G-L-O-R.I.A.

So, with all the polar-bear-hating, helicopter-wolf-shooting, teeth-licking, bikini-super-imposing pieces that we post here, this is what I believe:


Palin: Wrong Woman, Wrong Message

By Gloria Steinem

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

We're here to tell the truth. Yes. But once the truth is told and the facts are laid out, it's time to form an educated opinion. Here's mine: Sarah sucks. Yes. But what I wonder is, who is the real problem here? Do we fault Palin for being blindly ambitious? Or is it time to stop staring at those 350 dollar glasses and start taking a look at the guy that asked her to be 2nd in command in the first place? Where'd the man behind the curtain go?

To quote my beloved Steinem:

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

McCain scolds Obama for being the smartest kid in the class (because, for some unknown reason, Americans don't trust smart people in leadership roles) while at the same time has the audacity to assume that men and women (but mostly women, let's be honest) are stupid enough not to see past Palin the Prop. (And I hope, I HOPE, that most women remember that on the issues, Palin doesn't line up with the vast majority of us.) And at the same time, McCain continues to cater to the same right-wing fools that can't stop thinking about Prius-Driving-Contraceptive-Wearing-Queer-Baby-Killers long enough to notice that it's not the liberals that caused the economic landslide (although the jury is still out as to whether or not we caused terrorism. Depends on who you ask.)

In short - Sarah Sucks. And I assume that for many men it's a lot more fun to stick her head on a nekkid lady's body than McCain's. But let's not forget the real problem.

By A. Suffragette