Feminist Law Professors

From here:

Globally, the platform (see PDF) rejects adopting the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It supports withholding funds from international organizations involved in abortion and upholding the “Mexico City Policy,” which prohibits federal monies from being given to non-governmental organizations that provide abortions or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other countries.

Domestically, the platform targets abortion rights by opposing clinics at schools that provide information or referrals for abortion or contraception and by supporting parental notification requirements for both abortion and contraception. The platform also supports a constitutional amendment in support of human life, protection of the unborn under the 14th Amendment, and the appointment of more pro-life judges. The platform opposes abortion in all cases and does not allow for exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or maternal health.

Additionally, while the platform supports “the advancement of women in the military” it also favors their “exemption from ground combat units.” Also regarding the military, the platform supports banning gays and lesbians from service.

From the LA Times, this editorial from Gloria Steinem:

Palin’s value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support bya majority or plurality.  ***  I don’t doubt her sincerity.  ***  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.

Steinem’s full op-ed is here.  

-Jill Gross

I’m not the first to utter this thought, but it’s worth putting out there on this blog as well: imagine if, instead of Bristol Palin being the pregnant teenager related to someone running for office this year, it was one of the Obama daughters (at 17 years old, not the current 10 or 7) instead.

What would be the media and political reaction to that?

– David S. Cohen

Today I donated money to the Obama campaign.

–Ann Bartow

NPR’s “All Things Considered” (9/2/08)

Former Senator Rick Santorum: “… [Sarah Palin] doesn’t need to know that right now. She will learn and she will, she will learn at uh you know, with uh, with a, with a firehose attached to her mouth, I mean with she’s uh, it’s gonna be pretty tough.”

Robert Siegel: “Force fed, you’re saying.”

Santorum: “Force Fed!”

Via.

From Echidne:

… Then Palin went on attack, telling us how very much better John McCain was than Barack Obama, because he was a POW and was tortured. Lots of people in Guantanamo Bay will be surprised to hear that they, too, are now presidential material.

From many varied perspectives, here.

From here:

… On the front, in huge capital letters, are the words”Bush Lied.”And on the back, also huge, the words,”They Died.”

In tiny type, on both sides, are the names of all of the U.S. soldiers who have fallen in Iraq.

Dan Frazier of Flagstaff is the maker of the shirts, and you can find them at his website, carryabigsticker.com.

“My idea was to show dramatically the toll that the war was taking,”he said. At the time of the original shirt, 1,600 U.S. soldiers had died, and he couldn’t get all of the names on a bumper sticker, so he opted for a T-shirt.

“It didn’t sell very well,”Frazier said.”It was kind of a flop, actually.”

He even thought about discontinuing the shirts.

But then some state legislators, urged on by family members of fallen soldiers, got the idea into their heads to essentially ban the shirt.

In 2006, Louisiana and Oklahoma both passed laws prohibiting the use of the names of dead U.S. soldiers on commercial products without the permission of their families.

Arizona, Texas, and Florida passed similar laws last year. Arizona’s passed unanimously.

“I was kind of surprised they were being passed, or even being considered,”says Frazier.”I’m trying to get more people from being killed, and her the families of fallen soldiers are trying to prevent me. Strange.”

He also was stunned by the ignorance of the state legislators.

“I thought they would know better than to pass laws that are unconstitutional,”he says.

Nevertheless, the attention was good for business.

“It generated sales, and before too long we were sold out of shirts,”he says.”We’ve continued to print them and update them. We’ve now sold about 4,249.”

But he has had some worries.

“Right after they passed the law here in Arizona, I got a phone call from someone who identified himself as a local police officer,”Frazier recalls.”He asked me if I was going to continue to sell these shirts and if I was aware of the new law. I said I was aware of it, and I do plan to keep selling them. And he said, ‘OK, I’m going to take a report here and pass it on to the attorneys, and they’ll decide if they’re going to prosecute.’ ”

Frazier hooked up with the Arizona ACLU, which won a preliminary injunction against the state, prohibiting it from enforcing the new law.

On August 19, Federal Judge Neil Wake, appointed by George W. Bush, ruled in Frazier’s favor. …

Via Froomkin. And, see also.

Reported here. Curse you, Barack Obama, for making me vote for Joe Biden to vote for you. For maybe the first time ever I agree with Karl Rove.

Early polling data shows that the gendered reaction to John McCain choosing Sarah Palin is exactly the opposite of what pundits and presumably John McCain thought it would be.   The wonderful FiveThirtyEight website has the information here.   Basically, men are more positive about Palin while women are reacting more negatively:

[The poll shows that m]en have a favorable imperssion of Palin by a 35-point margin, whereas women have a favorable impression of her by an 18-point margin. Conversely, by a 23-point margin, women do not think Palin is ready to be President, whereas Palin lost this question among men by a considerably smaller 6-point magrin.

There are all sorts of possible explanations here, including the one offered up by Nate Silver at the link above – that men tend to be more conservative than women, and Palin’s staunch conservative ideology is more appealing to them.   But, I think other factors could be playing out here, including a feeling by many women that McCain has insulted their intelligence by trying to pick off their loyalty based solely on sharing internal plumbing with this Alaskan right-wing ideologue.   I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention a suspicion that many (heterosexual) men are feeling positive toward her because they are attracted to her.   I could be wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

– David S. Cohen

Rebecca Traister asks that question in an essay by that name at Salon here (you’ll have to suffer through an ad to read it if you aren’t a subscriber). She makes some decent points, but also gets a few things very wrong, such as:

1. She insultingly dismisses “the handful of so-called PUMAs who spent this week jawing about how they were going to vote for John McCain.” I am not a PUMA, but I know a lot of them IRL, and not a single one is voting for McCain. Their point, as I understand it, is that though women are the mainstay of the Democratic Party, men continue to run the party, their governance is infused with misogyny, and improving this situation requires blunt force, which includes actively working against Obama’s election. Dismissing these women as few in number, stupid, and/or allied with Republicans is very foolish, in my opinion. SEE ALSO.

2. She describes Joe Biden as follows:

Biden is a strong candidate for Democratic women, with a good record of supporting reproductive rights and opposing antichoice nominees to the Supreme Court. Biden also wrote the groundbreaking Violence Against Women Act, and is great on the lunch-bucket economic issues so vital to so many American women.

It is true that Biden has been a whole lot better on reproductive rights issues than McCain has been, or than Palin would be if she was in position to vote on them. But it is also the case that Biden has always opposed public financing of abortion and late term abortion and in 2003, NARAL gave him a 36% voting record. He got a 75% rating in 2007, and has gotten a 100% rating some years, but it has dipped below 50% others. I would categorize this record as mediocre at best, rather than “good.” That he may be the best we can expect from the Democratic Party as currently configured may be part of what is driving the PUMA rebellion.

And Biden is far from “great” on “the lunch-bucket economic issues so vital to so many American women.” As my brilliant law school contracts professor Elizabeth Warren pointed out here, bankruptcy is a disaster for working class people, especially women. See also, see also. You can listen to Biden mocking Warren for this here. Warren explicates the link between health care and bankruptcy here.

3. Traister asserts “Palin’s spot on the ticket will also mean the diffusion of feminist energy.” No, it won’t. Feminists are perfectly capable of opposing the election of Palin, and opposing the sexism thrown at Palin, simultaneously. That’s certainly what I am going to be doing with my feminist energy. If the Supposedly Liberal Doods don’t like this bifurcated approach, all they have to do is stop with the sexism. It’s really pretty simple.

–Ann Bartow

ETA: I think Historiann nails it when she says:

Democrats have gotten really good at not taking their opponents seriously and acting superior to them.   Any fool could see how completely superior Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry were to their opponents!   But guess what we’re not so good at?   Winning presidential elections. Go ahead and have a laugh–you can cry in November when you realize that the voters never thought you were laughing about Sarah Palin–they think you’re laughing at them!