(no subject)

[leticia]

Dude, just /stop/.

Don't you dare fucking start slutshaming Bristol Palin, and you claim to be a liberal. You wonder why feminists are still angry? Because alleged liberals, our supposed allies, are making snarky comments about how she 'gets around' and calling her mother a bimbo.

Her mother is a bad policy maker. Her mother is granting her daughter support while withholding support from the less fortunate daughters of less rich mothers. These are valid points.

But neither one deserves slut shaming, because slut shaming itself is a tool of the oppression.

McCain isn't planning to pull Hillary voters because we can't tell one vagina from another; he's planning to make us inreasingly disaffected with the only party that pretends to care about our issues so we end up not voting at all.

I told a friend the other day, regarding Obama's little slips of the sexist tongue, "I'll take 'sweetie' over 'cunt' any day." But while Obama isn't saying it, the rest of the left is producing plenty of 'cunt' language and has been all along.

No other primary candidate in existance has been so reviled. No other candidate in existance has faced the same catch-22 - required to get up and support the winner (as Hillary did and every other candidate in history has) but at the same time, for that very show of support, accused of showstealing. Get the hell over your balls, little boys. Why are we still wasting so much party unity screaming about the girl who dared to play in the boys' clubhouse?

It's the same thing that has leftist bloggers thinking it's okay to call random.female on the right a trannie, or make snide comments to an imaginary adam's apple. Remember, girls, disagreeing with men makes you not a real girl. And transexuals are only okay as long as they're on YOUR side.

Of course I'm planning to vote for Obama. So are most of us. We're not stupid. But we still insist that you pay us the respect of understanding that when you slutshame one woman, even if she's committed the grevious sin of disagreeing with your politics, or just being the daughter of someone who disagrees with your politics, you slutshame all women.

Sexism doesn't know party lines.

Comments

[letiwolf.livejournal.com]

Indeed. It is true that multiple children, including handicapped ones, are an enormous time burden, but that time can come from her stay-at-home partner, hired professionals, family and friends, and it /doesn't make her any worse a mother/.

It is, I think, a somewhat valid question in HER case, because she would swear up and down if questioned in a social rightwing court that her children are her first priority because she's a good, safe babymaker who knows her place. And while the Vice Presidency is supposed to be a prety much ceremonial post, if McCain kicks it, America really couldn't afford a president who would refuse to deal with business because she had to cook dinner for her family, because thats what good mothers do.

IE, it's not a question of whether being a mother can be balanced with being a president, but whether being a /socially conservative proper mother/ can be balanced with being a president.

[siadea.livejournal.com]

I think that a lot of people aren't understanding how Palin is playing the "socially-conservative proper mother" card. I can say this because I'm surrounded by them, and Palin reminds a lot of a more politically-minded Aunt Carla. *laughs*

Let me try and unpack what I think Palin's up to here. She's saying "O look, I am not a threat, please underestimate me, no really, do. Meanwhile I will be getting everything else done around you." I might be projecting, as this is a very, very Southern tactic, but it seems fairly consistent. Furthermore, most of my family seems to understand what she's doing. Women Don't Brag About Their Accomplishments, they just sorta nudge you in their direction and underplay them. It's a way of getting stuff done in the patriarchy without undermining it, if that makes sense. So no, I think there's no fear of her putting off business to cook dinner for her family, despite her putting her children first, any more than Obama or McCain or Biden. (One feels the need to note that they don't think they have to disclaim that they put their families first. One pities that McCain does not have to, because if there were any justice, lightning would come down from the heavens and fry him where he stood for his lies.)

[letiwolf.livejournal.com]

You have a point. She wouldn't actually.

But she would expect OTHER women to, which is, of course, the whole problem.

[siadea.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure she would. If anything, she might expect other women to do as she has done. Socially-conservative proper mothers need not think women belong solely in the kitchen. I actually don't know any who do.

[hypatiasghost.livejournal.com]

Ah, a lovely distinction to make, thank you very much.

[stevenehrbar.livejournal.com]

Sure, to the extent that she supports sex-role typing, she should be called out on it. But that's done with the attacks focused on her expressed support for the sex-role typing, so it's clear that the problem is not with how she lives her life, but what she's saying about how others should live theirs.

That isn't what's being expressed when , for example, an Obama supporter says, "You can juggle a BlackBerry and a breast pump in a lot of jobs, but not in the vice presidency[.]"

[letiwolf.livejournal.com]

Completely agreed.