Women's Movement and 'Hypocrisy'

We had two CSCC members write excellent, strongly-worded emails in response to this letter in last weekend's Daily Item accusing women of 'hypocrisy' for not supporting Sarah Palin; one got published yesterday, the other did not. But here we present both letters. The first (the one that was printed) is from Martha Holland:

According to the letter in today's Daily Item (9/22), women should joyfully support Sarah Palin because she is a woman; one who, the writer claims, embodies all the values of the women's movement. That we don't support her makes us, in his eyes, liberal female elitists and full blown hypocrites. I would like to respond by saying that there are plenty of us who, despite our opposition to Sarah Palin, are hard-working moms who love God and country, respect the opinions of others and believe that we can have a rational conversation about our differences without resorting to hateful labels and name-calling.

The reason we do not support Sarah Palin is because she is running for vice-president on a Republican ticket that is no different from what we have had for the last eight years.For the last eight years, the Bush-Cheney administration has brought us an unending and destabilizing war based on lies (that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that he was responsible for the terrible events of 9/11). For eight years, this administration has dismantled regulations that protect us from corporate greed and malfeasance. Now we have an economic crisis that is the worst since the great depression. This same administration wants to spend $700 billion to bail out the big companies whose questionable policies have caused this mess but does not want to include help for the millions of ordinary citizens who have lost their homes and livelihoods because of this crisis. We oppose the McCain-Palin ticket not because we are looking at ideologies but because we are looking at results. An examination of the McCain-Palin platform shows that they are sticking to the same basic policies of the last eight years, policies which can only bring us more bad results.

Sincerely,
Martha Holland

The second one (unpublished) is from Jason Roy:

In response to the letter writer who claimed that the "women's movement" has "shown their true colors" as hypocrites: I think there is a misunderstanding about what the women's movement was all about. The goal of the women's movement was not to get any and every woman into a position of power, regardless of their qualifications. The goal was to give women the same opportunities as men.

It is a sign of progress that Hillary Clinton came close to winning the Democratic nomination for President. It is a sign of progress that Sarah Palin has been nominated for Vice President on the Republican ticket. You are correct in saying that "they will support women, but not all women. Only women that fit into their ideology..." It would be quite discouraging if women felt obligated to vote for a candidate that they disagreed with on most issues, simply because the candidate was of the same gender. We have always had the opportunity to vote for or against male candidates who were running for office. We are beginning to have that opportunity with female candidates. If people make a decision on Sarah Palin based on her qualifications and beliefs, and not on her gender, it is a sign of progress, not hypocrisy.

Sincerely,
Jason Roy