I was planning to post today on Obama’s terrifying “Truth Squads,” but when I went for the video I was stunned to see that Obama now has something even scarier:
Oh, sorry, that’s not it. Here it is:
Unfortunately, if you’re like most people and you get your Obama news from the possum-infested media, this comparison will make no sense to you because you think Obama is a nice guy.
Just today I was trying to explain to my mother that Obama has run the sleaziest, most corrupt campaign since Nixon. The voter fraud in the caucus states was massive, with 2000 reported incidents in Texas alone. Almost every one of the baseless smears against Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin has emanated directly from his campaign.
“But if that’s true,” said my mother, “why doesn’t the media report it?”
Why indeed?
The media wanted Al Gore to lose in 2000 and so they convinced the public he was a flake who claimed to have invented the internet, and that George W. Bush was an honorable down-to-earth moral paragon. The media wanted us to go to war in Iraq in 2003 and so they convinced the public that Saddam was out to get us (WMD! 9-11! Anthrax!) and that the Bush Administration was acting correctly.
Now they want Obama to win, and so they’re persuading the public that he’s a wonderful guy (a “lightworker,” so help me) and his opponents (particularly, it seems, his female opponents) are crazy/stupid/evil.
You know what we need more than an election for president? We need an election for the media. We need to throw out these bums and elect a whole new squad.
Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on September 30, 2008, 7:03 pm EST
From: Henry Paulson [mailto:henrympaulson@gmail.com]
Date: 9/30/2008
Subject: URGENT Dearest One
Bright Greetings Dear American:
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I am Ministry of Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had a crisis that has caused the need for a large transfer of funds of $700 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with renowned Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of Treasury in January. As a Senator of my blelegeaured and beautiful country, you may know him as the dear leader of the American banking deregulation movement of 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. All you must does is send a blank check. We will be receiving the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive you’re information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Wonderful salutations to you cherish friend from Republic of America.
Yours Faithfully,
Minister of Treasury Paulson
Posted by Violet under Various and Sundry on September 30, 2008, 5:11 pm EST
Whenever women in a patriarchal society buck male opinion, there’s hell to pay and they know it. Women in America really went out on a limb this year by backing Hillary in the face of withering derision from men (and from young women attempting to curry favor with men, consciously or not). Now they’re making amends by piling on Palin.
Ridiculing Sarah Palin as a moron — which she clearly is not — is de rigueur for everybody now in the Obama camp. It’s their preferred sport. It’s true that Palin is verbally awkward in interviews, but then, Obama himself is a man whose unscripted remarks are so confused they defy belief. A teleprompter-deprived Obama thinks there are 57 states in the Union, believes Oregon is in the Great Lakes region, doesn’t know which states border his own state of Illinois, and has no idea which Senate committees he’s on.
But still: people always make fun of their political opponents, and they’re rarely fair about it. What interests me about the Palin attacks is their vigor. To a large extent, it’s a continuation of the misogyny that is such an integral part of the Obama movement: from the campaign itself, from the media collaborators, from the male supporters, from the self-loathing young female supporters.
The new ingredient is those women who had the temerity earlier this year to sort-of admire Hillary and who are now desperately eager to get back in the good graces of the patriarchy. It helps that Sarah Palin is not the brilliant, mature stateswoman that Hillary is, but just saying that isn’t enough. No, Palin has to be ridiculed as a moron, a half-wit, a looney-tune, a mental toddler. Women vie to demonstrate the fullness and depth of their rejection of the cootie-encrusted bitch. Of course the patriarchy-enabling aspect of it is unconscious, as it usually is. This stuff is ingrained in us from birth.
I think we need to start feminism all over again.
Posted by Violet under Various and Sundry on September 29, 2008, 1:40 pm EST
Quixote has a post up which enunciates well one of my biggest frustrations with the Obama cult of personality: the way it makes right-wing political positions suddenly acceptable to previously liberal people. It’s the “I trust Barack” phenomenon, which you can observe in full bloom on the various Obamabot blogs whenever The Precious endorses some grotesquerie (liquid coal! faith-based initiatives! government spying!). As Quixote says:
…I think Obama could do more damage to the country than McCain. People pretty much know what McCain stands for and whether they’re for it or against it. Good-looking governors make it a warmer ticket, but don’t change the fundamental equation. Obama, on the other hand, does one thing, says another, and enough people are so desperate to believe in him that they lie to themselves so that they can keep doing it. Look at the reaction on the left when he started promoting faith-based government. Suddenly the left, the left, was trying to find reasons why it wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The ability to make people believe night was day was Reagan’s talent. He succeeded in making selfishness respectable, and then even admirable. He could make people forget which way was up. It’s very hard to climb out of a morass if you can’t even see that.
Obama, judging by the evidence so far, has the same talent. Based on what he’s done rather than what he’s said, he’s a Republican. Maybe Republican-lite, but that’s not the important part. What scares me is the large majority who, a year ago, finally understood that they don’t want that crap. But he can make them think they do.
Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on September 28, 2008, 9:25 pm EST
Molly and I are going to raise alpacas. I’ll make clothes from the fleece and sell any leftover fiber for cash. Molly is looking forward to finally having something to herd.
We’ll cut down the trees on the rest of our land (firewood!) and grow corn, beans, and squash. Just like the Indians.
We already have chickens: a few weeks ago two roosters and a hen showed up and have been hanging around ever since.
It’ll be good.
Posted by Violet under Various and Sundry on September 27, 2008, 5:59 pm EST
I got permission from the divine MadamaB to re-post The 30 Percent Solution over at The New Agenda, and I’m just so giddy about the whole thing I’m going to re-post it here too. I’m gonna get so many pingbacks going my computer will ’splode!
Below and forthwith is the re-post of the re-post of the post, as it appears on The New Agenda site:
NOTE: This post was originally published last week at Partizane, The Confluence, and MadamaB’s own blog. We’re delighted to re-publish it here, and to welcome MadamaB as a contributor.
The New Agenda is non-partisan and, unlike MadamaB, we do not endorse any candidate. We do, however, fully endorse the “30% solution.” Increasing women’s representation in government is one of our key goals, for reasons that this post makes clear.
When I read Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s book, “Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, I felt as if I had been sleep-walking through the past twenty years of my life. (I hope that soon I will have the long-promised interview with the Congresswoman for your reading pleasure, but she is obviously quite busy on her book tour!) Through a devastating, methodical collection of facts and figures, the Congresswoman builds an airtight case for her premise: American women have NOT come a long way, baby.
Sexual harrassment suits are still routinely filed at places that are designated by female-led organizations as woman-friendly. Women still make 77 cents to every male dollar for doing the same job. Although many other countries, including the not-so-forward-thinking Pakistan and India, have had female heads of state, we Americans are still not quite able to bring ourselves to elect a female president, although many qualified women have tried and failed. Our business community has little to no support for women who want to participate in the workforce; no places for breastfeeding, no help for those who need daycare, and maternity leave for most is a thing of the past, having been replaced by “disability pay” - as if having a child were a disability! And as for a woman’s right to control her own body, although 6 years of Republican control over Congress, the Executive Branch and the Supreme Court has not led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, certain factions within the Republican Party never seem to stop trying to chip away at reproductive choice. Just recently, HHS Secretary Leavitt put forth a proposal erroneously declaring some forms of birth control as abortifacients, thus opening the door to more “conscientious refusals” by anti-choice health professionals to prescribe them. Finally, the ERA has been dead in the water since it failed to pass in the 1970’s, the last time that a demonstrated, concentrated push for womens’ rights occurred.
Maloney’s excellent book offers practical, real-world solutions for many of these problems; among them, lobbying for specific legislation and networking with women in business to get more females into the top slots in Fortune 500 companies. But when all is said and done, the overwhelming thing we all must do is to elect more women to local, state and federal government. Why? Because of the 30% Solution.
Five years ago, Tomato Nation published a post that rapidly became legend. It was emailed, re-posted, printed out, probably even framed somewhere. Maybe you remember it. It was called “Yes, You Are.”
feminism n (1895) 1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes 2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests — feministn or adj — feministicadj
Above, the dictionary definition of feminism — the entire dictionary definition of feminism. It is quite straightforward and concise. If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist.
Yes, you are.
The definition of feminism does not ask for two forms of photo ID. It does not care what you look like. It does not care what color skin you have, or whether that skin is clear, or how much you weigh, or what you do with your hair. You can bite your nails, or you can get them done once a week. You can spend two hours on your makeup, or five minutes, or the time it takes to find a Chapstick without any lint sticking to it. You can rock a cord mini, or khakis, or a sari, and you can layer all three. The definition of feminism does not include a mandatory leg-hair check; wax on, wax off, whatever you want. If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist.
Yes, you are.
The definition of feminism does not mention a membership fee or a graduated tax or "…unless you got your phone turned off by mistake." Rockefellers, the homeless, bad credit, no credit, no problem. If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist.
Yes, you are.
The definition of feminism does not require a diploma or other proof of graduation. It is not reserved for those who teach women's studies classes, or to those who majored in women's studies, or to those who graduated from college, or to those who graduated from high school, or to those who graduated from Brownie to Girl Scout. It doesn't care if you went to Princeton or the school of hard knocks. You can have a PhD, or a GED, or a degree in mixology, or a library card, or all of the above, or none of the above. You don't have to write a twenty-page paper on Valerie Solanas's use of satire in The S.C.U.M. Manifesto, and if you do write it, you don't have to get better than a C-plus on it. You can really believe math is hard, or you can teach math. You don't have to take a test to get in. You don't have to speak English. If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist.
Yes, you are.
The definition of feminism is not an insurance policy; it doesn't exclude anyone based on age. It doesn't have a "you must be this tall to ride the ride" sign on it anywhere. It doesn't specify how you get from place to place, so whether you use or a walker or a stroller or a skateboard or a carpool, if you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist.
Yes, you are.
The definition of feminism does not tell you how to vote or what to think. You can vote Republican or Libertarian or Socialist or "I like that guy's hair." You can bag voting entirely. You can believe whatever you like about child-care subsidies, drafting women, fiscal accountability, Anita Hill, environmental law, property taxes, Ann Coulter, interventionist politics, soft money, gay marriage, tort reform, decriminalization of marijuana, gun control, affirmative action, and why that pothole at the end of the street still isn't fixed. You can exist wherever on the choice continuum you feel comfortable. You can feel ambivalent about Hillary Clinton. You can like the ERA in theory, but dread getting drafted in practice. The definition does not stipulate any of that. The definition does not stipulate anything at all, except itself. If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist.
Yes, you are.
The definition of feminism does not judge your lifestyle. You like girls, you like boys, doesn't matter. You eat meat, you don't eat meat, you don't eat meat or dairy, you don't eat fast food, doesn't matter. You can get married, and you can change your name or keep the one your parents gave you, doesn't matter. You can have kids, you can stay home with them or not, you can hate kids, doesn't matter. You can stay a virgin or you can boink everyone in sight, doesn't matter. It's not in the definition. If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist.
Yes, you are.
Yes. You are. You are a feminist. If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist. Period. It's more complicated than that — of course it is. And yet…it's exactly that simple. It has nothing to do with your sexual preference or your sense of humor or your fashion sense or your charitable donations, or what pronouns you use in official correspondence, or whether you think Andrea Dworkin is full of crap, or how often you read Bust or Ms. — or, actually, whether you've got a vagina. In the end, it's not about that. It is about political, economic, and social equality of the sexes, and it is about claiming that definition on its own terms, instead of qualifying it because you don't want anyone to think that you don't shave your pits. It is about saying that you are a feminist and just letting the statement sit there, instead of feeling a compulsion to modify it immediately with "but not, you know, that kind of feminist" because you don't want to come off all Angry Girl. It is about understanding that liking Oprah and Chanel doesn't make you a "bad" feminist — that only "liking" the wage gap makes you a "bad" feminist, because "bad" does not enter into the definition of feminism. It is about knowing that, if folks can't grab a dictionary and see for themselves that the entry for "feminism" doesn't say anything about hating men or chick flicks or any of that crap, it's their problem.
It is about knowing that a woman is the equal of a man in art, at work, and under the law, whether you say it out loud or not — but for God's sake start saying it out loud already. You are a feminist.
One of my favorite Onion headlines from recent years was, “Women now empowered by everything a woman does.”
A similar headline could be written as the summary (and, I hope, the epitaph) of the Third Wave: “Feminism is anything a woman says, thinks, or feels.”
I hate to break it to the Third Wavers out there, and really this topic deserves a post or twenty of its own, but for me, as an Old Bat, the most stunning thing about the Third Wave of feminism has always been how unfeminist it is. There are some wonderful feminists in the Third Wave, but they are the exceptions. For the most part, it’s been a return to the pre-feminist, patriarchal snakepit: women tear each other down, accuse each other of being jealous schemers, stab each other in the back. It’s more like the 1950s than the 1970s. Young women of the backlash — and that’s what the Third Wave is, basically — have internalized the misogyny of the age. Other women aren’t sisters to be embraced, but threats to be feared and despised.
But because they know they’re supposed to be feminists, they tie themselves in knots trying to justify their misogyny as political enlightenment.
What I’ve written on this site about Palin so far has been pretty restrained, considering what I feel for her privately could be described as violent, nay, murderous, rage. When Palin spoke on Wednesday night, my head almost exploded from the incandescent anger boiling in my skull. And I’m not the only one! I had simultaneous IM conversations with many friends, who said things like, “she seems like a fucking monster” and “this feminist wants to murk that idiotic cunt.”
Then, in classic Third Wave form, she goes on to try to justify her rage on feminist grounds. Sarah Palin reminds her of the homecoming queen, you see, and…and…it’s not that she’s jealous, it’s that…uh…the homecoming queen is a tool of the patriarchy and…uh…therefore, as the embodiment of patriarchal toolishness, Sarah Palin is holding women down! Yeah, that’s it! Kill the bitch!
Of course none of these young women has any idea what the real Sarah Palin is about. I suspect that even if you sat them down and read aloud the many pro-woman, thoroughly down-to-earth things Sarah Palin has said, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. If you tried to reason with them, it wouldn’t matter. They can’t hear. Their ears are buzzing from all the hate-blood in their heads. They’ve been trained all their lives to loathe other women, and now they can’t help themselves.
Is it any surprise that this is the same generation that supported Barack “99 Problems But A Bitch Ain’t One” Obama, the same generation that rejected Hillary Clinton as an irrelevant dinosaur? It was after Clinton’s victory in the New Hampshire primary that another blogger at Jezebel wrote simply, “Women suck.”
You know, Violet, the anti-choice thing is enough for me to call her antifeminist.
And I said:
That may be. But what bothers me is when people go further and say that she is against everything that feminism stands for. Not only is that ridiculous, it’s offensive.
When I became a feminist, Harvard and Columbia were closed to women. That was in the 70s. By the time I was in high school, Harvard had gone co-ed (and the women students were called “co-eds”), but Columbia didn’t admit women until 1983, long after my high school days.
I was turned down for a job point-blank by a man who told me that he didn’t hire young women because we were liable to get knocked up. A hotel clerk refused to take my credit card and would only deal with my husband. I had to fetch coffee for my boss.
Women are still paid less than men, we’re still the sex class, we’re still second-class citizens, and a woman can’t run for President without being ridiculed.
Feminism is about a hell of a lot more than abortion.
And now I’ll add:
Don’t get me wrong. I’m adamantly pro-choice. I think abortion rights are a fundamental question of bodily integrity. But that’s not all feminism is about.
Nor, I might add, is choice the litmus test for women’s equality that people seem to think it is. There have been many societies, ancient and modern, where women have had complete control over their pregnancies (women’s stuff) yet remained second-class citizens under male dominance.
Governor Sarah Palin and daughter Piper at Riverbend Elementary School in Juneau.
Sarah Palin calls herself a “pro-life feminist.” Basically, that’s feminism minus abortion rights.
Obviously that puts her at odds with modern American feminism on a crucial issue. But to hear tell from the many feminist writers now publishing furious editorials, Sarah Palin isn’t just out of step on that one issue. She is, according to them, the antithesis of everything feminism means.
Really?
I thought I’d start a collection of Palin’s own statements on feminist issues. I post these for now without comment; that’ll come later. From what I can tell, the feminist writers who are attacking Palin are doing so with an astonishing disregard for the truth. I’m still trying to sort out why.
Sarah Palin on contraception and sex education: “I’m pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues. So I am not anti-contraception. But, yeah, abstinence is another alternative that should be discussed with kids. I don’t have a problem with that. That doesn’t scare me, so it’s something I would support also.”
Sarah Palin on being the first female governor of Alaska: “I’m the first female governor in Alaska, so that’s brought with it kind of a whole new chapter in Alaska’s life. Like my husband — up here they refer to him as the ‘first dude,’ not the first gentleman. And Todd… A whole new chapter here when Todd is asked to do things like — and he graciously complies and he has a good time doing it — hosting, as he did a couple of weeks ago down in Juneau, our capital city, the former first ladies tea party. And he does just great at things like that, as well as working in oil fields, with snow machines and in commercial fishing. That’s a dynamic here that’s of interest to others.”
Sarah Palin on Title IX, sports, and growing up with gender equality: “You know I grew up with Title IX, and sports were so big, and in my upbringing very instrumental in shaping my character and a need to compete and really to win. So because of a very athletic background and growing up in a family, a busy large family, where gender never was really an issue there. My dad expected us to be back there chopping wood and snowmachining with the rest of them, hunting and fishing and doing all those things that are quite Alaskan.”
Sarah Palin on sports, scholarships, and the beauty pageant: “Graduating high school in 1982 there weren’t a whole lot of high-school athletes, females going on to college to play sports yet. That’s what I was looking for, a scholarship in athletics. I didn’t get one, the next best thing would be the Miss America scholarship pageant where at least you had to show that you had a talent. I played the flute and was really into music so, you know I won a couple of titles there, and it paid tuition through four, five years of college. So, that was OK, it wasn’t really my thing, I was never really comfortable with it, but it paid for some college, though.”
Sarah Palin on the challenge for Hillary and other women candidates to appear “tough”: “I recognize that Hillary seems to be trying real hard to be tough, but I say, more power to her. I think she’s had to do that. It’s unfortunate that she’s had to do that, but she comes across to me as tough, capable. I can respect that in her, that she is that tough, capable and experienced and all that….I recognize that’s what she’s trying to do and I think it’s unfortunate that maybe a woman candidate feels that she has to go there. You don’t see male candidates doing that.”
Sarah Palin on dealing with the double standard applied to women candidates: “Fair or unfair—and I do think that it’s a more concentrated criticism that Hillary gets on so many fronts; I think that’s unfortunate. But fair or unfair, I think she does herself a disservice to even mention it, really. You have to plow through that and know what you’re getting into. I say this with all due respect to Hillary Clinton and to her experience and to her passion for changing the status quo. But when I hear a statement like that coming from a women candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or a sharper microscope put on her, I think, man, that doesn’t do us any good. Women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country, I don’t think it bodes well for her, a statement like that. Because, again, fair or not fair it is there. I think it’s reality and it’s a given, people just accept that she’s going to be under a sharper microscope. So be it. Work harder, prove to yourself to an even greater degree that you’re capable, that you’re going to be the best candidate.”
Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on September 15, 2008, 4:11 am EST
The treatment of Hillary Clinton this year showed us that sexism is far more acceptable and more endemic than racism in this country. Naysayers liked to claim that the hatred was for Hillary alone, not for all women; but they were wrong.
Just look at Sarah Palin. She’s different from Hillary in almost every respect, yet she’s being assaulted just as Hillary was, only to an even more intense degree. It’s a virtual lynching. A burning in effigy. The hysteria of it, the ferocity of it, terrifies me.
Every day, almost every hour, another frantic hater chimes in. It’s not enough for them to disagree with Palin’s policies or complain that Republicans are wrong-headed. The Sarah-haters aren’t even interested in her actual policies; if they were, they could easily spend a few minutes with Google and learn the facts, instead of feverishly repeating lurid rumors (no, she’s not anti-contraception; no, she doesn’t believe in abstinence-only sex ed; no, she doesn’t think rape victims should have to pay for their own rape kits; no, she doesn’t think the dinosaurs were here 4000 years ago; no, she doesn’t reject evolution; no, she didn’t ban books; no, she isn’t against equal rights — in fact she is very much in favor of gender equality and is raising her kids that way; no, she doesn’t deny that sexism exists — in fact she’s spoken at length and with intelligence on the obstacles faced by women politicians; and on and on and on.)
The real Sarah Palin is simply a Republican (and not even a particularly nutty Republican) with Republican views on many things. That ought to be enough to disagree with right there. It’s enough for me. I judge Palin by her politics, as I do McCain. (For the record, I’m still planning to vote Green.)
But the haters don’t care about Palin’s political positions. They’re driven by some inchoate impulse to crucify the woman herself. To rape her with words.
She’s a slut. She’s a skank. She’s a cow. She’s white trash. She’s a redneck. She’s a moron.
Photoshopped images abound: Palin as a dominatrix (Salon), Palin in a bikini (Huffington Post), Palin in cheesecake poses (everywhere). An “action figure” is made in her likeness, except it’s dressed as some kind of pornified schoolgirl.
Obama supporters publicly fantasize about doing to her the only thing she’s good for:
And all of this is done gleefully. The nation is having itself a grand ol’ witch-burning party. It reminds me of that picture from Indiana in the 20s: the crowd of smiling white folks milling around under a tree where a black man has been lynched. Hey, isn’t this fun?
That the lynching is being conducted primarily by Obama supporters who consider themselves “progressives” isn’t completely surprising; we learned with Hillary that Obama’s brand of “progressivism” typically includes an alarming quotient of sexism. The assault on Palin just confirms it.
And therein lies a twist. Race is supposed to be the big story of this election year. The historians who are gearing up to write their narratives are expecting to tell a story about race, about black and white in America. Barack Obama, the first black nominee. Big milestone. The year America finally nominated/elected a black man.
But the real story this year is gender. The looming fact of 2008 is our discovery that misogyny is the gravest ill in our society. It’s virulent and violent and spreading. It’s out of control.
Today’s generation of young adults has marinated since childhood in a pornified, sexist culture in which women are relentlessly objectified, demeaned, and ridiculed. Hating on women (or should I just say “bitches” or “hos” now?) is all they really know. It’s second nature. It’s on TV, in the magazines, in the music, in the pornography. The public debasement of women is more commonplace than I’ve ever seen.
That’s why women are going to vote for Sarah Palin. Especially women over 40, because they’re the ones old enough to have grown up before the backlash, before the zeitgeist of misogyny took hold. They’ll be voting from their guts. They’ll be acting on the deep understanding that we desperately need change — and not the kind of amorphous Pepsi Generation empty promise Barack Obama specializes in.
We need to change the culture to one where women have power and respect and dignity. Where a woman can run for President or Vice-President without automatically having her likeness rendered as a sex toy. Where a woman in the White House is no big deal.
The sooner we get there, the better.
Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on September 13, 2008, 10:54 pm EST
A couple of days ago I mentioned one of the projects I’m involved in that’s part of the burgeoning Fourth Wave of feminism. It’s called The New Agenda. I’m one of the founders of the group and the editor of the website.
Amy Siskind, the group’s leader, likes to describe The New Agenda as a “big tent.” It’s a useful metaphor, and one that helps me in my thinking about what we’re trying to do.
Imagine a big lawn party with lots of little booths and kiosks staffed by different groups. This lawn party is Feminism. Over in one rather large booth we have the liberal feminists; they’re wearing power suits and carrying Blackberries. In another part of the lawn the cultural feminists are holding court in their Earth Mother skirts, with some womyn-only music playing on the speakers. A group of radical lesbians have set up a kiosk and are selling Hothead Paisan books and T-shirts. There are Christian feminists and Jewish feminists and Muslim feminists and Buddhist feminists, all with their own booths piled high with literature. The stay-at-home moms have a booth, of course, and they’re graciously sharing their brownies with everyone. The NARAL crowd is out in force, while at the opposite side of the lawn some pro-life feminists have set up a kiosk of their own.
In the middle of the lawn is a big blue tent with a sign saying, “The New Agenda.” This is the tent where women from all the different booths and kiosks gather to work on the issues they agree on — which, as we all know, is not every issue. They don’t stop being themselves when they go to The New Agenda tent, and they don’t abandon their beliefs. They just put aside their differences long enough to talk about the things they do agree on.
Pro-choice women will never agree with pro-life women on abortion, but they do agree on equal pay and healthcare and domestic violence. In The New Agenda tent, those are the things they can work on together. The Hothead Paisan lesbians and the feminists-for-Christ probably won’t be joining each other’s social clubs anytime soon, but in The New Agenda tent they can put their heads together to figure out how to combat sexism in the media.
The idea is to create a place where we can join forces on the many issues that unite us, instead of remaining always divided by the issues that separate us.
What we’re talking about, of course, is a coalition. It’s a concept that is unfamiliar to many Americans, particularly young Americans (including young feminists) who seem to believe that they can only cooperate with people who resemble themselves in every respect. A coalition, on the other hand, necessarily involves people who disagree on certain issues, but have chosen to ally themselves on the causes they share.
Think of it this way: let’s say you have a neighbor who agrees with you on almost everything affecting your neighborhood. She’s with you when it comes to the homeowners’ association covenants, the new speed bump, the walkway to the school, the proposed hike in property taxes. The one thing she disagrees with you about is the permit for the new fast food place, and on that issue you two are at loggerheads. She thinks it will fundamentally ruin the neighborhood; you think it’ll be a good addition. You can’t come to an agreement at all. Does that mean you won’t work with her on all the other things?
Posted by Violet under Second Wave Squared on September 10, 2008, 8:40 pm EST
South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a
running mate “whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”
Maybe this is all just part of the Democrats’ GOP-envy. Gawd knows they’ve fallen all over themselves this year to become as Republican as possible. Their nominee is a corrupt candidate who cheated in the primaries, endorses Republican positions on everything from FISA to abortion, and campaigns with a blend of Reaganesque marketing and Bushian pseudo-religion. And they’ve tried to impose this candidate on an unwilling party with the same iron-hand authoritarianism that is usually the purview of the GOP.
My mother says, “Maybe they’ve decided that acting like Republicans is the only way to win after all these years.” Somehow I don’t think it’s working.
Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on September 10, 2008, 7:36 pm EST
