The feminist movement must be rejoicing.\u00a0 After four decades of advocating equality for women, we are witnessing the real possibility of a female Vice-President of the United States.\u00a0 The National Organization for Women (NOW) should be congratulated for the doors they opened for women, the doors opened to equality. \u00a0Their advocacy for women’s rights started in 1966 with a statement of purpose to “take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof, in truly equal partnership with men.”\u00a0 Wasn’t that a reasonable expectation?\u00a0 Women had been too often second-class citizens in far too many ways.\u00a0 NOW continued to admire the stay-at-home moms; they just wanted it to be by choice rather than by expectation and convention.\u00a0 They simply wanted women to have equal opportunities and treatment.\u00a0 If women chose to work, they asked they be treated equally.\u00a0 They wanted simple civil rights and simple fairness.<\/p>\n
The years they spent educating our country laid the foundation to foster the growth of a Sarah Palin; the new face and the next generation of women in politics.\u00a0 Sarah Palin benefited from the opportunities won by NOW.\u00a0 She realized a woman could run for Vice-President of the United States without giving up being a woman.\u00a0 Palin recognized she did not have to try to act like a man to become their equal; she could still be a woman and their equal.<\/p>\n
But, what support is the feminist movement offering Sarah Palin.\u00a0 Shouldn’t she be their poster child, showing their success at gaining equality for women?\u00a0 Apparently not.\u00a0 Kim Gandy, NOW’s PAC chairman, said “Palin is not the right woman.\u00a0 Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women’s rights.”\u00a0\u00a0 Gloria Feldt, former leader of the National Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and a well-known women’s advocate who has devoted her life to equality for women, describes Palin as under qualified but attractive and ambitious…, a faux feminist with a masters of women’s subjugation…and a curled mouth with a sneer.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is this the equality NOW helped earn for women?\u00a0 CNN’s John Roberts added to this attack, “How much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?” \u00a0Washington Post’s Sally Quinn then added, “When you have five children, one a 4-month-old Down syndrome baby, I don’t see how you cannot make your family your first priority.”\u00a0 Isn’t this the discrimination NOW fought so hard to end? \u00a0Are they advocating a return to “barefoot and pregnant?”\u00a0 Maybe they are advocating for a different feminist movement, a different NOW.<\/p>\n
Sarah Palin has lived NOW’s original statement of purpose.\u00a0 So, why the attacks? \u00a0What went wrong?\u00a0 Wasn’t it all about simply advocating for women’s equality, supporting all women; working women, working moms, and stay-at-home moms?\u00a0 Perhaps NOW has changed, with a purpose for a narrower group of women rather than all women.\u00a0 Did the progressives change the rules of membership in the movement, supporting only select women who share the “correct” agenda?\u00a0 NOW still works for equality for women, but 35 years ago they added a litmus test.\u00a0 To be in the “club” you must support abortion on demand.\u00a0 Wait a minute.\u00a0 Doesn’t that suggest NOW has changed from being mainly a women’s advocacy group for all women to mainly an abortion on demand group for those with that shared view? \u00a0Should it continue to be called the National Organization for Women or would it be more accurate to call it the National Organization for Abortion?<\/p>\n
Palin worked for, benefited from, and reached the equality NOW fought for. \u00a0Unfortunately, she has committed several cardinal sins.\u00a0 She failed to have an abortion, her daughter failed to have an abortion, and she refuses to support abortion on demand.\u00a0 Would she have received accolades and admiration from NOW and the feminist movement if she had been sensible and aborted her “Down syndrome” baby or if her daughter had been practical and aborted her “unplanned pregnancy?”\u00a0 Would that have better showed she was a liberated woman, a true feminist, and a role model for NOW?\u00a0 NOW has indeed changed from its founding.\u00a0 At the top of their list of goals are abortion rights.\u00a0 Constitutional equality and economic justice are at the bottom of the list.\u00a0 No doubt NOW will claim their goals are not about abortion, but about choice.\u00a0 Isn’t pro-choice just a polished way of saying pro-abortion? Perhaps they claim to be about choice, but the only choice they accept is to choose to support abortion on demand?\u00a0 Is that really allowing choice?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sarah Palin simply made the wrong choice; she made the choice that abortion is wrong.\u00a0 She refused to abandon her personal values to stay in the “club.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Did Sarah Palin abandon the feminist movement or has the feminist movement abandoned Sarah Palin?<\/p>\n
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