Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) -- As Sarah Palin gets set for this week's debate grilling on topics from foreign policy to the economy, some fellow working mothers are hoping she'll get grilled on something else, too: Her ability to stand up for them in Washington. Sure, Palin is a working mother herself, something that women voters across the political spectrum have noted with genuine excitement. But what, some women want to know, would Palin do for them as vice president? Would she stand for paid maternity leave? Expanded family leave and flexible work hours? Better health care? ''Where is she on...

Left-wing feminists have a hard time dealing with strong, successful conservative women in politics such as Margaret Thatcher. Sarah Palin seems to have truly unhinged more than a few, eliciting a stream of vicious, often misogynist invective. On Salon.com last week, Cintra Wilson branded her a "Christian Stepford Wife" and a "Republican blow-up doll." Wendy Doniger, religion professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, added on the Washington Post blog, "Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman." You'd think that, whether or not they agree with her politics, feminists would at least applaud Mrs....

Anyone else see it? They took jabs at both.

Fairfax, Virginia - The crowd burst into cheers of 'Sarah, Sarah, Sarah' as the Republican candidate for vice president waved alongside presidential nominee John McCain and their spouses. If Senator McCain meant to excite the conservative basis of his centre-right party by naming Sarah Palin as his running mate, his decision was vindicated by the reaction from the red, white and blue- clad crowd at a campaign stop in Fairfax, Virginia, one week after the obscure Alaska governor's landmark convention speech to introduce herself to Republicans and the nation. Palin has raised eyebrows since being pegged as McCain's number two,...

John McCain chose the supremely under-qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate partly because she is a woman. If you have a problem with that, you're a sexist. She talks incessantly about being a mother of five and uses her newborn, Trig, who has Down syndrome, as a campaign prop. If you wonder how she'll handle all those kids and the Veep job too, you're a super-sexist. "When do they ever ask a man that question?" charges that fiery feminist Rudy Giuliani. Indeed, Palin, who went back to work when Trig was three days old, gets nothing but praise from...

In the shadow of the blatant and truly stunning sexism launched against the Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, and as a pro-choice feminist, I wasn't the only one thrilled to hear Republican John McCain announce Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. For the GOP, she bridges for conservatives and independents what I term "the enthusiasm gap" for the ticket. For Democrats, she offers something even more compelling - a chance to vote for a someone who is her own woman, and who represents a party that, while we don't agree on all the issues, at least respects women enough...

She's unqualified. Anti woman. A "right-wing man in a skirt and fetching up-do." Feminists went apoplectic when Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was chosen as Senator John McCain's running mate. The same feminists who keep saying we must have more women in politics suddenly changed their minds. We need more women--just not that kind of woman. How did we manage to get here? Different waves of feminism have rolled in since the suffragettes fought for the right to vote. Today, few are sure what feminism is. If all it means is the right of women to self-determination and to equal opportunity...

YES, ON THE PART OF MCCAIN: Feminism isn't about one job for one woman. It's about making life fair for women everywhere. Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the antifeminist 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 U.S. election of 2008 is shaping up as a contest about a vice-president — possibly a first in America. In most American elections, few things matter less than the second-in-command. In this one, judging by the media attention, few things matter more. There are various reasons for this, but one is obvious. John McCain is 72. Never has a 2IC had better odds of becoming a commander-in-chief before she figured out the location of the washrooms in the White House than this Republican nominee. Her resumé might end up reading: Small town mayor; small state governor; leader of the...

Sarah Palin is a woman. Hillary Clinton is a woman. Women just love voting for other women. Women candidates are interchangeable. Therefore, women who would have voted for Clinton are obviously going to vote for Palin. If this syllogism strikes you as stupid, that's because it is. Not to mention cynical and not a little bit sexist. Yet it also appears to be one of the reasons behind John McCain's choice of a running mate. Oh, lots of alternative explanations for his decision are floating around: McCain chose Palin because her staunch anti-abortion stance bolsters his case among Christian conservatives;...

Last Tuesday, as the hordes of media that had begun to dissect every moment of her political career and personal life were distracted by speeches from Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman in nearby St. Paul, Sarah Palin sat quietly with her family for an hourlong dinner in the Skywater restaurant of the Minneapolis Hilton. It was a rare respite from the intense scrutiny she was subjected to over the first week of her new life in the national spotlight. Over the previous several days she had been portrayed as a naïf, a rube, and a bad mother. Journalists had peppered...

“I believe that someday we are going to have a woman president, possibly during my life, and I've often thought the best way to pave the way for this was to first nominate and elect a woman as vice-president. But I think Mondale made a serious mistake when he picked Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. In my view, he guessed wrong in deciding to take a congresswoman that almost nobody had ever heard of and try to put her in line for the presidency. We have had many successful woman governors around the country who have demonstrated the potential...

A bigwig democrat basically states that a woman can't be President, how sexist.

GOP: That sound you heard Wednesday night was the political glass ceiling being shattered by a working mom. We could be looking at the first female vice president of the United States — and first grandmother.It was fitting for Gov. Sarah Palin to introduce herself to the nation while her family — including new son Trig and her future son-in-law — watched from the stands. For Palin, "family values" is more than a political slogan; it's a way of life. For her critics, though, it's been fodder for tabloid character assassination and questions no man would be subjected to. She...

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...

Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger. By Gloria Steinem ...

Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger. 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...

Susan Reimer, columnist for the Baltimore Sun, is shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that people took exception to her tactless bashing of Governor Sarah Palin in her September 1 column, "A woman -- but why this woman?" In fact, Reimer is so upset that people where exercised enough to drop her a note, give her a call, or write an email about her baseless smearing of Palin that she says in her September 5 column that she feels "frightened." Do you want some cheese and crackers to go with that whine, Reimer? On Monday, I wrote a column criticizing the...