Jessica

Vozel

Read Jessica's bio and previous columns here

September 22, 2008

Sarah Palin: A Woman VP Candidate, Not a Woman’s VP Candidate 

Two weeks ago, I was able to visit Seneca Falls, New York, site of the first convention for women’s rights in 1848. I was surprised to find the Wesleyan chapel that housed the meeting in shambles – a windowless brick skeleton that lives post-convention as a laundry mat and a mechanic’s garage. The official commemoration of the birthplace of the women’s rights movement was as belated as women’s voting rights, which didn’t arrive for 70 long, hard-fought years after the convention.  

This election season, more than any other time in American history, one can stand in front of Seneca Falls’ stone replica of the Declaration of Sentiments, a document drafted at the convention containing the phrase “all men and women are created equal,” and ponder just how far we’ve come. One wishes Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucrecia Mott and the other women who signed the Declaration of Sentiments could be here to see it. But even as I celebrate, I hesitate, because we’re not done yet.

My father, who was vacationing with me in New York, said as we stood in the Women’s Rights Museum in Seneca Falls, “Just think, it began here. And now we have a woman running for vice president and a woman who ran for president and was taken seriously.” He’s absolutely right – the building with the crumbling foundation is the building where women constructed a foundation for Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin to stand on.

But I worry that we will confuse the beginning with the end. 

I worry that women will become complacent in their fight for equality, because what is left to fight for? I worry that feminism will be seen by its detractors as even more frivolous and unnecessary.  That women who speak up about lingering inequality will be shushed by those who say that Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have cracked that proverbial glass ceiling, that women are being paid more attention this election season than they ever have, and that the media is calling out sexism when they see it. I worry that, if John McCain and Sarah Palin are elected to the White House, we will see perhaps the biggest step backwards for women since the Seneca Falls Convention, but it will be seen as a step forward. 

Recently, Newsweek produced an issue on “What Women Want,” this message scrawled on its cover in bright red lipstick. According to an article from that issue titled “From Seneca Falls to . . . Sarah Palin?” the would-be VP’s success at this stage can be attributed to women who appreciate her huge family and a can-do attitude. She does it all! Suddenly, even Republican women – longtime supporters of stay-at-home mothers – don’t want to hear that women can’t do anything they set out to do. Score one for feminism! Or not. 

Because here’s the thing – Sarah Palin is a woman candidate but she is not a woman’s candidate. She opposes abortion in all circumstances except one that is life-threatening to the mother. She, as mayor of Wasilla, made budget cuts that forced women pay $1,200 for their own rape kits. McCain’s – and by default Palin’s – trickling-from-the-top-down view of our economy hurts women more than men given the number of single, struggling moms of the middle-and-lower class who don’t have the luxury of choosing to stay at home. 

Some say that Palin, as a pretty mouthpiece for McCain, enforces gender stereotypes. This accusation is more difficult for me to get behind – the comments on Palin’s looks as being her only strength have shown sexism at its worst. Sarah Palin is unqualified, but she is a hell of a lot more than a sex object. That is why we still need feminism. 

We still need feminism because women in politics are still seen as either power-hungry hags or vapid beauty queens. We still need feminism because the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 85 years in the making, has still not been passed. We still need feminism because women do not have wage equality, and because, although the glass ceiling of the White House is cracked, many more in other sectors remain smoothly intact. We still need feminism because the right to our own bodies will be challenged in a McCain/Palin Administration.

And we still need feminism because women are being wrapped up in one pretty, lipstick-wearing package of a voting bloc that will vote for the candidate with ovaries even if it means losing control of our own. Women cannot be represented by pink slices of a pie chart.

Newsweek does, in the end, acknowledge that women have a history of voting on issues like the economy and war. But I wish that the women of the Seneca Falls Convention could have been quoted as sources for Newsweek, offering their opinions on “What Women Want.” I have a hunch they would say that “What Women Want” is what women have always wanted – equality, and with that individuality and the ability to make our own decisions, and have them recognized as such. 

Yes, even if that decision involves voting for the McCain/Palin ticket.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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