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Sunday, July 5th, 2009 06:24 pm
A long, long exposure.

From the point of view of a feminist.

Update. VDH steps in. Well, hmm. He sounds less serious.
Monday, July 6th, 2009 10:53 pm (UTC)
1) Oh please, don't get me started - equality does not begin or end with the right to vote or did you miss the point of the American civil rights movement? How about supporting paid maternity AND paternity leave. How about supporting affordable, quality child care FOR ALL. How about supporting equal pay for equal work. How about supporting sex ed and easy access to contraceptives for teenagers. She didn't even support that for her own daughter, evidently. I could go on and on.

2) Last time I checked, I live in a country where I am free to express my opinion about any public figure I please. If the CEO of Shell Oil gets up and calls himself an environmentalist, I have every right to call bullshit. The notion that Sarah Palin is a feminist is bullshit.
Monday, July 6th, 2009 11:24 pm (UTC)
1) If you see rights as "goods and services that people are owed," then we have a disagreement which goes way beyond whether Sarah Palin is a feminist. Leaving the issue of whether paternity leave is a women's rights issue, maternity leave and child care are not free. So when you say that women have a RIGHT to them, you're saying that all employers have a RESPONSIBILITY to provide them. Thus, you're making employing a woman an automatically dicey proposition for any business, especially any small business. You're imposing additional operating costs on them, and limiting their margin of profitability. Thus, you're providing a disincentive to employing women and keeping jobs in the US. The alternative is that businesses do employ women and keep jobs in the US, but raise their prices. Even assuming that you could pass some kind of legislation forcing all of them to operate this way (and remember, if one business keeps its prices low by not employing women or exporitng jobs, all the others will be driven out of operation,) you're passing the cost of your "rights" on to everybody else. So, in effect, men and women that either don't want to have children or take care of their own kids are going to be forced to pay for your reproductive success. This is not equality for women-it is privilege for some women at the expense of everybody else.

Equal pay for equal time is a ludicrous slogan. Women who dedicate the same amount of time and education to their work get paid the same amount or more as their male colleagues. Women who have made the choice to take time out of their career and education to address their reproductive desires make less. This is only fair. Why don't you worry about the gap in spending power instead? In other words, while women may earn less money than men, they decide how much more of it is spent. Or you could worry about how divorce courts systematically oppress men in this country, with men routinely being denied access to their children and forced to subsidize their ex-wives lifestyles. You don't want equal rights, you want female privilege.

2) You are free to express any opinion you want, no matter how dumb or unfounded it may be. Anybody else has every right to call bullshit on your opinions. You've got a lot of hubris setting arbitraty criteria on what qualifies somebody to consider themselves an adherent of any given ideology, then calling them "indisputable."

Sarah Palin has done more to make women respected for their accomplishments than any three living female politicians in America you could name. She did not ride to power by compromising her principles, or on a man's coattails. And she has acquitted herself pretty well in an executive position, with very real consequences flowing from her decisions. What is it that you do for a living? Let me guess, something in the legal field?
Monday, July 6th, 2009 11:32 pm (UTC)
2) Ad hominem are irrelevant, and it is not the legal field. (Stereotypes again.)
Monday, July 6th, 2009 11:34 pm (UTC)
stereotypes exist for a reason

just trying to satisfy my personal curiosity, is all-I'll answer questions about what I do for a living, if anybody cares
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 12:11 am (UTC)
Sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong and your tendency to make stereotypes is pretty distressing.

/end flame war.
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 12:45 am (UTC)
Why, he could be more wrong. He could have guessed you were working in mines or in a circus, I say that would be more wrong. OK, would not fit stereotypes, I guess...
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 01:00 am (UTC)
think I'll go have a burger to console myself
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 01:12 am (UTC)
Get a mooseburger! :-)
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 01:18 am (UTC)
we don't have any here-I'll have to settle for one made out of a colorado cow

wait, maybe I'll just go have some veal, instead
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 01:31 am (UTC)
Veal is healthy.

(I know what you trying to do. It's a good guess, but you are a bit off.)
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 01:32 am (UTC)
hey, I'm not Miss Cleo