True gender equality when an INCOMPETENT WOMAN could go as far as an incompetent man. (vote, Congress)

[goldengrain]

This is not an anti-woman statement; it is a pro-national leadership statement.

Even the reportedly clear glasses she wears to play down her beauty-queen credential and enhance her gravitas can’t make up for experience.

Bella Abzug -- the shrewd, hard-hitting, passionate and idealistic legislative genius who led the women’s movement and represented New York in Congress -- once remarked that we would only have true gender equality when an incompetent woman could go as far as an incompetent man. That milestone appears to have been achieved with the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President.

Speaking of the free world -- and that red phone that can ring at three in the morning:
If the argument is that should she have to answer, she will have serious advisors to turn to, that seems to me a highly sexist assumption: she won’t bother her pretty little head about world crises and will do as she is told. It might be worse, though, if she didn’t defer to cooler heads. "The difference between a pit bull and a mom," she has said, "is lipstick." Does being pugnacious and defensive -- and an enthusiastic hunter by helicopter -- prepare one for the judgment calls and diplomatic subtleties required of the defender of the free world?

McCain knows enough about government to know that it takes more than adrenalin -- or testosterone for that matter -- to respond to threats of war. He obviously chose Palin primarily because she is a woman. Again, this is not an anti-Palin observation; it is an anti-sexist point. It is cynical to nominate someone just because she is a woman on the assumption that because she is a woman other women will vote for her. Even women who do not share any of her beliefs.

Is Palin a Step Backwards for Women in Power? | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet (http://www.alternet.org/blogs/reproductivejustice/97793/ - broken link)