Saturday, September 13

Gloria Steinem op-ed

I know, I know ... the people who are willing to listen to someone like Gloria Steinem are not the voters we need to worry about. But her op-ed - "Palin: wrong woman, wrong message" - is rather interesting.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

I find her words hopeful, but worry that it's just the desperation of a drowning man clinging to a forlorn hope.

3 comments:

  1. A Real-Life Soap Opera About the Suffragettes

    Gloria Steinem and Governor Palin are proof that women can and do diverge on important issues.

    Even on the question of whether women should vote!

    Most people are totally in the dark about HOW the suffragettes won votes for women, and what life was REALLY like for women before they did.

    Suffragettes were opposed by many women who were what was known as 'anti.'

    The most influential 'anti' lived in the White House. First Lady Edith Wilson was a Washington widow who married President Wilson in 1915, after the death of his pro-suffrage wife.

    The First Lady's role in Wilson's decision to jail and torture Alice Paul and hundreds of other suffragettes will never be fully known, but she was outraged that these women picketed her husband's White House.

    I'd like to share a women's history learning opportunity...

    "The Privilege of Voting" is a new free e-mail series that follows eight great women from 1912 - 1920 to reveal ALL that happened to set the stage for women to win the vote.

    It's a real-life soap opera about the suffragettes! And it's ALL true!

    Powerful suffragettes Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst are featured, along with TWO gorgeous presidential mistresses, First Lady Edith Wilson, Edith Wharton, Isadora Duncan and Alice Roosevelt.

    There are tons of heartache on the rocky road to the ballot box, but in the end, women WIN!

    Thanks to the success of the suffragettes, women have voices and choices!

    Exciting, sequential episodes with lots of historical photos are great to read on coffeebreaks, or anytime.

    Subscribe free at

    www.CoffeebreakReaders.com/subscribe.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Virginia,

    I'm confused as to what you are trying to say here. Are you advertising your web site? Or something else?

    I ask because it is unusual to have someone interested in the suffrage movement using the diminutive "suffragettes" to describe the women. I was under the impression the term "suffragette" was primarily used by the women's contemporary opponents, while they referred to themselves as "suffragists" and considered the "-ette" to be demeaning. Was I mistaken?

    ReplyDelete
  3. ...don't let me catch you calling me an "ette" anything. You are correct again, Greg.

    Women have had the vote for a very long time, is Virginia going backwards or forwards?

    ReplyDelete