Feminism Is For Everyone

Oct 13, 2008,1:26 PM

sarah palin and conservative women's groups

i just read a really interesting article from RH Reality Check that brought up a really interesting point about Sarah Palin and the differences within the conservative movement. the article says:

Sarah Palin may represent a tremendous step forward for women long term in ways that one might not imagine. As women attain higher levels of leadership and more powerful positions, conservative women or otherwise, it will be more and more difficult for the larger far right, conservative movement to deny women's equality and autonomy. In turn this can only mean that it will be harder to continue to oppress women in the ways in which women have been oppressed - and this includes denying women's rights to bodily autonomy, an inherent human right that must be present for women's true equality.

while i am a self-described extremely liberal feminist, as well as ardently pro-choice, i am surprised in a good way that john mccain picked palin. while in no way do i support her as my choice for vp, i do think that she is good for conservatives. she is sticking it to those neo-christian groups who think that all women are capable of is raising children and keeping house. she has a huge (and growing) family and is a public official. while we don't really know how well those two are balanced, she is a model for young conservative women, pushing them to aspire to be more than just houswives- and showing them that its possible to do that without giving up "family values." my point is- look at palin within her context. you wouldn't look at kate chopin's the awakening and say "this isn't feminist, she doesn't have sex with the guy" because within the historical context it is highly radical to even suggest that a married woman, bored with her husband should be interested in a younger man. in the same vein, i don't think you should look at sarah palin and say "she isn't a feminist" who is a mother and politician among conservatives who want to confine women to the home.

also, the act of calling herself a feminist is an admirable one, regardless of your politics. we all know that the "f word" is taboo these days and all feminists should respect her for that alone. how she definines her feminism, i would be interested to hear; however, i know that feminism is a very personal thing, and is as nuanced as other values- therefore to say, "because sarah palin is pro-life and anti-gay she is not a feminist" a poor choice. sarah palin's feminism seems to be quite different from my own, founded on power over my own body, plentiful knowledge of sexuality issues, and opposition of traditional gender roles including being an ally of the LGBT community; however, i firmly believe that no one is the authority on feminism and we cannot ignore the diversity among feminists. we are not all lesbians (as many think we are), but some of us do identify that way and shouldn't be ignored. the same applies for being liberal, pro-choice, pro-life, christian, athiest, white, african american, hispanic, among many others.

while we may not think on the surface that we have anything in common with conservative women, i think we can find common ground. also, i think that you can appreciate sarah palin for who she is, a feminist within the republican party, without wanting to vote for her.

Labels: conservative women's groups, election