In 1970, at the ripe age of 15, I made what felt like the most natural decision in the world for any female to make: I decided to support the still-new feminist movement (or, as it was called at the time, the Women's Liberation Movement) by attending their first, historic rally in New York City. Even at that age, I wasn't new to organized politics: I'd marched (with my parents) against the American Nazi Party in Washington D.C. in the mid-1960s. I'd been active in the anti-war Moratorium movement (or at least as active as a kid can be) since 1968.
So when I showed up for the Women's Lib march, I must have seemed comfortable because someone selected me to join the ranks of the multitude of parade marshals. They gave me an armband, and tasked me with hovering at the edges of the parade to help defuse tensions between spectators (many of whom had come to heckle) and marchers. It was an exciting and empowering experience and although I've never been a joiner, or ever really felt so much a part of something as a free-floating observer of events, I've always been very happy that I participated in that particular rally. It meant something to me then and it holds the same meaning to me now: to be a patriotic American is to stand up for what you believe. In my case, that meant upholding our nation's fundamental and sacred beliefs in freedom from oppression and our guaranteed rights to participate as an equal member in a Democratic society, regardless of race, religion, or sex.
I've never made a big deal out of my feminism. Although I was raised in a time when many, if not most, women were still being pushed to embrace the "pregnant and barefoot" model of femininity-- or, in more urban and middle-class homes, the "wife, mother and homemaker" model -- I was raised in a family which believed, unquestionably, that men and women were equals. My parents always assumed that I would pursue a college education and have a profession of some kind. When I encountered people who thought women were somehow less than men, or that men by right had authority over women, I was surprised: they struck me as nutty Neanderthals with antediluvian politics, not unlike those weird white people in the South who actually seemed to believe they were better than blacks. When I was a kid, I marveled at the existence of such people: where did they come from and what were they doing in my beautiful America?
How anyone could oppose any group whose only goal was to demand the social equality promised to all Americans by the Constitution was beyond me. Similarly, how anyone could believe they were, by virtue of race, sex, or religion, born to be superior struck me, even as a little girl, as the kind of personal problem best resolved in a psychiatrist's office than on a public platform.
There were a lot of reasons why I drifted away from both the anti-War movement and the Women's Lib movement, but none of them had to do with their basic positions. Even though I still believed the Vietnam War was a terrible, mad war, and even though I absolutely believed that women were entitled to equal pay for equal labor, the right to have abortions, and equal opportunity in all realms of American life, God, I hated some of the publicity-grabbing, self-glorifying rhetoricians whose blather grew so loud they drowned out the basic message of each movement.
But to this day, ask me, and I'll tell you: I am 100% feminist. I am a feminist because I believe that, as a group, women should be as socially and economically enfranchised as men. This includes what you do with your body (whether it's having a bunch of kids or remaining childless by choice); being fairly compensated for work; and having all the same social and educational opportunities available to people-with-penises. Being a feminist is NOT about gynocracy or supremacy: it's about believing that women are entitled to the same socio-economic rights as men. Why is that concept so difficult to grasp -- or, for the right, so easy to hate?
Which is why I view the choice of Sarah F. Palin as the RNC's candidate for VP with disgust and nausea. While people may go on and on about how wonderful and remarkable it is to have a women running for VP, and standing in line to become (particularly given McCain's age and health) our future President, I can't help despising her for being one of a long line of Republican and Conservative women who, on one hand, scoff at liberal values while owing their entire careers to the political strides that liberals achieved.
Palin joins the ranks of flaming, loud-mouthed hypocrites like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Mary Matalin, and scores of other women who have risen to prominence in the post-feminist years: self-hating deniers of the very movement that made their careers and social status possible. Some of the above have even embraced the misogynistic hate-sprach of frustrated closet-cases like Rush Limbaugh, using the term "Feminazi" and otherwise ridiculing the very people who paved the way for their success.
As a feminist, I'd love to vote for a woman some day. But I'll be goddamned if I vote for a self-hating Stepford-wifean hypocrite. So the next time I see Palin in a public forum, embracing her conservative values and refusing to admit that she would never be where she is today without us leftie hippie chicks of the 70s who made her candidacy possible, I'll be silently repeating the words her speech at the RNC convention evoked in me: Sarah Palin, shut the fuck up.
Recent Comments