One Small Step Forward for Women

This election convinced me more than ever that I will never vote for anyone, female or male, who does not represent what I value. What I believe in, and what I am willing to spend the rest of my life making a stand for.

It sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Vote your values.

I have too much self-respect and respect for the women in my family--both those who came before me, those who come after me (nieces, cousins), as well as my friends, and for the feminine half of humanity, to ever insult them with a vote for those who would so blatantly disrespect women.

If you know me or have been reading my posts in the last year, you know that I am impassioned about women's rights. Senator McCain and Governor Palin forced a lot of women to wake up and speak out. That's always a good thing! ;-)

It wouldn't have mattered if everything else they had on their platform was agreeable to me: I still could never stomach having a president who has a long record voting against women's health regarding family planning and reproductive rights for women both in the USA and abroad, has voted against funding the VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act. Furthermore, how could I have voted for someone who thinks so little of women--that he ultimately decided to put a anti-woman woman on his ticket, thinking that women would fall for it?
It's insulting, to say the least.

Women's rights: that's my number one priority. The measure I use to evaluate each candidate whom I am asked to consider to represent me for public office. Everything else is secondary. We make up more than half of humanity. We help create life and bring life into the world. Mothers are the glue of most families. But we still experience rampant sexism. And many women around the world are still being treated like second-class citizens at best, regarded as commodities to be exploited in sexual slave trafficking or in inhumane working conditions conveniently overlooked by governments and multi-national corporations.

I don't know who scares me more: him or her? The governor. Yes, definitely.

Thank goodness for blogs like Women Against Sarah Palin, for thinking women (which included women of her own party) to express their deepest fears about what might be if such a ticket of anti-women leaders were to govern our country.

She has given me every reason to dislike her. And continues to do so. You'd think she had committed a personal grievance against me the way I rant on about her, even post-election. But as I mentioned above, when I think about women's issues, I think about the women in my family, what my elders have suffered in the past, and what I don't want my nieces to have to endure in the future. Misogyny. Sexism. All the attendant harmful attitudes and actions that come along with them. I start with my family, my friends, and then I think of ALL the women around the world.

First, she dissed our president-elect (whom I didn't vote for) by mocking his background as community organizer. Those are the people who do the thankless job of trying to get everyone together, educate participants to better their community. I'm all for community improvements and social justice. Community organizers get the shit done! Even from my extremely limited experience of having to organize board members of a city orchestra to come together at a meeting (getting them to agree on the date, and sometimes, agenda) and organizing volunteers for various activities gave me a taste of what it takes to organize so many people for a common purpose.

What does the governor have to say about community organizing now that her running mate's rival will be in the White House, thanks due in part to the skills and lessons he learned so many years ago as a community organizer?

The fact that she would force rape victims to pay for their own rape kits is unimaginable to me. Is it because she is so religious and opposed to abortion and that there is (I assume) contraceptives in the kit that she doesn't want taxpayers to pay for it? And she wants the victim to go through with an unwanted pregancy from someone who violently violated her? No exception for rape or incest? How in the world can she call herself a feminist, as she answered that, yes she is, when asked by a reporter shortly before elections (she didn't seem very convincing in her tone to me!)?

The library incident was the last straw for me. That she even wanted to remove books from the PUBLIC LIBRARY that were offensive to her personal, religious beliefs was a big, red flag to me. THAT was, and is, totally unacceptable to me. I'll read whatever I please! I actually did write to reporter at the Anchorage Daily News to ask about a detail re: the letters--it seemed so high schoolish to me, and she wrote me back, saying that apparently it had been done before: sending letters of threatened termination, asking the recipient to reapply, and answer WHY they should have the job.

I don't trust anyone who would dare to censor books. It assumes people are so stupid that they can't think for themselves, especially when presented with material that offends the person or people who wish to ban the books in question. I really despise that to the marrow of my bones.

And this morning my blood was boiling! :-( On the radio news show "Democracy Now", songwriter Gretchen Peters expressed her disappointment with the governor from Alaska who used her song "Independence Day", which was recorded by singer Martina McBride in 1994, for her own campaign rally. That song is about an abused woman. A very powerful song, I might add. How ironic that the governor used it (out of context), and is for women paying for their own rape kits. Ms. Peters did the right thing: she decided to donate the royalties from that that song to Planned Parenthood during election time--in the governor's name, to help women in need. ;-b (though I wrote in a past post that I have a few issues with PP. :-()

What's next with her? Why should I care? I don't even know her, personally! However, I do think she can be very mean-spirited when she wants to be.

It is women like the governor of Alaska who scare me. Women who would set women's rights back decades. To my mind: centuries! %-( I'm keeping an eye on her, and women like her. Men, too. They shouldn't be allowed to be in public office for that reason alone...that's my personal bias. Leave your misogyny and religious beliefs at home at let people live freely!

I want to live in a progressive world, not a regressive police state. I will remain on guard until my last breath.

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick flowers in other people's gardens And learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat And eat three pounds of sausages at a go Or only bread and pickle for a week And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry And pay our rent and not swear in the street And set a good example for the children. We must have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple. Jenny Joseph, English poet (b. 1932)