Lynette Long

WHY SOME WOMEN HATE SARAH PALIN

By BELINDA LUSCOMBE Fri Oct 3, 5:55 AM ET

Some polls are suggesting that after gaining an initial bump, McCain's campaign is being hobbled by Sarah Palin's vice-presidential candidacy. The voters who are deserting her fastest, some of whom are even calling on her to withdraw, are mostly women.

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Ah, women, the consistently, tragically underestimated constituency. What the Democrats learned during the primaries and the Republicans might now be finding out the hard way, I learned at my very academic, well-regarded all-girls high school: that is never to discount the ability of women to open a robust, committed, well-thought-out vat of hatred for another girl.

Women are weapons-grade haters. Hillary Clinton knows it. Palin knows it too. When women get their hate on, they don't just dislike, or find disfavor with, or sort of not really appreciate. They loathe - deeply, richly, sustainingly. I do not say this to disparage my gender; women also love in more or less the same way.

When men disagree, the steps to resolution are reasonably clear and unsophisticated. Acts of physical violence are visited upon one another's person or property, and the whole thing blows over. Women? Nu-unh. We savor the discord. We draw it out. We share our contempt with our friends, like a useful stock tip, or really good salsa. And then we all go hate together: a mutually encouraging group activity for when the book group gets quiet.

The hatred women have for Sarah Palin, and others had for Hillary before her, is not necessarily about politics. Anybody can run the numbers on how many people Palin's pro-life, pro-gun, socially conservative policies will seduce and how many they will alienate. Rather, the test that the McCain campaign failed to put her through was the Abbotsleigh Ladies College test. (Named after my high school. Go, green and gold!). It's a simple three-point pass-fail exam: Will the other girls like her?

Here's why Palin doesn't make the grade:

1. She's too pretty. This is very bad news. At school, pretty girls tend to be liked only by other pretty girls. The rest of us, whose looks hover somewhere around underwhelming, resent them and whisper archly of their "unearned attention." So, if everyone calls your candidate "hot," you're in a whole mess of trouble. If the Pakistani head-of-state more or less hits on her, well, yes, she'll get a sympathy vote, but we're in Dukakis-in-the-tank territory. It's an admiration vaporizer. (Of course a candidate can't be too ugly, or it will scare the men, who are clearly shallow as a gender.)

2. She's too confident. This also bodes ill. Women have self-esteem issues. But they also have other-women's-esteem issues. As almost any woman - from the head of the Budgerigar Breeders association to Queen Elizabeth - can attest, it's almost impossible to get confidence right. Too timid and you're a pushover. Too self-aggrandizing and you're a bad word unless it's about a dog, or Project Runway's Kenley. Or Michelle, my best friend until 9th grade, after she won that debating prize and got cocky.

3. She could embarrass us. History is not on Palin's side. Every time a woman gets a plum job, be she Hewlett-Packard's ex-boss, Carly Fiorina, or CBS's Katie Couric, there's always that whispery fear that people will think she got the job just because she's a woman. So if things don't go well - and a couple of YouTube clips have suggested that they're certainly not going well for Palin - women are the first to turn on her for making it harder for the rest of us to louse up at work.

The fact of the matter is once a female decides it's over with another female, it's like an end-stage marriage. No matter how seemingly benign, every attribute becomes an affront: the hair, the voice, the husband, the moose-shooting, the glasses, the big family, the making rape victims pay for their own rape test kits.

I know, I know. With all this extra baggage a female candidate has to bear, the chances of finding a woman whom other women won't hate seem skinnier than last year's jeans. But don't despair, if all else fails, we could just do what we always do and just vote in some guy. It's worked so well for us in the past.

SWEET SIXTEEN

Sweet sixteen and never been kissed.

Sixteen candles.

Eight plus eight.

Four times four.

Two times two times two times two.

Women are sixteen.

Only 16% of the members of the Senate are women.

Only 16% of the members of the House of Representatives are women.

Only 16% of the Governors are women.

Only 16% of equity law partners are women.

Only 16% of the science professors at MIT are women.

Isn't it time for real change.

I'm ready to be an adult.  No more teenage years for me.

It's time for more women to be in government. 

It's time for parity.

SARAH PALIN IS GOOD FOR WOMEN

WHY IS SARAH PALIN GOOD FOR WOMEN?

1.       Sarah Palin is keeping the issue of sexism in the United States of America front and center.  Hillary Clinton’s historic campaign for the Democratic Nomination was tainted by misogyny, sexism, and abuse by the Democratic Party, the media, and Obama supporters who were known to sport t-shirts declaring, “Iron my shirt, but don’t run my country.” Critics contended that Hillary was subjected to all this abuse, because she’s a polarizing character.  Sarah Palin, who is anything but polarizing, is treated with the same disrespect and abuse as was Hillary Clinton.  Now everyone knows it wasn’t about Hillary, but rather about women.

2.       Sarah Palin is forcing feminists to expand the definition of feminism.  Feminism is no longer about Roe v. Wade but is being expanded to include a broader sweep of women’s issues.

3.       Feminism is no longer the sole jurisdiction of the Democratic Party. By expanding feminism to include Republican women, Democratic women, pro-choice women and pro-life women, Sarah Palin will increase the power of women in this country and world.

4.       Sarah Palin is setting a model for women that women can lead.  From the three-year-old toddler to the eighteen year old teenager, she sends a message loudly and clearly, YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. You can be a beauty queen and a governor, you can fish and hunt and still be feminine.  You can me a mother, a wife, and a leader.  She has redefined feminism and expanded the vistas of young women everywhere.

5. Sarah Palin is making it easier for the next woman to run for the Presidency.

BOTH OBAMA AND BIDEN PAY WOMEN LESS THAN MEN

IN THE NATIONAL REVIEW All told, for every dollar that Obama paid his average male staffer, his female counterpart made just 83 cents. As for Biden, his 14 male staffers split a total payroll outlay of $1,077,128.40. So, Biden's average male employee earned $76,937.74 per annum. Biden's 27 female employees divided $1,517,874.47, or $56,217.57, on average. Among Biden's top five highest-paid aides, one was a woman. Among the top 20, 11 were women. All told, for every dollar that Biden paid his average male staffer, his female equivalent made only 73 cents. This number is significant. Not only does Biden discount women by more than a quarter per dollar paid to men, on average. Biden collides into the standard by which his own campaign berates major companies for alleged pay discrimination. Beneath the website banner "Fighting for Pay Equity," Obama-Biden's women's issues page complains that, "Despite decades of progress, women still make only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. A recent study estimates it will take another 47 years for women to close the wage gap with men at Fortune 500 corporate offices." Biden actually pays his average female employees four cents less than the level that triggers outrage on his own campaign's website! Nevertheless, Obama and Biden have the gall to go after McCain on this topic. The Democrats Monday launched an ad in Ohio in which Lilly Ledbetter, a Supreme Court litigant on pay equity, attacks McCain because he "opposed a law to give women equal pay for equal work. And he dismissed the wage gap, saying women just need education and training."

PRINCIPLE OVER POLICY

by Lynette Long

People wonder how I could vote Republican when I am a lifelong Democrat and I don’t agree with the Republicans on many key issues.   This election I’m voting on Principle over Policy and Patriotism over Promises. Politicians pander to the electorate to win votes.  Obama is no different.  I don’t care what he says he is going to do for America, as my grandmother used to say, “Talk is Cheap.”  What I care more about is “Who is Barack Obama?” and “What has the Democratic Party become?”  So in a clear effort to explain my position, here are 14 reasons I will not vote for Obama, my party’s nominee.

The Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee has never been a woman. How can I support a party that is primarily composed on women but run by men?

Obama sat for 20 years inside Trinity United Church of Christ which exposes Black Liberation Theology and listened to Rev. Wright his mentor trash America and white Americans.  How can I support a candidate that goes to a church that preaches hatred in any form?

Obama casts himself as a candidate of change but he is an old Chicago-style politician.  He won his first State Senate race by eliminating all other candidates on technicalities and his U.S. Senate race by opening the sealed divorce file of his opponent and forcing his opponent to withdraw.  How can I vote for a candidate who is not who is says he is?

The Democratic Party was silent to the rampant sexism that occurred during the primary process.   How can I support a party that did not acknowledge the rampant sexism in the campaign and consequently ignored me as a woman?

Obama did not stand up for Senator Clinton when Rev. Wright and Father Pflaeger trashed her from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ.  When Ludacris called Hillary an irrelevant bitch, Obama was mute.  How can I support a nominee, without the courage to stand up against blatant racism and sexism?

Nancy Pelosi, in conjunction with other Democratic leaders, paid off superdelegates to get them to vote for Obama.  How can I support a party that pre-selected its nominee?

Obama only lost one out of fourteen caucuses.  Obama lost twenty-one out of thirty-eight primaries.  This discrepancy is due to voter fraud, voter intimidation, busing, and voter suppression in the caucuses.  How can I support an illegal nominee, a nominee who will use any means necessary to win?

Democratic insiders knew about the caucus fraud and voter fraud during the primary process.  How can I support a party that turned a blind eye to the blatant irregularities during the primary process?

Obama is inexperienced.  He has served less than one term in the United States Senate of which he has spent most the time campaigning. How can I support a candidate that does not have the experience to lead this country?

Obama has numerous questionable associations.   There is an old expression, “By his friends, shall ye know him.”  How can I vote for someone I don’t trust?

Obama ignored the will of 18 million voters did not choose Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate.   How can I support a nominee who brushed aside the will of 18 million voters?

The Democratic Party which is composed of 60% women has not put a woman on the Democratic Ticket for 24 years.   How can I support a party that takes the votes of the women of the party for granted? 

Barack Obama had a sham of a roll call at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and strong armed delegates to cast their votes for him.  Clinton Delegates, were shouted down, threatened with their jobs, and replaced.  How can I support a nominee who does not support democracy?

How can I vote for a candidate I don’t trust, whose character is questionable, who I believe obtained the nomination illegally, who ignored the blatant sexism leveled a Senator Clinton and Governor Palin, and is too inexperienced to do the job?   I can’t.

VOTE DEMOCRATIC IN 2008?  NEVER!  RETURN TO THE PARTY IN 2012?  NOT SURE!

LYNETTE IN THE WASHINGTON POST

The Washington Post did a profile of me in today's Metro section:

A Real McCain Supporter? Or Just a Clintonite on the Rebound?

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Lynette Long's friends can barely sputter their objections. "How could you?" they say. "What about the environment? What about gay rights? What about Roe v. Wade?"

Long's son calls, flabbergasted. And her patients in affluent, liberal Bethesda? They can hardly fathom it.

Lynette Long -- psychologist, feminist, Democrat, Dupont Circle dweller, Whole Foods shopper, George Bush hater, Hillary Clinton supporter (to the max) -- is not just voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin, she even took the stage at their rally in Fairfax to trumpet her decision to the world.

Long got the call from the McCain campaign at 10 the night before the rally this month. With a twinkle in her eye, the struggle for women in her heart and a bit of mischief in her mind, she agreed to be a warm-up speaker for the Republican ticket.

She had never been to a candidate's rally before. She had voted for the Democrat for president in every election except for the elder George Bush's first time, against Michael Dukakis in 1988. Sure, she had demonstrated against the Vietnam War, but she basically wasn't the political type. That is, until Hillary Clinton came along.

All of a sudden, Long saw hope. As she told her son: "How would you feel if every day all the people you saw in authority were men, all the statues in Washington are all men, the money in your pocket, all pictures of men -- and then finally, a woman comes along and she could be president? How would you feel? I would vote for her."

Long didn't just vote for Clinton in the D.C. primary. She blogged for her, campaigned for her, even wrote op-ed columns about her. But as Clinton's campaign faltered, Long felt wronged. She blogged about purported irregularities in caucus voting, accused Barack Obama and his supporters of taking women for granted, put all her hope in the Democrats picking a woman for vice president.

After Clinton's campaign ended, Long was among a group of local supporters who called McCain headquarters, asking, "What can you do for us?" To Long's shock, they were invited to a meeting -- with McCain himself.

"We told him we wanted gender parity, on the Supreme Court and in the Cabinet, and he listened," she says. "His eyes opened." At meeting's end, a senior staffer asked Long if she would endorse their man publicly.

"No way," Long said. "I'm a Hillary supporter."

Then, lo and behold, Sarah Palin happened.

By coincidence, Long was on an Alaskan cruise that week. "Everybody there loved" Palin, Long says. "I could see people glowing with pride."

The next time the McCain campaign called, Long was ready. She had 10 hours to write a speech, sleep and get herself to Fairfax City.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked the organizer. "Do you want to see my speech?"

Whatever you want to say, she was told. And no, we don't need to see it.

"I was shocked," Long says. "I wouldn't let someone go up and speak without seeing the speech. But they did, and that told me something about the man."

Long agrees that Palin is not exactly, um, worldly, and that she lacks a certain base of knowledge. ("But I know character and instincts, and she is real.") And yes, Long vehemently disagrees with the Republicans' social conservatism.

But other factors trump those issues, she says, naming Obama's inexperience, Clinton's treatment by her party and the media, and the Democrats' failure to choose a female running mate.

The issue that has most of Long's friends recoiling in abject horror from her decision is abortion. Long calls herself unwaveringly "pro-choice." But, she says, "as long as we let that determine our votes, we are hostages to the Democrats. If someone really tried to turn around choice, there'd be a revolution in this country. And I'm not going to let a future possibility nullify my vote. Women have sacrificed our power as the largest voting bloc in the nation because of one issue, abortion."

Now hold on: Long disagrees with McCain on many issues and concedes Palin's limitations. Then, when her e-mail lights up with unfounded rumors that Obama might dump Joe Biden and switch to Hillary Clinton, she nearly explodes with excitement. Is she really pro-McCain, or is she just being provocative?

Long is the kind of person who is drawn to a fire, she grants that. She says she wore her Palin button to the Whole Foods on 14th Street NW just to see if she'd get a rise out of the assembled crunchies. No one would even look her in the eye, she reports.

She seems downright gleeful as she describes her fellow liberals' faces draining of blood when she sings Palin's praises. But when I suggest that the McCain camp is using her even as she uses it to teach fellow Democrats a lesson about taking women for granted, she says: "No, that's too crass. You have to break down a house to rebuild it, but Palin is likable, popular and has integrity. She's a person who will listen. Is she smart enough to do the job? Hey, Reagan was no brain surgeon, but people would follow him. It's about leadership. Sarah has made mistakes, but out of naivete, not out of corruption."

Every couple of minutes, Long -- looking like the unPalin in black T-shirt, cargo pants and canvas sneakers -- reflexively checks her e-mail, revealing a new list of fire-spewing rants accusing her of betrayal, sexism and worse. She loves it.

I posit that her newfound activism is really more about sticking it to Democratic men than about any real belief that McCain might promote the interests of women or that Palin would be a good president should she ascend to that role. Long protests that she really would be happy with a President Palin, a woman who understands the majority of Americans as no man could.

And then she says this: "I just don't understand how the Democrats couldn't see that women wanted a woman. I'm not getting back in bed with someone who's just abused me. Yeah, it's payback time."

UN STUDY FINDS MORE WOMEN IN POLITICS - NY TIMES

From the New York Times:

Women have entered politics in greater numbers than ever in the past decade, accounting for 18.4 percent of parliament members worldwide, according to a study released Thursday by the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

The proportion of women has increased by seven percentage points since 1995. Much of the increase was driven by women realizing that they needed to attain power rather than just lobby for change, said women who spoke at a ceremony for the study’s release.

“We need to convince women that the only way to really make a change is to stop complaining and just be the owner of power,” said Senator Cecilia López Montaño, the speaker of the opposition Liberal Party in Colombia. “It is a huge fight because men have been controlling power for centuries.”

Here is a link to the entire study.

http://www.unifem.org/progress/2008/media/POWW08_Report_Full_Text.pdf

LETTER TO DR. LONG FROM ANOTHER PSYCHOLOGIST

From my inbox: 

Dear  Dr. Long,

Your website is an oasis of comfort for me.  Like you, I am a psychologist, a feminist (I taught the first Psychology of Women course at Beloit College in Wisconsin), and a disillusioned Democrat.  Most of all, I am so disheartened.  I joke with friends that I am an "ACLU Democrat" meaning that I believe that if rights are worth protecting for anyone, they're worth protecting for everyone.  If freedom of religion is protected for Christians, it's protected for Muslims.  If waterboarding is torture when it happens to Americans, it's torture when it happens to "terrorists."  My friends generally appreciate my kind of integrity.  However, in this election, most of my friends are voting for Obama, and they don't like to  hear my philosophy right now.  But if sexism is sexism when it's directed at a Democratic woman, then it's sexism when it's directed at a Republican woman.  I feel disheartened that the same Gloria Steinem who wrote in January 2008 that if Barack Obama were Achola Obama "her goose would have been cooked long ago" ("Women Are Never Front Runners") is the same Gloria Steinem who couldn't wait to take down Sarah Palin.  I feel disheartened that NOW, whose parades I marched in when I was a student at UC Berkeley in the mid-1970's for the ERA, is endorsing AGAINST a  woman vice-presidential candidate.  I feel disheartened that liberal women all over America can hardly wait to proclaim how "insulted as women" they are because John McCain picked a conservative woman instead of a conservative MAN to be his running mate?  I feel disheartened that the liberals who  understand and hope that blacks will be energized to vote for the history-making black ticket say they are appalled that women would take gender into account in casting their own vote, dismissively saying "women aren't that stupid."  No one would dare say that aloud about blacks voting for Obama!  Hell, when Jesse Jackson (whom I voted for) was caught whispering in an aside a criticism of Obama, black civil rights leaders who said anything quickly dismissed Jesse as outdated and irrelevent.  Yet everyone  from Erica Jong to Barbara Streisand feels it's okay to imply that women who would vote for a woman  "just because" she is a woman are stupid.  And women who say that about other women are somehow more, not less, enlightened and liberated?  Lynette, I feel so disheartened that women are turning against women this way! 

I feel especially disheartened that Hillary Clinton, whom I donated to and campaigned for, feels she has to cancel an appearance at a bipartisan event because Sarah Palin will be there.  This is "change we can believe in"?

I feel disheartened that even the fairly nonpartisan factcheck.org lets Obama call Sarah Palin's Bridge to Nowhere account a "lie" (it's spin, but it's NOT a lie) and doesn't mention that Obama and Biden voted FOR that Bridge, a relevant fact when they're accusing HER of hypocrisy.  I feel disheartened that the media let Charles Gibson get away with grilling Sarah Palin like she was doing her oral doctoral examination after doing folksy, friendly interviews with Obama and previous male vice presidents with no more "foreign policy" experience, and that there's not more outrage.  I feel disheartened that Obama gets to look "above the fray" because the media so eagerly does his job for him and then leaps on John McCain and Sarah Palin for the smallest inconsistency of fact or perceived nastiness.  I feel disheartened that even the conservative David Brooks's sexist bias must be stronger than his partisan bias in saying that Sarah Palin's inexperience is "dangerous" when Obama's is comparable.  I feel disheartened that people don't seem to see that the candidate who justified his inexperience with the promise that he had the personal qualities to lift our national politics above nasty divisiveness has evoked the most divisive political atmosphere I can remember.

I get scared, Lynette.  I am so grateful to you for advising John McCain to choose a woman  vice-president, and I am so grateful to McCain for listening.  But if our political system watches one party, the Democrats, take down their own best qualified candidate, Hillary Clinton, because she was a woman, and then watch John McCain's female vice-president get eaten alive by women themselves, why should they bother to back women in the future?  I try to tell myself, well, at least the politicians are not ignoring women now.  But I'm scared the overall lesson will be to not nominate another woman for higher office for another 24 years. 

I'm disheartened, but I'm also angry, so please know I'm not sitting by and doing nothing.  I've been emailing my protests.  I've been donating money to McCain's campaign.  I've never voted for any Republican, but I'd already decided to vote for McCain after feeling my own Party had raped the women of the party and then was expecting us to get back in bed with them.  I've always liked McCain, for the same reasons that most conservative Republicans didn't.  It doesn't matter that he may have only disagreed on 10% of his party's positions.  That's a silly statistic.  It's WHAT he disagreed with them on.  Tax cuts.  Campaign finance reform.  Rumsfeld.  Torture.  It's an important 10%, not fluff.

But when he chose Sarah Palin, my resignation about voting for him turned to joy.  I don't care that I don't agree with every position she holds.  I care that she's smart, articulate, and obviously capable.  I care that she's an energy expert, a working mom who doesn't hide her special needs baby or her pregnant teenager in shame, a woman who walks her talk.  I care that she's an outsider and that Alaska may be a more wholesome place to develop political values than Chicago.  I care that she has the charisma of her opponent yet seems more genuine. He, the purveyor of new politics, calls her a liar and hypocrite despite the countless changes, in the negative direction, he's made on his own positions?  FISA anyone? 

I care that a woman will have broken through that glass ceiling. 

If you still have John McCain's ear, please tell him he hasn't made a mistake.  Tell him to hit hard, but hit fair, so that factcheck.org will have to concede every single time that he's telling the truth.  Tell him that everytime Obama makes a big deal out of some stupid little thing, like how many feet inside Iraq that Palin did or didn't go, he should just laugh and remind people that "If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things."  Barack Obama, Aug. 28, 2008, projecting yet again.  Obama doesn't deserve any public display of anger, in my opinion, because it gives him too much power and feeds the McCain temper myth.  Obama merits matter-of-fact dismissiveness and good-natured ridicule, the way Sarah did it during her Convention speech, which diminishes him, makes him look like the empty suit he is.

Thank God for you, Lynette.  When Kim Gandy gets to the pearly gates, she will have plenty of explaining to do to Her...

Karen Hershey

NEW AGENDA TARGETS CHRIS MATTHEWS FROM LA TIMES

From the LA Times:

Forget the battle for the White House -- here's a campaign that's really heating up: the bid by a new women's group to hold Chris Matthews accountable for what it asserts is "misogynistic journalism" practiced by the voluble MSNBC political pundit. The New Agenda, a nonpartisan organization promoting women's rights, today sent a letter to NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker asking for a meeting to discuss Matthews' attitude toward women. 

Amy Siskind, one of the group's founders, said in an interview it wants Matthews (at right, with Ron Reagan behind him) to issue a public apology and change his on-air behavior. Absent that, he needs to be fired, she said. The New Agenda also sent its letter to various Democratic officials in Pennsylvania -- Matthews' native state, where there has been chatter he might seek the party's nomination for the Senate in 2010. The group's letter applauded the recent decision by MSNBC to remove Matthews and Keith Olbermann from prominent roles anchoring political events, but said more action is needed.

Check out The New Agenda's website.

RUBY SLIPPERS

by Lynette Long

I wish I had a pair of Ruby slippers, so I could go home, home to a place that doesn’t exist, home to a country that is no more, and probably never was.   

I want to go home to a country, where I can walk down any street, any time of day or night, and not fear for my life.  Is that too much to ask?

I want to go home to a country where crimes against women are not tolerated and women are not raped, harassed, bullied, or beaten.  Is that too much to ask? 

I want to go home to a country that respects women and embodies the nurturing spirit that women engender. Is that too much to ask?

I want to go home to a country where all men and all women are created equal and where there is gender parity in not only in every single house, but also the White House.  Is that too much to ask?

I want to go home to a country where every child is treasured regardless of sex and every child given equal opportunity?  Is that too much to ask?

This is America isn’t it? I thought we could accomplish anything.  So where do I buy those Ruby Slippers?