Palin PUMA Watch

The New Agenda reproduces an e-mail from Marilyn Fitterman, the former head of NOW NY, objecting to their Kitty Genovese analogy.

Amy Siskind's take on the e-mail:

...in Marilyn’s Old Feminist regime, only Democratic Women who are pro choice need defending.  The Old Feminists look down their noses at a hockey-mom (I coach girls and boys basketball, so I must really be trash, Marilyn, collaborating with the patriarchy).

This is the offending paragraph from Fitterman's response:

More to the point, Sarah Palin is collaborating with the patriarchy. Her six-pack Joe and hockey-mom remarks, her winks and “you betcha’s,” play right into the stereotypes we have been fighting against for hundreds of years. She also invites the “First Dude” to work right alongside her, making decisions in the Governor’s office, creating the appearance that she is unable to carry the load by herself. Palin’s adherence to such patriarchal expectations is giving her some immunity to media criticism. The bar for her has been lowered to the point where, if she forms a complete sentence on the subject at point, the media congratulates her. The orchestration of media bias against Hillary Clinton has been blasted by enough women to actually somewhat protect Sarah Palin.

Emphasis added.  Note, Fitterman did not say that taking kids to sports practice, let alone coaching sports, makes one "trash".  This is an absolute straw person.

When Sarah Palin says she's glad to be in a "pro-America" part of America, or says that small-town Americans love their country no matter what, she is attacking people who aren't "Joe Six-Pack" or "hockey moms".  When she says they "grow good people in small towns", she is implicitly setting up a comparison with cities, which presumably do not grow "good people". 

(Recall that "urban" is often used euphemistically to mean "black" -- as in "urban music" -- and you see how sinister this really is.)

And according to Amy Siskind, people who object to this divisiveness, who refuse to buy into the conservative myth that they are morally inferior because of where they live, are "looking down their noses".  In other words, Siskind accepts the Republican framing of the issue.

If (if; it's not totally clear) Fitterman believes Palin doesn't need to be defended from misogynist attacks, I disagree with her there.  It's not okay to call a woman a cunt or joke about stoning her.  However, comparing Democratic women to the onlookers in Kitty Genovese's murder is obscene.

-----

Now it's time for some comments:

You would also think NOW would have a better grasp of history. Some of our best feminist icons were Republicans. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, for instance. Alice Paul was a woman so fed up with Democrats and their misogyny she went on to form the National Womens’ party. The first woman elected to congress was Jeannette Rankin, a Republican. The first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency at a convention was a Republican.

Southern Strategy?  What Southern Strategy?  Lalalalala, I can't hear you...

I always thought (before this election) that feminists fought for equal rights, equal pay, fair treatment - to fight sexism. Since Palin, I now see that these “old feminists” are about a legal platform (e.g., choice). Ok, so now I understand why none of them stepped up to the plate and fought for a fair and honest primary for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Apparently she's already forgotten what Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem wrote during the primary.

“We should resist patriarchal laws” she says - yeh, like Obama’s pay scale for women?

Obama's "pay scale" is a law now?  Well, I never. 

Did you see the dispicable ad the Brave New World pac ran on MSNBC about McCain and cancer. My God! This behavior is relatable to Eugenics in Nazi Germany. Its not surprising that the followers that would excuse Obama’s support for infanticide would have this kind of mind set. I think that many of our Obama supporters might even have a difficult time looking at a child with Downs syndrom. They are morally bankrupt and probably worthy of an Obama presidency.

Okay, here's a little primer in eugenics.  Not voting for someone because you fear he may die of natural causes soon and you don't like the person who would replace him if he did?  That may not be nice, but it's not eugenics, nor is it euthanasia, which I think is what she had in mind.  Eugenics requires interference with McCain's ability to reproduce; euthanasia would mean hastening his death.  The Obama campaign did not suggest either.

"Obama's support for infanticide".  Man, I love how Obama can be all things to all people.  To pro-choice Palin PUMAs, he's the guy who's going to overturn Roe.  To anti-choice Palin PUMAs, he's the guy who supports infanticide.  Will anyone on The New Agenda correct this misinformation?  I'm not holding my breath. 

Also, re: looking at a child with Down syndrome: I guess totally unsupported ad hominem attacks are only bad when Sarah Palin is the target.  Liberal women are evil and deserve whatever we get.

NOW’s actions have shocked me . . . NOW is really not for women, but a pro-choice organization like NARAL.

Pro-choice = not for women.  Huh?

I have e-mailed Marilyn Fitterman in support -- not because I agree with every word of her e-mail, but because the partisan women at The New Agenda have been twisting her words and sending her very vicious hate mail based on things she didn't even write.  Feel free to do the same.