The real problem with Palin's $150,000 wardrobe

By Nancy Jane Moore

Joan Walsh on Salon summed up the real problem with the McCain campaign spending $150,000 to outfit "the already beautiful Palin":

Sarah Palin didn't need the best clothing and stylists money could buy; she needed tutoring and coaching on the issues. ... The fact that the highest paid staffer on the troubled McCain team this month is Palin's makeup person is also ludicrous; you can't make this stuff up. But it proves that the campaign values Palin primarily for her star power.

It also destroys any remaining claim that the McCain/Palin ticket is "feminist." Obviously the campaign honchos think it's more important for Palin to look good than to know what she's talking about. You can't come up with a more traditional way of marginalizing women than that.

Of course, Palin was picked as the VP candidate to shore up McCain with the extreme religious right, not just to be attractive. And given the apparent depth of Palin's ignorance of the important issues of the day -- which appears to rival or perhaps even exceed Bush's -- perhaps the campaign figured coaching her on the issues was impossible. If so, that just emphasizes what a bad choice she was, given the mess the country's in.

It was a big enough insult to women in this country for the Republicans to assume that women would flock to a female VP candidate whose policies as governor and stated political and religious beliefs undermine the rights we've worked so hard to attain. But to now treat that candidate as if she were running for first lady instead of vice president is even worse.

Sarah Palin is nothing but a token. How embarrassing for the Republicans; how personally humiliating for Palin. I just hope this campaign destroys her political future so thoroughly that her current political office is her last one.

This country has just suffered through eight years under a person who holds extreme right wing religious beliefs, doesn't understand the important issues of the day, and prides himself on his lack of intellectual curiosity. It can't afford another president like that.

In fact, it can't afford any more senators and governors like that, either.

The Wife Issue: Hillary Clinton & the elephant in the room

By Diane Silver

Gloria Steinem had a terrific op-ed in the New York Times this morning. Steinem argued that Hillary Clinton is struggling because women still face a glass ceiling, particularly in seeking the presidency. As I have many times in the past, I agreed wholeheartedly with Steinem's ideas. And yet, I still find myself leaning farther and farther away from supporting Hillary.

It's not, as Steinem implied, because I'm too young to understand sexism. I'm 55 and well aware of the obstacles we face for no other reason than the fact that we're female. As Steinem noted, women tend to get more radical as they get older. I've certainly seen myself do that. And to be clear: My anti-Hillary lean is not born of an unconscious feeling that a woman can't be a good president.

No, what's bothered me from the beginning of Hillary's campaign is actually a very feminist idea. It's what feels like an elephant -- a non-Republican elephant -- in the room that all of us feminists are too frightened to name.

The core problem for me is not that Hillary is running as a woman, but that she's running as a wife.

Is Hillary's campaign nothing more than a return to the past where a woman couldn't achieve on her own? In those bad old days, in fact, one of the only ways a female could get elected was to take over for a dead husband when he died in office.

While Bill is still very much alive and kicking, no one can deny that Hillary won her name recognition and launched her own political career by being First Lady. One of her main campaign themes is her experience. As part of that experience, she points to her eight years as somebody's wife.

As a feminist, I'm frankly insulted by the idea that Hillary is a viable candidate for president simply because she was the right man's wife. I am even more angered by the fact that at one time her marital status seemed to put her at the front of the pack.

I know that Hillary has achieved much on her own. I honor her for that. But I don't see it as a feminist breakthrough for Hillary to win, and I'm tired of people telling me that it is.

Girls are meaningless in Afghanistan

By Nancy Jane Moore

That's what NPR correspondent Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson told me this morning in a report on Morning Edition. At one point, she covered a group of women all giving birth at the same time. The doctors didn't immediately tell those who had girls about the child, giving them time to rest before they gave them the bad news, Nelson said.

Many of the women were giving birth to their eleventh or twelfth child, she reported. It seems that in Afghanistan, sons are the old age plan. Daughters are useless unless they can be "sold" -- exchanged for a dowry.

Nelson, who wears a burqa when she travels in areas outside of Kabul, said that it's very hard to be a woman in Afghanistan.

I am haunted by the image of a woman mourning because she has given birth to a girl. In 2007, when women can do (almost) everything, there are still women mourning because they think girls are useless.

And I am depressed to know that many people still live such precarious lives that the only plan they can make for old age is to have lots of children in the hope that some will survive to take care of them. For most of human life, this was everyone's plan, but in our current state of world overpopulation (one of the key elements of global warming) it just creates bigger problems. In my essay "We Aren't Civilized Yet: Reflections From the WisCon 30 Panel on Women Warriors" -- published in The WisCon Chronicles: Volume 1 -- I pointed out that "it took all of human history up to 1830 for the world population to hit 1 one billion, a 100 years to hit the next billion, 30 years for the next billion, 15 for the next, and so on up to our current 6.5 billion."

With modern medicine -- which has greatly reduced maternal and infant mortality -- and technology, too many people using children as their retirement plan create a huge problem (though if you're a poor person in Afghanistan, it still may be the only option you've got).

In my essay, I argue that feminism is one of the solutions to overpopulation: "Feminism addresses the problem of overpopulation by giving offering women other purposes in life besides childrearing." But in places where women have virtually no rights -- places where they cannot take economic steps to ensure their own survival -- what can they do besides have children?

The situation of women in Afghanistan -- who mourn the birth of girls -- emphasizes once again that feminism is not just a means of resolving the fundamental unfairness of discrimination on grounds of gender, but an integral part of addressing the major problems of the world.

[cross posted on Ambling Along the Aqueduct]

Feminism, fear, science fiction, and related subjects

By Nancy Jane Moore

I'm now contributing to Ambling Along the Aqueduct, a literary blog that aims at expanding the conversations started by Aqueduct Press authors. The starting place for our conversations is feminist science fiction, but I think you'll find that we range all over the place. If you want to read my first post -- on the resurgence of feminist science fiction -- it's here.

I'm also continuing my discussion with Erin Solaro on Women, Feminism & Fear on her blog. You can find my latest post here.

Women, Feminism and Fear

Erin Solaro and Nancy Jane Moore conducted an email discussion on women, feminism and fear after Nancy reviewed Erin's book Women in the Line of Fire here on In This Moment.

That discussion has now been posted in eight parts on the blog America: You Fix It, You Own It. We plan to continue the conversation over on that blog and invite In This Moment readers to join in with their comments.

Women, Feminism and Fear

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
  
• Part 4
  
• Part 5
  
• Part 6
  
• Part 7
  
• Part 8