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Recent Resources for Feminists
The Age ~~ Melbourne ~~ Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Welcome to this year's blockbusterBy  Catherine Deveny
The US VP candidate is gun-toting, God-fearing proof that we are at the mercy of morons.
I'M OBSESSED with Sarah Palin. She's the first thing I think about when I wake and the last thing I think of before I go to sleep. I google her a dozen times a day and manage to bring her up in every conversation I have.
"You have hair. Sarah Palin has hair. What a coincidence! She has big hair and it's brown. Her kids have hair too. Their names are Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig. Would you like to see a photo of Sarah's hair? Or her kids' hair? Or her husband the First Dude's hair? She's a great mother, she went back to work three days after giving birth to a disabled child. Of course, she didn't have to. She chose to. She and the First Dude had little Trig's best interests at heart. Never too early to instil independence. It toughens 'em up. Next stop? A bloody good war."
I found myself checking out Palin Facebook groups last night. The ones that amused me included: Excuse Me, But Has Anyone Else Noticed That Sarah Palin Is Insane? My Dog Is More Qualified To Be Vice-President Than Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin Is A Bona Fide Whack Job. Librarians Against Sarah Palin. I Would Have Sex With, But Not Vote For, Sarah Palin. And: I Would Rather Have A Mentally Challenged Goat As VP Than Sarah Palin.
I'd been thinking the US election campaign was dragging on endlessly until I read the headline "McCain chooses woman for running mate." I loved that, "woman". Sums the whole thing up. She's the closest thing Republican strategists could find to a man with a vagina. No political party in the world would have had the genius to dream up Sarah Palin. She's a social experiment with lipstick.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd likened the Sarah Palin story to the chick flick Miss Congeniality. I think of it more as an in-flight movie. Like Dumb and Dumber. If you're after a laugh, check out the campaign poster for McCain and Palin. The slogan is "The Ticket For America". The running mates look like an old rich bloke with erectile dysfunction and his white trash trophy wife wearing glasses so she looks intellectual and that.
McCain strikes me as "a bit of a fall" away from stewed prunes and dribbling, and she looks as hungry and deranged as Anna Nicole Smith. "Hey, Johnny, why don't y'all take up smoking! It's not too late. Have another spoon of cholesterol. Where's that special button you done talked about that blows up countries? Bristol's boyfriend's Xbox isn't working and he's bored."
I'm not proud of it but to be honest, the comedy writer in me really, really hopes Palin gets in. Shooting, hunting, God-fearing, anti-abortion, book-banning, homophobic, white trash moron. I'd love to see the White House lawn covered in cars up on blocks. Male, female, goat or goldfish, Palin is a writer's dream. I wish I had the imagination to invent her.
And the hits just keep on coming. Each day there's another titbit that draws me in. "She what? Not only believes that abstinence should be the only form of contraception taught in schools and she slashed funding to a program for teenage mothers but she charged victims of sexual assault for their own rape kits. I don't even know what rape kits are but I sure as hell know you don't charge people for them." And how does that whole guns and God thing work? "Say a prayer and the merciful Lord will protect us. And if he doesn't, pass me the Uzi."
The only problem with Sarah Palin is that she's real. And, like it or not, she'll be used as an example of a female politician. Regardless of the fact she should be filed under dangerous white trash fuelled by fear, propelled by power and supported by halfwits.
I have two long-held beliefs. First, people should have to pass an intelligence test before they're allowed to vote and second, that the rest of the world should be able to vote in the US elections because the outcome affects us as much as them. If not more.
Like most people, I believe in democracy. As long as everybody else votes the same way I do. The problems with democracy are that a) not everyone makes an informed choice and b) if they do, what informs that choice. We're at the mercy of the morons. People who vote for race, gender, class and politicians who massage people's prejudices and reinforce beliefs fertilised by fear.
Sarah Palin personifies the cockiness of ignorance. Bertrand Russell said: "Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Pass me the popcorn, I can't wait to see how this movie ends.
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 August 25, 2008
Rebel vs. Warlords An interview with Afghan parliamentarian Malalai Joya
By Farooq Sulehria
Afghanistan lives in the fear of US-sponsored war lords. These hated warlords are not scared by Taliban-monster raising its head in south. Ironically, they live in the fear of an unarmed girl in her late twenties: Malalai Joya. To silence Joya's defiant voice, war lords dominating national parliament, suspended Joy's membership for three years in 2007. Earlier, at almost every parliamentary session she attended, she had her hair pulled or physically attacked and called names (‘whore'). ‘They even threatened me in the parliament with rape', she says. But she neither toned down her criticism of war lords (‘they must be tried') nor US occupation (‘war on terror' is a mockery). Understandably, media declare her ‘bravest woman in Afghanistan' and even compare with Aung Sun Suu Kyi.
A household name in Afghanistan (‘Most famous woman in Afghanistan', according to BBC), Joya shot to fame back in 2003 at Loya Jirga convened to ratify Afghan constitution. Unlike US-sponsored clean-shaven fundamentalists, Joya was not nominated but elected by the people of Farah province to represent them. She stunned the Loya Jirga and global media present on the occasion, when she unleashed a three-minute vitriolic exposing the crimes of warlords dominating that Loya Jirga. Grey-bearded Sibghatullah Mojadadi, chairing the Loya Jirga, called her an ‘infidel' and a ‘communist'. Other beards present on the occasion also shouted at her. But before she was silenced by an angry mob of war lords around, she had electrified Afghanistan with her courageous speech.
During the course of these three fateful minutes, course of Joya's life was also changed. In her native province of Farah, locals wanted her to represent them in elections. It takes guns and dollars to contest an election in Afghan electoral-battlefields. Joya had none. But she could not turn down hundreds of supporters daily paying her visits, urging her to stand. She decided to run for Wolesi Jirga (lower house of national parliament). Danish film maker Eva Mulvad, immortalised Joya's courageous election campaign and subsequent victory, in her ‘Enemies of Happiness' .
I happened to meet Joya in January unexpectedly at a dinner when she reached Peshawar (Pakistan) on her way to Canada. Since her passport has been confiscated and she is on Exit Control List, she had travelled to Pakistan in disguise. Politely refusing my request for an interview on the plea that she got to catch a flight early next morning, she promised to catch up with me in Kabul later in March.
Three months later, we met again in Kabul. As an MP, Joya was entitled to rent a villa in a posh neighbourhood designated to MPs. However, plagued with life threats, Joya hardly visits it. Her comrades discreetly pointed to the villa when we were driving past this neighbourhood on our way to an underground home Joya sometimes uses to meet visitors. In an interview, interspersed by a delicious Afghan dinner, and post-dinner chat, Afghanistan's bravest woman shared her hopes and fears with Arbetaren. Here are the excerpts.
Have you gone to court against your suspension. Did you contact Karzai against your suspension?
Joya: Here in Afghanistan, we have a mafia running the system. It is the same war lords in the parliament who head the courts. These Northern Alliance warlords dispense justice. I was suspended because I termed Afghan parliament as a stable full of animals. Though I think animals are useful. The warlords want me to apologise for this comment. I refuse to apologise for telling the truth aloud. I don't see a chance in a court dominated by warlords to do me justice. However, another reason was, for the fear of personal security, no advocate was ready to plead my case. Now a lawyer has agreed to plead my case and I would move the court. (She went to court in April). However, I would tell the court that not me but war lords be brought in the dock.
As far as Hamid Karzai is concerned, he has been shamelessly silent on my suspension by an undemocratic parliament. I never contacted him. He should have contacted me. On the other hand, there were demonstrations across Afghanistan against my suspension. Karzai's police proved good only at breaking these demonstrations. But also what Karzai could have done? He is ridiculed by the people of Afghanistan as mayor of Kabul since his control does not extend beyond Kabul.
How come than Karzai is in power and how come you keep declaring Afghan parliament as undemocratic when it has been elected in general elections?
Joya: Well, this is a parliament whose 80 percent members are warlords or drug lords. They either snatched their places in parliament at gun point or bought these seats off with US dollars. In some cases, both guns and dollars played a role. Even Human Rights Watch has accused some leading members of this parliament of war crimes. But this parliament, in a unique move, granted warlords an amnesty against crimes committed during the war. Even Mulla Umar can benefit after this amnesty.
Karzai, who was voted as lesser evil, has been co-operating with all these criminals all the time. Hence, no wonder if he is unpopular today. But he is sustained in presidential palace by USA and all the warlords co-operate with the USA:
By the way, one hears more about Karzai's brother in Kabul than Karzai himself. Every other posh real estate project or every second case of corruption is attributed to younger Karzai. He is also named when it comes to drug peddling?
Joya: Corruption and drug trafficking have become a big issues. In my view, security is the biggest issue. After that it is corruption. The so-called international community which in fact is US government and its allies, has sent a lot of money. This amount was enough to build two instead of one Afghanistan. But even Karzai himself confesses that the money has ended up in the pockets of ministers, bureaucrats and member parliaments. On the other hand, one hears about a mother in Heart selling her daughter for ten dollars. And not merely brother of Karzai is drug lord, foreign troops have been allegedly involved.
Really? Any proof? Press reports?
Joya: Yes some press reports have pointed that out. For instance, Russian state TV has hinted at US troops involvement in drug trafficking. That was reported in press here. But than this is like an open secret. Karzai in one of his speech last year said that it was not only Afghans involved in drug trafficking. He hinted at foreign connection. Though he did not name any country or troops but people in Afghanistan understood what he meant. And drugs are not merely an Afghan issue. Now Afghan drugs are finding their way to New York and European capitals. Hence, no wonder today Afghanistan is producing 90 percent of world opium. This, however, is taking its toll on women. Now we hear about ‘opium brides'. When harvests fail, peasants are not able to pay back loans to drug lords; they ‘marry' their daughters off to warlords instead.
Why is USA letting all this happen?
Joya: The USA wants the things as they are. A status co. Because, a bleeding, suffering Afghanistan is a good excuse to prolong its stay. Now they are even embracing Taliban. Recently, in Musa Qila, a Taliban commander Mulla Salam was appointed as governor by Karzai. The USA has no problem with Taliban only if they are ‘our Taliban'.
Not merely Karzai, but also all these war lords have been sustained in power by the USA. That is why, now a days, when there are demonstrations against war lords, there are also demonstrations against foreign troops. People here believe that the warlords are cushioned by the US troops. If the USA leaves, the warlords will loose power because they have no base among our people. The people of Afghanistan will deal with these warlords once US troops leave Afghanistan.
Don't you think security situation will get even worse once troops pack off?
Joya: May be. But tell the people in Sweden that Swedish troops are helping implement US agenda in Afghanistan. The democracy loving people of Sweden should rather support democratic forces in Afghanistan and instead of sending soldiers; Sweden should send doctors, nurses, teachers and build schools and hospitals.
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 London ~~ Friday September 12 2008
Also at: The Sunday Age ~~ Melbourne ~~ September 14 2008
The F-card won't washSarah Palin is disastrous for women's rights, no matter how Republicans try to frame her as a feminist
By  Jessica Valenti
Bad for women's rights ... Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The New York Post calls her "a feminist dream". National Public Radio asks if she's the "new face of feminism". And the Wall Street Journal, ever subtle, calls it "Sarah Palin Feminism". I call it well-spun garbage. (Yes, I'd even call it a pig in lipstick.) It seems you can't open a newspaper or turn on the television without running across a piece about how the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, is not just a feminist, but the feminist - a sign that all is right in the US when it comes to gender equality. (Turn in those Birkenstocks and picket signs, gals!)
Palin's conservative cohorts are claiming her candidacy as a win for women and proof that it's Republicans who are the real agents of change. After all, what more could American women want in a vice-presidential candidate than a well-coiffed "hockey mom"?
Never mind that Palin talks about her teen daughter's decision to keep her child while awaiting the chance to take that choice away from American women. Don't worry about how Palin cut funding for a transitional home for teenage mothers. And forget that, under Palin's mayoralty, women in Wasilla, Alaska, were forced to pay for their own rape kits to the tune of up to $1,200.
We're not supposed to care about these issues because - say Republicans - we should just be happy that there's a woman on the ticket. The McCain campaign is cynically trying to recreate the excitement that surrounded Hillary Clinton's candidacy, believing that all women want is ... another woman.
Ann Friedman, deputy editor of the American Prospect, wrote: "In picking Palin, Republicans are lending credence to the sexist assumption that women voters are too stupid to investigate or care about the issues, and merely want to vote for someone who looks like them ... McCain has turned the idea of the first woman in the White House from a true moment of change to an empty pander."
What's worse is conservatives can't understand why women aren't lining up to thank them. In fact, the same people who moaned that women - those darn feminists, especially - were only supporting Hillary because of her gender are now screaming to the rafters because they're not supporting Palin for the same reason. That's what makes Republicans pulling the feminist card that much more insulting - the stunning hypocrisy. The McCain touting himself as the person who will put a woman in the White House is the same man who joked that Chelsea Clinton is "so ugly" because "her father is Janet Reno".
And despite the talk about being the party of change, appropriating feminist symbols - such as at a Pennsylvania rally, where people held up signs of Rosie the Riveter with Palin's face - and propping up anti-feminist women as trailblazers is typical of the Republicans.
Organisations such as the Independent Women's Forum and Concerned Women for America, who call themselves the "real" feminists while fighting against things such as equal pay and legislation to combat violence against women, have been around (and funded by conservatives) for years. Their brand of feminism means benefiting from the gains of the women's movement while striving to keep other women down - all for a patriarchal pat on the head. Sound familiar?
As the feminist writer Rebecca Traister says: "Palin's femininity is one that is recognisable to most women: she's the kind of broad who speaks on behalf of other broads but appears not to like them very much ... It's like some dystopian future ... feminism without any feminists."
The good news is, this twisted homage to feminism means conservatives must recognise it as a force in American politics - why spend so much time framing Palin as feminist if we're all just a bunch of hairy man-haters? The bad news, however, trumps all. If this campaign is successful, American women will suffer. We'll be under the thumb of yet another administration that thinks nothing of rolling back women's rights.
No matter how many times feminists point out the hypocrisy of Republicans pulling the F-card, however, the bigger truth is that it's not Palin's anti-feminist bona fides alone that matter. While Palin is bad for women's rights, she's terrible for America. In addition to being investigated by her own legislature for abuse of power, she is also reported to have asked a librarian about the process for banning books in Wasilla, doesn't support sex education, and has made lying about her record unusually central to her candidacy - even for a politician. These are big warning signs that cut across gender lines.
So while the McCain campaign holds Palin up as a shining example of feminism in action, let's not forget the truth about who's doing the spinning and what they're selling. Because the last thing America needs is another corrupt and lying politician - man or woman.
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· Jessica Valenti, founder of the Feministing website, is the author of Full Frontal Feminism
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 Tuesday September 9 2008
The Daily BriefSarah Palin: A Trojan Moose Concealing Four More Years of George Bush By  Arianna Huffington
Did Sarah Palin wrongfully push to have her ex-brother-in law fired? Was she really against the "Bridge to Nowhere?" Did she really sell Alaska's plane on eBay, or just list it on eBay? Did she actually have any substantial duties commanding the Alaska National Guard?
The correct answer to all these questions is: who cares? Which isn't to say these aren't valid questions, or that Palin and the McCain camp aren't playing it fast, loose, and coy with each of them. The point is that Palin, and the circus she's brought to town, are simply a bountiful collection of small lies deliberately designed to distract the country from one big truth: the havoc that George Bush and the Republican Party have wrought, and that John McCain is committed to continuing.
Every second of this campaign not spent talking about the Republican Party's record, and John McCain's role in that record, is a victory for John McCain.
Her critics like to say that Palin hasn't accomplished anything. I disagree: in the space of ten days she's succeeded in distracting the entire country from the horrific Bush record -- and McCain's complicity in it. My friends, that's accomplishment we can believe in.
Just look at the problem John McCain faced. George Bush has a disastrous record, and the country knows it. John McCain -- the current one, not the one who vanished eight years ago -- has no major disagreements with George Bush (and I'm sorry, wanting to fire Donald Rumsfeld a bit sooner doesn't qualify) and wants to continue his incredibly unpopular policies for another four years. The solution? Enter Sarah Palin, a Trojan Moose carrying four more years of disaster.
And the plan has worked beautifully. Just look at what's being discussed just 57 days before the election. Is it the highest unemployment rate in five years? The bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? The suicide bombing yesterday in Iraq that killed six people and wounded 54 -- in the same market where last month a bomb killed 28 people and wounded 72? That the political reconciliation that was supposedly the point of "the surge" is nowhere near happening? That Iraq's Shiite government is now rounding up the American-backed Sunni leaders of the Awakening? That the reason 8,000 soldiers may be leaving Iraq soon is so more can be deployed to Afghanistan where the Taliban is steadily retaking the country?
No. We're talking about whether Sarah Palin was or was not a good mayor, whether she was or was not a good mother, whether her skirts are too short and her zingers too sarcastic.
Contrary to what we're hearing 24/7 in the media, the next few weeks are not a test of Sarah Palin. The next few weeks are a test of Barack Obama.
He needs to dramatically redirect this election back to a discussion over the issues that really matter -- the issues that will impact the future of this country. A presidential campaign is a battle and this is the time for Obama to show some commander-in-chief skills. I'm not talking about calling Palin out for lying about his record and demeaning community organizing. I'm talking about grabbing the political debate by the throat. The country is already angry about what's happened over the last seven-plus years -- he shouldn't be afraid to give voice to that anger. Obama has spent years adopting a non-threatening persona; but he can't let his fear that appearing like an "angry Black man" (a stereotype not-too-subtly fueled by Fox News) will turn off swing voters keep him from channeling the disgust and outrage felt by so many voters --swing and otherwise.
McCain's team, in an effort to distract, is going to keep doing what they're doing -- diverting voters and the media with a tantalizing combination of personal trivia and small lies. It doesn't matter if they're caught in them -- in fact, all the better. Because they know there is no way in hell they can win if this election is about the big truth of the Bush years.
McCain's real running mate is George Bush and the failed policies of the Republican Party. Even if they are dressed up in a skirt, lipstick, and Tina Fey glasses.
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 September 4 2008
Palin: wrong woman, wrong messageSarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By  Gloria Steinem
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.
But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
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."
This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.
Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.
So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.
Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.
So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.
Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.
Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.
And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.
This could be huge.
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Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.
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