous and insulting to say that a woman like Sarah Palin is somehow less of a woman because she chose to have her kids instead of abort them.

    Believe it or not there are millions of women in the United States who don’t give a damn about having an abortion.

    The truth is that the abortion debate is for the most part settled. Nobody is gonna be taking your right to kill your babies so don’t panic. The SCOTUS is not going to overturn Roe v. Wade whether Palin is elected or not.

    All the polls show the majority of Americans DO NOT support overturning Roe v. Wade, even among those opposed to abortion.

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  17. I liked Palin’s cynical plea for women to support her, by mischaracterizing a quote off a Starbucks coffee cup, attributed to Madeline Albright: “Hell has a special place reserved for women who don’t support other women”.

    Albright was pissed that Palin mischaracterized her quote, and isn’t Palin the woman who has a history of slamming and mocking Hillary Clinton?

    Who does Palin think she’s kidding?

  18. Why doesn’t she mention Roe v. Wade? If she is pro-choice that should have been a triumph. If she’s pro-choice she should talk about it as feminisms mistake. But I don’t think anyone alive and aware of the the world in America in1973 can call themselves much a woman’s anything it they don’t mention abortion affecting that generation of women.

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