In the slew of misinformation and misleading advertisements that have been flooding our newspapers and TV screens during this election cycle, it’s difficult to figure out which lies are the most egregious. But I felt the need to write in about the way feminism has been hijacked to defend Sarah Palin’s inexperience and to shield her from legitimate questions about whether she’s able to lead this country.
It’s not just the handlers, such as John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis, who say Palin will speak to the media once they show “some level of respect and deference;” it’s also the voters who are castigating anyone who questions her abilities as sexist and anti-feminist. Barack Obama faced the same scrutiny all throughout this campaign about his levels of experience.
Being a feminist doesn’t mean that I jump down the throat of anyone who asks tough questions of a woman running for public office. It doesn’t mean voting for an unqualified candidate who opposes comprehensive sex education, who wants to take away a woman’s control over her reproductive rights, who tried to ban books from a public library, who has abused the office of governor for personal vendettas, who is not just hypocritical but consistently lies about her record and spending, just because ““ hey! ““ she’s a woman.
And while we’re on the topic of what feminism doesn’t mean, it isn’t about burning bras, braiding my leg hair and hating men. Heck, it isn’t even about being a woman. There are plenty of men out there who support the idea that people should be treated with respect, as individuals, regardless of their gender identity or expression ““ or for that matter race, nationality, sexual orientation, class, education level, political beliefs, or any of those other categories in which we try to put people. Feminism is a belief in each individual’s right to live as he or she chooses, whether we agree with those choices or not.
In the two elections in which I was eligible to vote, I watched as real issues and debates were replaced with discussion of God, gays and guns. Now we’re wasting time arguing about lipstick on pigs instead of talking about how to repair the mess that the past eight years’ regime has gotten us into.
This election might be about gender, but not in the simple “Women should vote for women” formula the hucksters are trying to shove down our throats.
Gloria Steinem wrote in the L.A. Times on Sept. 4 to supporters of Hillary Clinton who were upset with the Democratic Party: “To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, “˜Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.'”
When I first saw that McCain had chosen Palin as his running mate, I had a sudden rush of panic that women would flock to support him just so we could elect the first female vice president. As I’ve learned more about who Sarah Palin is in these past two weeks, that rush of panic has turned to terror ““ I don’t want to imagine living in a country where the second-in-command to a 72-year-old who has battled cancer has absolutely no foreign policy experience ““ and, on a more personal level to me, said she would be happy if she could “pray away the gay” that seems to be working out so well for my partner and me.
In the now infamous “lipstick on a pig” speech, Barack Obama also said, “You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called “˜change.’ It’s still gonna stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”
He was right. McCain is rapidly losing his maverick street cred, especially in choosing a running mate with political and religious views that are even more conservative than his own backsliding stances.
Sarah Palin may be a woman, but that doesn’t mean that the McCain-Palin ticket can hijack change to mask their smell. And in this case, this anti-woman woman doesn’t just smell like old fish ““ she smells like Bush.
Wang graduated from UCLA in 2003.