An Eclectic Mind

Why I don’t need to bother.

It might seem as if I have it in for Sarah Palin. I do. She’s severely under-qualified for the position they’re placed her in. As a woman, I’m insulted that they obviously thought they could put any woman who looked good in a skirt in this position to capture the female vote. I don’t agree with the few policies she’s voiced — for example, anti-abortion, even in the case of rape — and I certainly don’t want to see another Evangelical “Christian” anywhere near the White House.

And doesn’t having an unmarried, pregnant teenage daughter say anything about her failings as a mother? (I know it says a lot about abstinence only sex education, as I pointed out here.)

Yet I’ve personally said very few things against her in this blog. Why?

Because I don’t have to. Everyone else is doing it for me. All I have to do is link to the articles, jokes, and videos I find on the Web.

And I’m not even looking for them! They come to me from my friends — including folks who live in Alaska — via e-mail and Twitter. They come to me from as far away as the U.K., Portugal, and New Zealand!

I just sit back and follow the links I get. If I find something I think is worth sharing, I pass it along.

So I have no need to bash Sarah Palin. I’ll let the rest of the world do it for me.

My response to an e-mail message.

The other day, I got an e-mail message from a cousin of mine back east. The title of the e-mail was “Why Women Should Vote.” It was one of those typical “forward this” e-mails that tries to fire people up about one thing or another. It included the usual bold and UPPERCASE text and images. (I guess folks think that pictures can help make their case.)

I need to say here that my cousin did not write this e-mail. She just forwarded it. She often forwards messages about topics of interest to women.

I get a few of these forwarded e-mail messages each day. I agree with and enjoy reading about half of them. Some of them don’t even get read — I just delete them. And some of them — like this one — get under my skin and prompt me to respond and blog about it. Regular readers may recall “The Star Spangled Banner, In Spanish?”

The message was a combination history lesson and call for action. It began with the sentence, “This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.” I knew I was in for it when I saw a series of sepia-tinted photos of suffragettes on the march. I fully admit that I didn’t read the whole thing.

Instead, I thought about the idea that women should need a special reason to vote. And frankly, it made me angry. I wrote a response:

Women should vote for the same reason men should vote: it’s our RESPONSIBILITY as part of a democratic society. It has nothing to do with women’s rights or anything else that’s specific to women. We vote to have our say. Anyone who is eligible to vote and doesn’t is an IDIOT, plain and simple. They’re giving up their right to have a say in the future of our country.

Use it or lose it — that can apply to the democratic process, too.

And don’t you think this “battle of the sexes” nonsense has gone on too long? If we we acted like PEOPLE rather than WOMEN we’d be treated like people. That’s how I’ve always worked in male-dominated fields — finance, computers, and now aviation — and I’ve never had any problems.

Thanks for including me in your distribution lists, but you really don’t need to. I get an awful lot of e-mail and really don’t have time to wade through it all. I guarantee that I already THINK about things like this far more than most of the people in this country — people who care more about American Idol and Paris Hilton than how their congressman voted or what the votes were about. I don’t need e-mails that spell everything out for me with pictures, clip art, historical trivia, or angry words directed against one group or another.

Don’t be offended, please.

I didn’t get a response and honestly don’t expect to. There are far too many women who are quick to make us into some sort of special case. While I hope she understands my point, I don’t think this e-mail will change her point of view.

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The other day, I got an e-mail message from a friend. She doesn’t usually forward political e-mails, but she had a lot of respect for the two women who’d written what she forwarded, so she sent it on rather apologetically.

The e-mail message was an appeal to women to share their thoughts on why Sarah Palin was a bad choice to be “one heartbeat away from the presidency. E-mails sent to a certain address would be put on a new blog. I shared my thoughts.

The following day, a Twitter friend linked to the resulting Web site, Woman Against Sarah Palin. I stopped by this morning to read what a few of the women had written. There were hundreds of comments from all over the country and none of them were positive.

The main thought of the site’s founders is summarized in their “Profile”:

We are not in the habit of criticizing women in the public sphere, as we usually feel we should support our female compatriots with as much encouragement as we can. However, Sarah Palin’s record is anti-woman. Feminism is not simply about achieving the power and status typically held by men. It’s about protecting and supporting the rights of women of all classes, races, cultures, and beliefs. Palin’s record and beliefs do not align with this. She was chosen by John McCain specifically because he believes that American women will vote for any female candidate regardless of their qualifications. He is wrong.

This echoes my sentiments exactly. I’m actually quite insulted by the choice — as if picking a woman as a running mate is enough to get the female vote.

But what’s scaring me most is that it seems to be working among some women. And that’s why I hope people will read what’s on this site. Don’t be fooled by a skirt and a lipsticked “hockey mom.” She was chosen not for her qualifications but for her ability to pump up McCain’s campaign. Do you really want someone with her background to be one heartbeat away?

Visit Woman Against Sarah Palin and see what the women there are saying.