Sparliament : Politics In Action

Sarah Palin's Alaska Office, image courtesy of The New York Times I would be surprised if you told me you had never heard of Sarah Palin before. Personally I am irritated by the way she is taking press away from Barack Obama when she is the VP candidate and not even the presidential candidate. BUT she is a phenomenon which needs to be addressed. So just some little points on why Sarah Palin should not be hailed and voted for by women. A woman candidate is not the same thing as a woman's candidate. There are so many reasons why Sarah Palin is against women's rights. Firstly she cut funding for a program in her state for young women who found themselves pregnant and wanted (or were forced) to carry the pregnancy to term. As the Washington post states in its 2 September article: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live. ... According to Passage House's web site, its purpose is to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help teen moms "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families." Secondly as Mayor of Wasilla she ensured that the state no longer paid for rape kits for victims, instead insisting that the rape victims of Wasilla pay between US$300 and US$1200 to have the police take evidence for a crime, despite protestations by the police chief himself. Thirdly she is staunchly anti-choice - even if you yourself would never get an abortion, that does not mean that clinically-safe abortions should not be available for women who may not be so lucky. The fact that Palin spoke about her daughter Bristol's "decision" (and the family's "decision") to keep her child is infuriating when Palin herself would refuse to give any other girls/women/families a "decision" in such a matter - especially if we change the word "decision" for say, "choice". Their words: "We are proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents." [emphasis mine] See this hillarious clip from the Daily Show to see how much the word "choice" instead of "decision" made Republicans squirm at the Republican Convention: Fourthly (that's totally a word), she has stayed mysteriously quiet on the Equal Pay for Equal Work bill which McCain voted against as a Senator, despite questions being raised over the issue after Obama targeted her stance on the issue. I have no doubt that Palin supports the idea of more women in positions of power, however this does not equate to being feminist nor does it equate to being 'pro-woman' if you are against women in other financial, medical, or emergency situations. Furthermore, to say that attacks on Palin based on her (minimal) experience are sexist is to completely miss the point. When republicans and some Obama supporters attack Clinton based on her 'pantsuits' and the sound of her voice, that is sexism. When democrats attack Palin based on her inexperience and lack of foreign policy knowledge, that is critical debate. The same attacks would have been made on "Samuel Palin". I absolutely understand that sexism does exist for Palin, but most of this seems to be coming from the Republican party itself: VPILF badges and rumination (see this article on how "Palin will become the country’s first VPILF": this quote makes it clear that 'VPILF' is a male-over-female term and not just talking about good looks amongst politicians), action figures with a 'catholic schoolgirl' outfit, continuous talk on her role as a hockey mom, the list goes on. Sarah Palin is the same as every other fundamentalist christian conservative right-wing candidate. She holds the same, sometimes even more extreme, views as they do. She is pro-drilling in national wildlife reserves; she is a climate change disbeliever; she is "pro-life" when it comes to abortion but "anti-life" when it comes to prisoners, wildlife, or raped women; she has been involved in a corruption scandal; she talks 'local' but is really a part of the elite who are blessed with white genes and lots of money and want to keep giving money to big business in hopes of a 'trickle-down' effect which never seems to eventuate; she thinks both creationism and abstinence-only education should be taught in all schools; and last but not least she believes her foreign policy experience is up to scratch because her son is going to Iraq and she can see Russia from her house - and still thinks nuking them is a nice option to have on the table. When republicans continue to focus on her gender as the issue, they are attempting to draw attention away from all of these very contentious problems facing Sarah Palin. Particularly since such policies put her a lot closer to the Bush mandate. The amount of press she has been getting has been successful insofar as it has sucked a lot of life out of the political momentum being gathered by Barack Obama. It's no coincidence that McCain announced his VP nominee within a few hours of Obama's extremely successful Democratic Convention speech. So the question is, once people realise that a female candidate is no different to a male candidate, will they take the issues to her? Or will they be so scared of being called "sexist" that they'll let her get away with anything? We can already start to see this in the Obama campaign's decision to focus only on McCain, as they are very savvy to the fact that if they attack Palin, they'll be seen as "bullies". This, to me, is the sexist attitude: that the republicans feel Palin needs to be protected from those big bad boys who keep attacking her resume. Well I, personally, like to be able to check and criticise the background of all candidates, be they male or female. To deny people that right is to deny people freedom in the democratic process. So let's get over the fact that she has two X-chromosomes and look at the simple fact of the matter: Palin is an old-school, run-of-the-mill conservative fundamentalist Republican. Actually, now that I think about it: if the voting record of the American public over the last eight years is anything to go off, maybe she will be elected after all.

Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, rape, Republicans, Sarah Palin, sexism, US Elections

It seems a bit strange that my first post should be about something that's not technically a political issue, but I was so disgusted when I read this article that I felt I needed to have my say about it.

CHRISTINE HODDER, 38, was a much-loved woman with a husband and a three-year-old daughter, and had almost completed her Bachelor of Nursing degree when she killed herself in her backyard.

Ms Hodder, after enduring years of bullying by male colleagues at Cowra ambulance station, where she was the first and only female officer, hanged herself on her child's swing in April, 2005.

The article goes on to talk about her frustration, and how despite approaching the issue with a sense of humour at first (I'm sure everyone knows how it feels trying to "laugh off" insults), she started questioning herself, doubting herself, and basically talking herself down. She took multiple bouts of stress leave and lodged two formal complaints.

She could not even leave her car at work because the tyres were let down, her toilet at work was urinated "all over" and she was constantly ridiculed by fellow officers in front of patients...In a five-page complaint dated February 20, 2005, which has been made public, Christine Hodder said she felt she had never been accepted there because she was a woman.
"In the past six years I have been badly treated as other staff members collectively bullied, belittled and intimidated me," she said.
"The staff in this station has constantly alienated and attacked my character and physical appearance since my arrival."

The harassment and bullying of women in male-dominated workplaces is something which must be addressed. So after an investigation finding that bullying had indeed taken place in Cowra, what did the report suggest?

It recommended staff receive training in workplaces free of harassment and bullying, that the service should explore how to change the behaviour of staff, and that no female officer be appointed to Cowra for six months. No officer was disciplined.

Hmm.. not particularly effective, I would argue. How about instead of stopping women from entering a workplace, you show the bullies that there are consequences for their actions. Even if this doesn't involve firing those involved (peer pressure can, after all, turn most nice people into bullies), but at least making them take anger management or anti-harassment classes, reducing them to a lower pay bracket, or even officially charging them. Three strikes should mean that the officers involved are fired. I don't mean three incidents against different female officers, I mean ANY three incidents.

If we were talking about your average office environment, with a 50/50 split of men to women, then behaviour like this would never be tolerated. Instead, we find a male-dominated workplace happy to scare and intimidate women at work, which has led to keeping women out of that work! If anything, the opposite stance should be adopted - bring in more women and ensure that management is there to support them rather than simply maintain the status quo.

However, thanks to inactive management, no disciplinary policy, and an investigative report which effectively suggests nothing, a good woman who was helping to save lives has taken her own. Good work, fellas.

Labels: bullying, harassment, sexism