“Why do you want hurt us Sarah?”
I find it unsettling, disconcerting, alarming and confusing that in the first Presidential election to ever hold a female on a major party ticket, we are saddled with such an incongruous dud as Palin. Seeing a woman possibly on her way to the White House should be a time for celebration and commemoration for women’s rights. Instead we are offered this insular, intolerant, out- of - date woman to be our hope for the future of women in the United States.
In an era when women are increasingly faced with such gender specific issues as an escalating AIDS epidemic in females, and rises in teen pregnancy, it’s abhorrent and sad that a woman who has the potential to be so influential, so inspirational; has the makings of a political candidate that could set back the women’s right movement decades.
Palin’s anti-abortion stance stands to revoke a women’s right to choose. Why have we as educated, progressive women fought so long to achieve this right? Why would we want undo the toil and strife that so many grass roots and capitol hill feminists have dedicated years of struggle and ferocious fight into creating a nation where we have the right to choose weather our bodies are to bear children or not.
Why I ask would Palin do such a thing. Is it her religious up bringing? Is it the relatively remote and ultra-conservative state in which she lives. I’d be interested to see if her views remained the same if she were to spend time in say, North Philadelphia with masses of over burdened, undereducated, underfunded, single women whom she proposes shall no longer have the, “right to choose.”
Why wouldn’t a sophisticated woman, such as Palin, seek to give these woman the right to divest them selves of any undo burdens. I personally believe children are a blessing but when lack of knowledge and ignorance are at epidemic proportions in many inner cities why would Palin seek to perpetuate such instances.
This brings me to my next major point of discord with Palin’s feminist or lack of feminist platform. She takes the firm stance that teaching teens abstinence is the only acceptable form of preventing STDs and unwanted pregnancies’. While I am a huge promoter of teaching teens the importance of abstinence; it is easily reflected in the pregnancy of Palin’s own unwed pregnant teen daughter; that this is an extremely ignorant and dangerous stance.
Of course abstinence in teens and unfit parents is the most desired form of prevention. It must be taught collectively though, along with information regarding condoms, and birth control. This and only this will allow our nation to tackle our over whelming, ever increasing, dearth of unwanted pregnancies and STD afflicted women. Most of these pregnancies, may I add, reported by under educated women, whom by Palin’s way of governing would remain so.
In 2008 it was reported that the largest number of persons affected by the AIDS virus, in the United States, were black women under the age of 28. By Palin’s policies it reasons to be seen as a guarantee that this number will only increase.
Why would such a woman of authority and influence not see her position as a gift to the women of the US. A gift she could use to educate women on the choices available to them, the sex education services and methods of prevention that would help to ensure the future health of US women as a whole and the healthy choices available to us. A gift of opportunity to perpetuate and advance the movements of so many devoted feminists before us.
Rusty
robert108
nunez
QueenZel
ellinas
thetodd