Sarah Palin's Feminist Flip-Flop
You needn't be a Rhodes scholar to be able to keep your gender philosophy straight, particularly within the period of a month or so. Yet Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has flubbed even that, according to ABC's Political Radar:
In an interview on NBC Nightly News that aired yesterday, Brian Williams asked Palin: "Governor, are you a feminist?"
"I'm not gonna label myself anything, Brian," said Palin. "And I think that's what annoys a lot of Americans, especially in a political campaign, is to start trying to label different parts of America different, different backgrounds, different...I'm not going to put a label on myself."
But label herself is just what she did last month in an interview with CBS's Katie Couric, who asked her if she considered herself a feminist. Her answer was an unabashed, "I do."
These kinds of 180s are bad enough when they occur on major policy issues, such as federal bailouts, whether or not to cut taxes, etc. But when they occur within a short period of time and on a simpler question, it really calls into question the intelligence level of the interviewee.
Tags: ABC | NBC | presidential election 2008 | feminism | Sarah Palin
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Feminists
My mom, a successful banker who was way ahead of her time, always insisted true equality (the goal of feminists) is to have the same choices and compensation as men. Do not rest, she said, until you can have a bold, rewarding career without fear of negative labels or undue retribution, along with desirable husband and children, all at the same time. When the question who (mom or dad) will stay home to raise the children is the norm not the exception. Strive for the day, she added, when you too can have sexual freedom to have men on demand without being labeled a whore, responsiblity for your body and the right to remain single without eyebrows being raised.
The day women, like men, can do any combination of the above without being subject to ridicule and criticism, she said, is the day we can finally say it is an equal world. She died in a car wreck in Africa in 1975 but I never forgot her vision for women.
This past year, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin both proved the United States, more than many countries in this trying world, still has an incredible amount of work to do in this field - particularly with regard to teaching the more educated American women to accept and support other women who break ahead of the herd. Letting go of irrational jealousy will be a good start.
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