Apparently we are facing a new terrorist threat in this country. Feminists. I'm sorry, what?

Courtesy of Salon:  

Men’s rights activists have raised $25,000 to provide additional security for an upcoming conference because, “We’ve had ongoing problems with the feminist establishment, which is a multibillion-dollar hate industry, for years,” according to men’s rights blogger Dean Esmay. 

The money will be used to hire seven off-duty police officers to provide security for the event. The hotel hosting the conference in Detroit, Michigan sent a letter to organizers requesting the additional security and expressed concerns about the safety of its employees and guests related to threats of violence. Police were contacted about the conference, but a spokesperson said they had not received “any word about threats.” 

The letter does not say from whom the threats came, but the men’s rights activists behind the conference are pretty sure they are from feminists. Because they like to blame feminists for pretty much everything. As Abby Ohlheiser at the Wire points out, A Voice For Men’s homepage currently links to a petition to ”class feminism as a terrorist group.”

By the way this is a sentence taken from this idiot's website:

The old saying goes, you can’t fight city hall. That may be true, but it’s nothing compared to fighting titty hall. Not even close. 

Oh yeah, clever. Okay I admit that I have had a rocky marriage...or two...and I have even had a stalker...or six....but calling women terrorists, and paying for security out of fear of them, is pretty damn unmanly in my book.

You know I keep reading about this resurgent misogyny, demonstrated by the UCSB killer, and the anger from tech communities toward feminists, but I have to say that I don't get it.

We live in a time when the objectification is women is only a mouse click away, and every female pop star dresses like a stripper and virtually every movie queen has shed their tops at least a handful of times on film in order to satisfy the carnal desires of the male demographic.

So I guess I don't understand why there are men who suddenly stumble a few steps back along the evolutionary trail if ALL women do not offer to make them a sandwich, or want to be treated like everyday human beings.

Maybe I missed a meeting of "Assholes Anonymous."

Personally I do not understand men who don't appreciate strong women, or who fear their independence. If you are confident, and sure of yourself, you want to surround yourself with people of equal confidence and self awareness.

If you are not that assured about your masculinity then I guess you would resort to surrounding yourself with security, use religion to beat women into submission, or walk around like this....

...and fire your metallic penis at targets like this.

Source

Maybe I just don't understand since I was raised by a headstrong single mother who would NEVER allow herself to be subjugated by a man.

Bummer! I guess that means I don't get to join their cool "No Gerlz Allowed" club.

Christian radio hosts call feminists unattractive, child hating, narcissistic, family destroying whores. Because you know they really never want to get laid again!

Okay these guys have to be heard to be believed. Here I thought I had pretty much heard the most misogynistic comments possible, but I may have been wrong about that. Take a listen for yourselves.

If you turned it off after the first ugly comments started vomiting forth, here it is in written form courtesy of Raw Story:  

“Now remember, the goal is that these women have to be independent,” Swanson said on a show devoted to the idea that rising college costs were contributing to an alleged spike in prostitution. “The goal is lots and lots of birth control. The goal is lots and lots and lots of fornication. The goal is abortion. The day-after pill will help. And it will help a lot. Remember, the goal is to get that girl a job because she needs no stinkin’ husband, she’s got the fascist corporation and government-mandated insurance programs and socialist welfare that will take care of her womb to tomb. Who needs a cotton-pickin’ husband? Who needs a family? That’s pretty much the worldview that’s dominating, my friends. That’s what the college is all about.” 

“Because her feminist professors have told her her husband will abuse her, she will be like a slave to him,” Buehner agreed. “Instead she will just go to the slave market and sell herself, at least sell her body, to the highest bidder. See, that’s much, much better!” 

“And Dave, you talk about the two kinds of feminists now, this is your new division, you say there’s two kinds of feminists,” Swanson explained. “All of them want to be free from the family. They want to be free from the husband.” 

“Right. Actually, you’re talking about perhaps even a third stream of feminism,” Buehner interjected. “There’s the Sarah Palin kind of feminism that wants to have a husband, just not one to submit to.” 

“But talk about the two forms of feminism you see that are rising today,” Swanson asked. 

“Right, there are two forms of feminism, and it actually has to do with a division of how attractive a woman is. So, you have the group that is very attractive, they’re in the sororities, they’re gonna be in the beauty contests. They’re actually going to get the good jobs,” Buehner said. “Now they will probably some of them become the Sarah Palin-style feminists, they’ll get themselves a husband, but they’ll never be dependent on the husband, they’ll never submit to the husband, in fact they will use their power probably to make their husband submit to them.” 

“Okay, so you have the cute feminists,” Swanson said. 

“Right, you have the good-looking ones,” Buehner explained. “The other ones are those who we should say are, um, attractive-deficient. … These are the kinds that will look for careers mostly likely in academia. … They can get jobs in the government bureaucracy, they can work as an FDA administrator, or you can actually run the EPA if you want, or academia. Academia’s actually the best place because you can be angry, ugly and you can also get tenure. It’s great, it’s the big trifecta.” 

“You’re gonna make some people mad about what you’ve just said. There will be some very angry feminists,” Swanson warned. 

“You mean there will be angrier angry feminists,” Buehner shot back. “I believe history will go back to this period of time and will look at feminism and say there was a time in which women lost the love of their children. They no longer cared about having children, they no longer loved their children, they no longer loved their husbands, where for all of history women very much cared about protecting the family. Now they only cared about themselves. They were riled up into a froth about how they were victims of society, patriarchal society, and they decided to become selfish, narcissistic, family-destroying whores.”

Well ladies can't you just hardly wait to go to church today?

Seriously what kind of fucked up brand of Christianity are these troglodytes practicing?

Yes how dare the feminists fight for equal rights for women, or educate them so that they do not see themselves as nothing more than incubators for the demon offspring that issues forth from the loins of these arrogant little ass monkeys.

Oh, and that only pertains to them if they are not hot of course. If they are hot, or "Sarah Palin feminists" they can boss men around all they want. You know, because they're hot.

Picture of "hot" feminist.

Apparently the only kind "good" feminist is the Sarah Palin type of feminist. You know one that dresses like a two bit slut, ignores her children until the police drop them off at her doorstep or they pop out an ankle biter of their own, and allows her husband to subjugate women into prostituting themselves. You know, June Cleaver, if June Cleaver was an attention seeking, man loathing, pill popping lunatic.

Gotta love those Christian morals!

For the women who don't consider themselves feminists.

A a man, raised by a single mother, and single parent to a headstrong young woman, I found this incredibly moving.

Well great, now I'm afraid of feminists.

Wow, child killing lesbian witches, who knew? 

And here I thought they just wanted to be treated equally to their male counterparts.

Gloria Steinem on the false feminism of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:

Gloria Steinem, a leader of the women's liberation movement of the seventies, was feted at a luncheon on Wednesday in celebration of the HBO documentary about her life, Gloria: In Her Own Words. We were curious what the feminist icon thinks about women like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, who are not housewives, yet support traditional values and oppose abortion. "They’re there to oppose the women's movement. That's their job," Steinem said, accusing the two politicians of "selling out" the women's movement. "That’s just the way it is; it's inevitable. Think about Phyllis Schlafly; there have always been women like this." 

 Later, during a speech, Steinem elaborated. "I can testify, the very same things people were telling me 30 or 40 years ago — it's against nature, you can’t do this, my wife is not interested — all these [people] are now saying, well, feminism used to be necessary, but it's not anymore. That is the new form of obstruction. And, of course, it’s accompanied by the other natural thing that happens if you have a big social justice movement: You make jobs for people who sell it out. So we have Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, who are on my list of 'the women only a man could love.'" 

 "But it’s important to remember that though they are in the news, they are not in the majority," Steinem continued. "And though they get elected, there's a huge race and gender differential on who votes for them. And if you were to add the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, they are the people our founders came to this country to escape," she told the lunch crowd. "They’re the same people, right? They're trying to say God looks like me and not like you, and to use that politically to make a religious base. And so it is really a kind of rerun."

As a man observing the Sarah Palin phenomena, and immediately recognizing that she was single-handedly dismantling decades of hard work by the feminist movement, I have been particularly interested in how a person like Gloria Steinem deals with watching her receive so much media attention.

This response is kind of what I would have expected, though to be honest part of me would like her to go all "Jerry Springer" on Palin's ass and rip that fright wig and those fake glasses off her head and then turn to the media and say "How do you like her now America?" (And yes as I was typing that I realized that it was totally a stereotypical anti-feminist thing to write. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see it though.)

BTW if you are a Gloria Steinem fan (And if you are a modern woman or man completely comfortable with his masculinity (Like me) how could you not be?) you might be interested in watching her appearance on the Colbert Report last night. It was pretty interesting, not to mention funny.

Bill O'Reilly calls the Mama Grizzly out about her reality show and Snowdrift Snookie insults America's feminists AGAIN!

"Strategery?" Has Palin been watching Stephen Colbert or something? (No of course not.  If she were she would not be so damn ignorant!)

Nobody calls Alaska "America's Fort Knox" except Palin and her "butt-boy" Joe Miller. And it is both a stupid and false thing to say.

And that damn show of hers does NOT promote Alaska.  It promotes Sarah "freaking" Palin and that is all! If anything it is turning people off to the idea of visiting our state by the hundreds.

"No Mommy don't make us go to Alaska, they have bears waiting to kill us in our sleep. And they beat fish to death with baseball bats!  And if that ex-Governor of theirs is any indication, the people are all lunatics!"

"I am sorry I am not so hotty-totty?'  What in the hell does that mean?  Was the idiot trying to say "hoity-toity?" Gee do you think she really mispronounced it?  Or was she trying to squeeze the last little bit out of her naughty librarian shtick?

And no, a liberal woman could NOT be a Mama Grizzly because they do not overreact to every single perceived slight like Grizzlies are known to do in the wild, and Palin is known to do on Facebook. Instead they are much more reasonable and thoughtful mothers who are perfectly capable of protecting their young, but tend not do so in a way that embarrasses their cubs, and makes them fodder for the tabloids.

By the way REAL Mama Grizzlies do not just teach self reliance. They also teach their cubs to scavenge for food, steal a kill from a smaller predator when possible, and to eat garbage when they find a landfill or unsecured trash can.

You know that DOES sound quite a bit like Sister Sarah's parenting style!

I have to imagine that EVERY single time Palin starts spouting off about feminists portraying women as weak and incapable of caring for themselves, that there are TRUE feminists and women's right pioneers all over this country who fantasize about getting five minutes alone with Palin and showing her which one of them is actually the weak one. Palin either seems to have NO understanding of the battle for women's rights in this country or she is purposefully lying about it to fire up her male supporters who visualize feminists as motorcycle riding, mustache wearing, dykes.

P.S. About Alaska WTF and the Willow story.  Yes I know what it is about.  No that is NOT why I was in Wasilla on Wednesday.  And there is much more to the story than what AKWTF put up, but it is not my story to tell, so that is as much as I can say. Sorry, but I don't ever betray a trust.

Revisionist history and Sarah Palin's blatant lack of respect for the Women's Rights Movement in America.

From the Daily Beast:

In some ways, it’s a good thing that Sarah Palin calls herself a feminist. It means that, even among conservatives, women’s equality has become a normative position, the starting point for debate. It means that feminism has gone from something that the right wants to destroy to something it wants to appropriate. That’s progress, of a sort.

But reading Palin’s new book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag, it’s clear that in order to claim feminism as her own, she’s had to radically distort its history. In a chapter on feminism that’s sure to be widely discussed, she mischaracterizes the views of nearly every historical feminist she mentions.

Sometimes she does it to defame them, other times to make it seem as if they shared her ideology. As so often with Palin, it’s hard to tell whether ignorance or dishonesty is at work. Perhaps neither she nor her ghostwriter had time to read up on women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, presented here as a pious Christian conservative. But couldn’t one of them at least have perused her Wikipedia entry?

I am very heartened to see women standing up to Palin's bullying and defending the brave pioneers who struggled and sacrificed to help them achieve the level of autonomy that Sarah Palin takes for granted.

It is becoming very obvious that, rather then do the hard work of learning the history of this great nation, Sarah Palin and her ilk would rather to simply change the facts to match their belief system and hope that nobody will confront them as they rape the memories of our forefathers and foremothers.

We have recently heard this same sort of sneaky revisionism applied to the pilgrims who landed on Plymouth rock on the 1600's.  In the conservative version of history the pilgrim's were NOT fleeing persecution, they were fleeing "socialism."  Which, by the way, did not even exist yet.

Just listen to this amazing mutilation of the history that every American school child knows, delivered on the floor of Congress by Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO



More from Raw Story:

Not only did socialism not exist in the early 1620's, communal production efforts were crucial to the survival of the first European settlers to arrive in America.

Akin's fiction also runs roughshod over a fact even school children know: that Pilgrims left Europe seeking freedom from religious persecution. Quite contrary to the Congressman's allegation, their migration had nothing to do with differences on economic policy.

By the way this is no accidental misunderstanding of the historic record, this is an organized effort to rewrite history by the Conservatives, as evidenced by John Stossel making the same claims on Fox News.

What is happening is that Sarah Palin and her ilk are vilifying the "Lamestream media" so that Americans will not trust them as they attempt to correct the lies and misstatements by the Grizzled Mama and the Republican party, which then allows them carte blanche to rewrite history to fit their unsophisticated view of what history SHOULD be teaching us.

And just to make sure that future generations will not be able to differentiate truth from fallacy, they have attacked the public school system in an attempt to marginalize it and keep it from educating our children well enough to defend themselves against these blatant lies and misrepresentations.

"Gee Mommy how do we know that Susan B. Anthony WASN'T a rabid anti-abortionist?  Sarah Palin says she was, and our teachers are too afraid for their jobs to even talk about it?"

"Dad, are you sure the Pilgrims were not big business entrepreneurs?  Fox News says they were, and my textbook only talks about growing corn and that the Indians were nice enough to hold our land for us, and then voluntarily go to live on reservations after we arrived, so that we could build the greatest country on earth."

Remember that the front line in this battle for America's future has being drawn in classrooms all over this nation, where the conservatives have wrestled for control over public school textbooks and the information made available to the defenseless minds of our innocent children.

Having spent her life attending school in the Mat-Su Valley, with additional influence coming from her church the Wasilla Assembly of God, Palin is both a product, and a a proponent, of this approach to the "education" our children. 

Are we really prepared for a nation brimming over with Sarah Palins?

Sarah Palin has moved on from attacking Muslims and has now shifted her focus to attacking feminists. Oh THAT'S a bad idea! Update!

From the terrible twit's twitter account:

Who hijacked term:"feminist"?A cackle of rads who want 2 crucify other women w/whom they disagree on a singular issue; it's ironic (& passé)

about 1 hour ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

I assume that one of her handlers suddenly realized that Sarah might have screwed up her whole "Mama Grizzly" meme by attacking women, so they quickly released this next tweet to serve as damage control.

Proud to Support More Women Leaders on the 90th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage http://is.gd/enDyj
about 1 hour ago via web

See?  Sarah is not anti-woman!  She is just anti-women who do not agree with her.

I will go out on a limb and suggest that Palin has her panties in a bunch over the fact that the ladies over at Emily's List have started to call her out on her anti-feminist feminism. As summed up by this imaginative little YouTube video.



You know I am not usually into furries, but I kind of enjoyed that video.

I am just a guy, so perhaps I am not the best person to speak for the feminist community.  But it sort of strikes me that the women who are working so hard to be judged on their abilities rather than their looks, and want to be paid the same wages as their male counterparts, may take offense at a person calling themselves a "feminist" who gained prominence by dressing like a slutty librarian and winking in a flirtatious manner at the male voters. You know nothing illustrates what is means to be a feminist like wearing Naughty Monkey Pumps and being so stupid that you have to write your talking points on your hand.

I am just saying.

Update: I missed this earlier but it appears that RAM has taken to Facebook to pimp Palin's paradoxical portrayal of feminism. In the post RAM leaves no doubt that the Emily's List video really got under her skin:

On this anniversary of women’s suffrage, let’s take a moment to be grateful for the diversity of the debate. Women don’t walk in lockstep with each other in politics, any more than men do. We should be proud of our ability to engage in a civil discussion and healthy debate. I know I am. Unfortunately, I’ve recently come under attack for speaking up for sisters who seek to serve in public office. The sad part is that the attack comes from other sisters who happen to be on the other side of an issue that has been of great importance to American women from the time of our feminist foremothers, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, down to today. I’m speaking of the issue of life. I feel compelled to offer some advice to our sisters who like to throw stones at those of us who respectfully disagree with them on this issue (and they sometimes refuse to even countenance the fact that some of us can call ourselves feminists and disagree with those who claim the mantle of “real feminists”). First, ladies, it’s hard to take a critic seriously when they lecture you wearing a bear suit. So, it’s difficult for me to drum up much outrage at this latest ad. But, really, lying about a sister while wearing an Ewok outfit is no way to honor our foremothers on the eve of the 90th anniversary of their victory. But, that aside, I’d love to know where you got those get-ups. Halloween is just around the corner, and Piper and Trig would look adorable as little grizzly bears.

Oh now she has done it!  I cannot believe that Palin would pick a fight with the very groups that she was hoping to seduce away from Hillary in the 2008 election.  Is there no bridge this idiot will not burn?

Damn, I am going to need more popcorn for this!

Update 2: I went back and reread Palin's tweets and RAM's Facebook post and I came to the conclusion that they both used too many words to express Sarah's point of view.  Here let me summarize.

Sarah Palin: "Fuck you bitches, I am TOO a feminist!"

See?  Succinct and to the point. Plus, you have to admit, it sounds more like something Sarah would actually say.  Just ask Bristol.

Emily's List and I are certainly in agreement on this point, Sarah Palin must be stopped.

From Boston.com:

SARAH PALIN is the enemy who must be stopped.

That much is obvious to Stephanie Schriock, the new president of EMILY’s List, the fundraising network committed to electing women who support abortion rights. The former governor of Alaska and unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate may or may not run for president. In the meantime, she is a one-woman money machine who can raise millions for Sarah’s List: conservative candidates, male and female, who threaten the liberal agenda.

Palin “represents a set of values that are way out of the mainstream and arguably out of the mainstream of the Republican Party,’’ said Schriock during a recent visit to Boston. The movement Palin represents is “anti-government. Government can do nothing right. They are turning up the anger and it’s very dangerous.’’

“I think it’s time to get the story of the 2010 elections straight — and to call out Palin’s efforts for what they are: an attempt, in the name of ‘feminism’ to turn back the clock on women’s rights and to set American families back,’’ Schriock wrote recently on the Huffington Post. “I think women voters will choose progress, not Palin, this cycle.’’

Of course, EMILY’s List mostly defines feminism and “progress’’ the old-fashioned way — as unyielding commitment to abortion rights. Palin’s anti-abortion stand makes her poison to EMILY’s List. But at the same time, it makes her the queen of Sarah’s List.

This is war.

Yes it is. And it will take dedicated people digging for the truth and calling Sarah Palin out on that truth who will make the difference.

Once people, even supporters, learn the truth about Sarah Palin it will be almost impossible for ANYBODY to support her any longer.  Her influence will dry up and her flaws will be highlighted like never before.

However as long as there are people like Dave Weigel willing to run interference for Sarah Palin, and help to keep her darkest secret under wraps, it just makes that job all the more difficult. (By the way I was going to deconstruct Weigel's Daily Dish post the other day however back to back distractions interfered with that endeavor.  Fortunately Litbrit  did such a great job that I think instead I will simply direct you over to her wonderful blog instead.)

Gloria Steinem: Sarah Palin is NOT a feminist!

CBS News:

In an interview for @katiecouric, writer and activist Gloria Steinem responded to Sarah Palin calling herself a feminist, saying, "you can't be a feminist who says other women can't" have an abortion.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

I am often amazed that women do not understand how incredibly important it was to women to gain control over their bodies. In the not too distant past American women were considered property that a father could trade to another man for money, or influence, or even to cement a business transaction. The children she raised were her husband's children and if he died she might be forced to marry his brother or somebody else picked by his family. Love never even entered the equation.

Roe vs Wade gave women  legal control over their own bodies, NOT just the right to terminate a pregnancy.

THE RIGHT to choose is just one aspect of a much larger issue of reproductive rights--women's right to control their own bodies and reproductive lives. Although in recent decades the battle has centered around the right to abortion, this includes more than the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy--but also the right to have children in the face of racist sterilization programs that targeted African Americans, Native Americans and disabled people in the U.S. throughout much of the 20th century.

Latinos were often obliged to sign consent forms in English instead of Spanish, and were frequently sterilized without their knowledge. By 1968, one-third of all women in Puerto Rico--still a U.S. colony--were permanently sterilized. Today, racist sterilization programs continue to target Black and Brown women and men in poor countries around the world in the name of "population control."

Reproductive freedom is also about abortion rights for poor women. Even when abortion is illegal, wealthy women have--and have always had--the money and private doctors to obtain abortions, while poor women face the choice of carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term or risking their lives with unsafe, illegal abortions.

"Racist sterilization" and the "rights for poor women" are clearly two issues that Sarah Palin does not relate to. She is currently of the elite and simply will not even attempt to empathize with those who are of a different ethnicity or social class.  It speaks volumes about her abilities as a leader, but also about her true understanding of "feminism".

And the real scandal is that Sarah is also a hypocrite. Doctor's offices DON'T use white out on the patent's bills.  Everybody with a brain knows what really happened.

And I am pretty damn sure THAT choice had nothing to do with protecting the life of the mother. Did it Sarah?

One of Sarah Palin's "Mama Grizzlys", Carly Fiorina, may suffer mightily for her association with the failed half term governor.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

With five months to go before the general election in California, political observers suggested attempts to redefine Fiorina as a feminist in a new mold - one shaped in part by Palin's conservative, family pro-life agenda - will sharpen the contrast between the Republican and Boxer, a liberal senator and self-described feminist first elected to the Senate in 1992, the "Year of the Woman."

"Every five or ten years someone says, 'This is the new face of feminism,' " said Sacramento author and women's activist Camille Hayes. "When people say 'pro-woman feminism,' my suspicion is what they mean is 'pro-traditional, feminine' feminism ... that old-school rap about feminists being hairy-legged, man-haters evolved in the 1970s is a (public relations) challenge that the movement has always had."

Efforts to tie Fiorina to the more controversial figure of Palin - and to remind voters of her conservative stance on abortion rights - may have political as well as financial implications in blue-leaning California.

On one hand, associating Fiorina with Palin may boost the GOP candidate's fundraising among conservatives, activists and Tea Partiers in other states. Those sources could be crucial if the national party is pressured to put its resources into Senate races in less-costly battlegrounds elsewhere, including Arkansas, Nevada and Kentucky.

But there's a downside to the association with the controversial 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate, said Democratic strategist Dan Newman.

"Among California swing voters, BP, Goldman Sachs and Dick Cheney are all more popular than Sarah Palin," he wryly noted.

I will always be confounded by the fact that just because somebody like Sarah Palin CLAIMS to represent Christianity and family values, while everything they do seems to contradict  that claim, that it is enough to fool so many people into believing they are the genuine article.

Sarah Palin fake feminist. Well why not? She faked being a mayor, faked governing Alaska, faked writing a book, and is a fake political commentator at Fox News.

From the Washington Post:

But, of course, Palin isn't a feminist -- not in the slightest. What she calls "the emerging conservative feminist identity" isn't the product of a political movement or a fight for social justice.

It isn't a structural analysis of patriarchal norms, power dynamics or systemic inequities. It's an empty rallying call to other women who are as disdainful of or apathetic to women's rights as Palin herself: women who want to make abortion and emergency contraception illegal and who fight same-sex marriage rights. As Kate Harding wrote on Jezebel.com: "What comes next? 'Phyllis Schlafly feminism?' 'Patriarchal feminism?' 'He-Man Woman Hater Feminism?' "

Given that so-called conservative feminists don't support women's rights, how can they paint their movement as pro-woman? Why are they not being laughed out of the room?

Easy: They preempt criticism of their lack of bona fides by aligning themselves with a history that most women are proud of -- the fight for suffrage. They claim they're the real feminists, as Palin did in her speech lauding the Susan B. Anthony List for "returning the women's movement back to its original roots." (She wasn't talking about voting rights; she was referring to the debated notion that first-wave feminists were antiabortion.)

By tying their "feminism" to the suffragists, whose goal was realized nearly 100 years ago, they're not-so-subtly saying that women in America have achieved equality. In fact, they don't believe that systemic sexism exists.

A related strategy for Palin and fellow conservatives is to paint actual feminists as condescending hypocrites who simply don't believe in young women: "[They] send this message, that 'Nope, you're not capable of doing both. You can't give your child life and still pursue career and education. You're not strong enough; you're not capable.' So it's very hypocritical," she told the anti-abortion-rights crowd. Palin's "pro-woman sisterhood," however, "is telling these young women that they're strong enough and smart enough, they are capable to be able to handle an unintended pregnancy and still be able to . . . handle that [and] give that child life." (Unless of course, these young women were unlucky enough to live in Alaska when then-Gov. Palin cut funding for an Anchorage shelter for teenage moms.)

So Palin's "feminism" isn't just co-opting the language of the feminist movement, it's deliberately misrepresenting real feminism to distract from the fact that she supports policies that limit women's rights.

Michelle Cottle of the New Republic bemoans the "tokenism" of the Sarah Palin VP pick.

Even setting aside Palin's political views, the governor's candidacy is a slap in the face to all women. No matter how feisty she is or how darling she looks with a rifle on her shoulder, Palin is abjectly unqualified to sit one heartbeat away from the presidency. She is less than two years into her first term as governor of a state with a population roughly equivalent to that of Baltimore or Fort Worth. Her minimal experience with national domestic issues is overshadowed only by her total lack of experience, or even apparent interest, in foreign affairs. This makes her a bizarre choice for a candidate who has been hawking the need for experience and gravitas in these troubled times--and makes the cynical tokenism of Palin's selection all the more vivid.

By far the most insulting aspect of Palin's candidacy is the McCain team's hope that placing a ballsy female on the ticket will attract some former Hillary supporters by stoking their gender-based resentments against Obama and the DNC. Palin has been happy to encourage this strategy by cheering Hillary's "eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling" and offering herself up as a way to help women go even farther. Sadly, some Hillary dead-enders may be so blinded by bitterness that they fall for this nonsense. The rest of us should be outraged by a strategy so nakedly founded on the premise that Hillary gals were driven more by identity politics than by any interest in their candidate's values, ideology, or qualifications. It's not just that Palin stands on the opposite side of so many issues dear to Hillary; she is also vastly less accomplished and engaged than the senator from New York. (As political consultant Dan Gerstein has quipped, many Hillary supporters will think Palin "not worthy of carrying their candidate's pantsuit.") In Team McCain's eyes, however, female candidates are pretty much interchangeable and women voters too addlepated to know the difference. We don't care about issues or experience; we just want someone with the same reproductive parts as ours.

None of which is to disparage Palin's inherent intelligence, political savvy, or judgment. It's entirely possible that some day she could make a top-notch vice-presidential, or even presidential, candidate. But, at this point, we are talking about a woman who makes Dan Quayle circa 1988 look like an elder statesman.

I could have made this point as well, but I think my boy parts would have kept me from being so authentic and eloquent. Very well done piece! I encourage you to read the entire article.

In this race, Barack Obama is the true feminist. Hillary Clinton, unfortunately, still does not get it.

The title is the last line of an article written by Ariel Garfinkel, a sophomore at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts who's majoring in the Politics of Inequality.

The article does an excellent job of pointing out why older women may support Hillary but the younger women are all for Obama.

Go ahead, give it a read.

Feminist Kate Michelman explains why supporting Barack Obama is the right thing to do. And why Chris Matthews is an idiot!

Knowing that I had just announced my support for Barack Obama for president after having earlier supported my old friend John Edwards, Matthews had me on his show Monday. His first Hardball to me was one of his typical zingers: "Kate Michelman, how does it feel to have abandoned the cause of your life?"

The simple answer, Chris, is that I haven't -- in fact, my endorsement of Barack, just like my earlier embrace of John Edwards, is all about exalting the causes of my life. Not about repudiating them.

I haven't abandoned my commitment to the women's movement -- and anyone who knows me understands I never will. My endorsement of Barack Obama is actually a celebration of that commitment, and an honest reflection of what I have been fighting for for over 40 years.

The women's movement is about free choice, self-determination and challenging a status quo that fails a lot of Americans, not just women. And it is not about going along. It's about transcending, about having the freedom to follow one's heart, about creating and pursuing new opportunities, and about the American dream being for all Americans.

Chris' gotcha-type question to me and the semi-criticism implicit in it -- that as a woman I have some biological obligation to unreservedly support whatever woman is running -- are exactly the sentiments I faced when I first started working for a woman's right to choose. If women who vote for men are traitors, then are men who vote for women also traitors? What about African-Americans who vote for whites? Or whites who vote for African-Americans?

Laying this guilt trip, this hypocrisy, on women -- saying that those women who don't vote for other women are turncoats -- is tantamount to saying that women who exercise independent thought haven't the right to do that either. Could there be a more anti-feminist contention?

When a presidential candidate's core values are unity, equality, opportunity and creating an atmosphere of respect and harmony, both nationally and internationally, then that candidate's vision aligns with the best hopes and dreams of the women's movement. And that is precisely Barack Obama's vision.

For me, the choice between supporting Barack or Hillary was the choice between supporting someone who I know would be very good, Hillary Clinton, or supporting someone who I know could be truly great. And right now, on those causes that define me and millions of other women, we shouldn't settle -- and I won't settle -- for anything less than "great."

There is more of this in the link above.

Her words are very thoughtful and powerful and certainly do not require any commentary from me.

100 feminists decide to support Obama because of Hillary's record as a Senator. Finally somebody is talking sense!

More than 100 New York feminist leaders released a joint statement Sunday afternoon criticizing Hillary Clinton and supporting Obama for president - evidence that Clinton's support among women activists has declined significantly in the days before the super-Tuesday primary.

Those endorsing Obama include longtime peace activist Cora Weiss; Katha Pollitt, columnist for The Nation; Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times writer Margo Jefferson; award-winning women's rights historians Alice Kessler Harris and Linda Gordon; Barbara Weinstein, president of the American Historical Association, and Ellen P. Chapnick, Dean for Social Justice Initiatives at Columbia Law School. Susan Sarandon and Francis Fox Piven signed on Monday.

"Choosing to support Senator Obama was not an easy decision for us," the group stated, "because electing a woman president would be a cause for celebration in itself." They "deplored" the "sexist attacks against Senator Clinton that have circulated in the media." But, they stated, they nevertheless supported Obama because his election "would be another historic achievement" and because "his support for gender equality has been unwavering."

The group based their opposition to Clinton on "her seven-year record as senator." Despite her recent pledges to remove troops from Iraq, the group stated, Clinton's "record of embracing military solutions and the foreign policy advisers she has selected make us doubt that she will end this calamitous war."

Damn am I glad that somebody is talking some sense around here!

The idea that we have to make our decision about who will be the leader of our country based on their gender or ethnicity is completely unevolved. It is the saddest, most pathetic, and simple argument one can imagine.

Oh I take that back. The saddest reason to vote for somebody is because we are told that if we don't we will be killed by al-Qaeda. But this runs a close second.