How dare former City Council and state legislative candidate Becky Hall celebrate in her Local View commentary vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin as a feminist heroine ("Palin can hold office, care for kids, just like Pelosi and Klobuchar," Sept. 17).
During Palin's short political career as mayor and now sitting governor of Alaska, she has done little to push forward the rights of women. In fact, she has supported legislation and policies that are significantly anti-woman and anti-equality.
Palin explicitly opposed a woman's choice to have an abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Many of the strongest conservatives are not this strictly against the use of safe, medically accurate abortion practices. The abortion issue alone is a major element of the feminist movement. The movement does not necessarily see the use of abortion as some great act, but as a choice that should be allowed to women, in a safe medical environment. Because of our mothers and our mothers' mothers, women no longer have to seek "back-alley abortions" and no longer have to die from complications that arise from unsafe environments and procedures. Palin, I fear, would bring us back to this unsafe time in the blink of an eye.
With regard to what feminist Gloria Steinem said of Palin, I have to wonder whether Hall took the time to read her comments before ridiculing her. I have, and at no point does Steinem question Palin's ability to govern while at the same time being a mother. In fact, Steinem says in her piece, "I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father." Steinem's disdain of Palin seems solely based on policy choices and the issues of our time.
The women's movement has evolved over the years and now takes on issues of racial equality, access equality, and equality concerning sexual orientation (to name a few areas) -- as well as gender equality. Concerning these new paths, Palin has not, and most decidedly would not, foster a growth in these forefronts of social change. In the end, Palin has done nothing to denote herself as a heroine for equality for all -- or for women specifically.
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Steve Wick is a student at the University of Minnesota Duluth, majoring in political science and women's studies. He works at a women's center at UMD.
