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diggI am woman; I am strong
And you know what? I like Sarah Palin. She's a better role model for my daughters than Gloria Steinem.
I am trying to figure out when I stopped being a “real” woman. For the last week, every newspaper, blog and television newscast I have seen or heard has blathered on and on about John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate for the US Presidential elections. In that short period of time, there seems to be a vast divide between two camps: those who support McCain's decision and those who think that Barack Obama now has the presidency sown up and placed in his back pocket. Much of the commentary has been an outright attack on Sarah Palin; the vitriol has come from left-wing feminist stalwarts, like Gloria Steinem, Maureen Dowd and Arianna Huffington, who seem to think that John McCain and Sarah Palin are trying to send women backwards a few hundred years in terms of equality. The fact that Sarah Palin does not support abortion and is open about her love for her husband seems to be at the heart of these venomous statements.
The thing is this, I consider myself to be a modern woman. I vote in every election. I have no problem speaking my mind. I teach my daughters that they need to “find their power” (usually when one of their brothers has done something they don't like and I tell them to deal with the situation themselves). I tell all four of my children that girls and boys can do almost anything. I do not feel that I am somehow less worthy than any man simply because I carry two X chromosomes. I believe that women have the right to vote, to work outside the home and to accomplish as much as they can in this world.
But I do not support abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, cloning or embryonic stem cell research. I feel that there are things that men can do that women simply cannot, and vice versa. The fact that I agree with many things that Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan and countless other women fought for seems to be completely discounted when I mention that I am also a firm believer in the teachings of my faith. And because of that, I am somehow considered to be less of a woman; no longer a “real” woman, because a “real” woman must believe in the right to choose, in assisted suicide, in condoms for every 14 year-old and that “intelligent design” is only for those poor saps not fortunate enough to know that we are all descended from a pile of goo.
For years, I have listened to, and sometimes engaged in, the debate between working mothers and stay-at-home mothers. I fall in the latter category. That I stay home with my four young children while my husband goes out to work has caused some consternation among family and friends over the years. I am, after all, a modern woman. I should want to contribute to our family income and to society. That says it all right there. Not working for a paycheque means that I am not a contributor to the world, and therefore, not a real woman.
Many times I have wondered how women can tear each other to shreds over the choices we make and still consider ourselves the gentler of the species. Now, once again, it is an us-versus-them showdown, and this time it is not just working mothers against the stay-homes, it is pro-choice (read: pro-abortion) in a knock-'em-down-drag-'em-through-the-mud slugfest with the pro-lifers.
As a woman born in 1968, I was raised in the late 1970s and the 1980s to believe that it is normal for young women to want to sleep with anyone and as many men as they can, to terminate unwanted pregnancies and to choose whether or not the baby I did decide to have deserved to live in the first place. In short, I was raised to believe that it was alright for me to play God with my body. Sarah Palin's decision to keep her unborn child does not signify to me that she is behind the times and less of a woman, and I fail to see how anyone could rationally take that point of view. The very essence of being a woman is our ability to bear children. As the mother of four myself, how could I look at my children and pick which one should not have lived? Should Sarah Palin now be asking that question? Does her youngest child deserve less than any other child because he was born with Down's Syndrome?
For those of us who believe that the Palins made the correct choice, Sarah Palin stands as a testimony to what a real woman looks like. One who is not afraid to stand up for what she believes in, one who is ready to take on the nay-sayers and prove that she does have the strength, courage and intelligence to play with the big boys. A woman who, at the end of the day, remains completely and wholly dedicated to her role as wife and mother. In short, Sarah Palin is a role model for all of us and the kind of real woman I want to be. And I'm a Canadian, not an American!
Barbara Lilley is a writer and mother of four living in Ottawa, Canada.
Sarah Palin totally won me over to the McCain ticket. I have been energized and won over by her. I’ve been analyzing this and wondering just what it is about her that so inspires me. First off, she has a large family. She does not apologize for her family. She is obviously a woman in every sense of the word and is also a public official. She is real. I know women like her. She is familiar. The women I love and admire most are like her. Heck, I try to be like her. Finally, there is a public official (unlike women like Hillary) that I can relate to. I don’t relate to Hillary. Her values are foreign to me. She and the Gloria Steinem’s are almost embarassed by women who are feminine in every sense of the word. They are embarassed by women like me. When they rap on Sarah Palin. They rap on me. The oppression of the truly feminine is still in full force and the traditional feminists are the greatest practitioners.
Ms. Lilley, it is heartening to hear/read such an eloquent explanation of what a modern day woman really is.
The title of your post itself indicates that indeed you are strong: you make your own choices, not those dictated by the images of so-called trend setters outlined and depicted in films, TV, magazines and other pop culture venues.
May you continue to follow your own illuminated path, and may your children follow in your very clear footsteps.
Michelle, Georgia isn’t stable enough to join NATO. And Saakashvili is a loose canon. That’s OK though, because Palin says you can see Russia from Alaska.
Very inspiring Barbara.
Mr. Page’s remarks above in reference to Ms. Palin’s answer to a question about what she would do if Georgia was a member of NATO and was invaded by Russia are actually in line with the obligation of NATO members for mutual defense. I am not necessarily a fan of all of Ms. Palin’s stated policies, but let’s get things straight before painting her as a war-mongerer.
Here’s a Globe and Mail piece on the topic:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080912.wePalin13/BNStory/specialComment/home
Palin’s remarks about Russia during her interview were particularly troubling. McCain and Palin seem determined to restart the Cold War. I think the Republicans miss it. It gave them focus. A recent editorial in the Russian mouthpiece PRAVDA asks Palin this question, “do you know what a nuclear holocaust would look like?” And yet she wants to make the contested areas of Georgia into a trip-wire for just such an event. She’s quite obviously not ready to deal with matters that are life and death for the whole planet.
I like the WE CAN DO IT likeness of Sarah P. in the lead-in to this article. Her picture in the current CAPTION CONTEST on ship-of-fools.com will elicit a different bunch of responses: bien sur. Charles+
There are a couple of comments above pooh poohing the idea that there has been any criticism of Ms. Palin’s decision to give birth to a Down’s Syndrome child. At first, I agreed with this, but lately I’ve read a lot that indicates that this is in fact the case. Mark Shea has done a good job of pointing out the hateful stuff that has been floating around the blogosphere. I won’t link to any of it, it turns my stomach especially because of the part time job I have working with intellectually handicapped people. But anyone who’s interested can find it discussed over there.
Before you dismiss such criticism as the work of fringe-dwelling cranks, check out this Globe and Mail article where the criticism comes from someone with a good resume:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080909.wxldown09/EmailBNStory/lifeFamily/home
The doctor quoted in this article seems to think she hasn’t given a good example, because other women who are carrying a Down’s infant might actually think they can manage after all and so go ahead with the pregnancy! It is this eugenic approach that is much more frightening to me than the odd nutty blogger tossing the word “retard” around.
I think the article is refreshing. I think no one is best fit for the job as Sarah Palin is. She is a living example of why the choose-to-kill your baby movement is wrong. In a very simple way she’s teaching the world that love is the best decision, that it is possible. By supporting her daughter, she not only teaches her daughter, but all women and men in the world, that when you mess up, you can make up. And that a sick baby is a bundle of joy and love. That choosing to have babies instead of killing them is worth it! It’s just a little more work, just a little more, because kids are not only tummies to be fed, but hands to help and hearts to love be loved.
Lucky us and our children because we can witness example of real women like sarh Palin!
When I watched Palin giving her speech, I felt happy for America for having such a fantastic candidate for the vice-presidency. I hope we can have more of her kind in the Philippines and in the world--women who are not insecure of their femininity, women who have the courage to live and fight for pro-life and pro-family values, women who truly know what it means to love and to sacrifice themselves for others. The world will be a better place if it were peopled by Sarah Palins.
While Mrs. Palin is certainly not perfect (for example, her support of the hopeless occupation of Iraq is very regrettable), she at least seems to be a fairly normal person, not a glib synthetic doll created for, and by, the media like almost every other politician in North America. This gives her a sort of charisma. In our time and age it is naive to wait for a perfect candidate; usually we have only a choice between the greater and the lesser evil (sometimes - as in the upcoming federal elections in Canada - the difference is imperceptible.)
Gabe,
What’s this thing about flattering certain readers? The point I had tried to make in a rather terse way - I admit - was that everything Barbara wrote about Mrs Palin are mere platitudes, and even now I don’t see any point in turning matter-of-course things into virtues. Mrs Palin is as real a woman as Gloria Steinem.
I am not an American and I have chosen not to bandy words about Palin. Nor about McCain, Obama and Biden. But there is something rather corny about this unreflective, herd-instinctual conversion to Palinism - a movement that is now even more cosmetic and cultic than what someone had dubbed Obamamania months ago. The latter is slowly being put out to grass now.
Of course, if I was American I wouldn’t have agreed with a number of things Mrs Palin espouses, and I would not just have gone and voted for Obama zombie-like.
I would suggest you read Dr Susan Moore’s comment between the lines, for once her comment reflects my reservations about Palin.
I agree with Susan Moore. Praise for Mrs Palin as a wife and mother must not blind Americans to several question marks hanging over her track record of public office so far - or her future capacity in high and prominent public office.
wunderbar, Barbara
Barbara; Thanks for a great article. I have a lot of admiration for stay at home mothers. We should not forget the contribution they make to society. Their jobs are as important as any nine to five jobs, if not harder.
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