you do not own womanhood, Ms. Steinem

In her LA Times op-ed, Gloria Steinem tells us what real women are and what real women want.

In the process, she excommunicated almost every woman in my family from the sisterhood.

She could have taken a persuasive tone, and presented fact. Instead, she talks down to us, as the self-proclaimed Keeper of Real Womanhood, adopting a tone that is, at best, condescending.

Although Steinem grudgingly admits that Palin does have the requisite chromosomes, she has the wrong views on issues. Therefore she is to be begrudged the historic nature of her candidacy, which can only be done if she is knocked from her status as real woman, instead to be viewed as an enemy of women, a dirty trick - not a legitimate woman candidate, to be treated with the respect due the first Republican and 2nd ever female nominee for VP*.

Apparently, being a real woman means you have to be a party-line Democrat, even though Democrats don't even have to do that to be the nominee.

Well, I'm not anti-gun, although I understand that people who live in cities have reason to want to ban them. Us small town xenophobic hicks, we like our guns. And when did being a woman mean you have to oppose hunting?

And (as Sojourner Truth once said) ain't I a woman?

My mother in law believes in creationism. She's wrong, of course, but I still resent Steinem trying to make her out to somehow not qualify as a real woman. She is a real woman and she deserves respect. You will treat my mother in law with respect if you want me to listen to you. You who claim to speak on behalf of women have no right to refuse to include this woman, or any woman for that matter. I don't care about majorities and pluralities**.

(I am far less afraid of the creationism debate*** than most liberals seem to be, anyway.)

You don't have to believe in all of Steinem's pet causes to qualify as a woman. She does not have the right - let alone the power - to excommunicate.

And a woman for VP is historic. It was when Hillary ran (even to those who did not agree with her policy positions), and it shows a real lack of class on Steinem's part to act like Palin is only barely a woman, sharing no more than a chromosome with real women.

You do not own womanhood, Ms. Steinem.

update: speaking of owning womanhood (or thinking you do, anyway), check out Wendy Doniger in Newsweek:

Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.

Is this the fall of feminism or what?
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* Because, sour grapes and all, we wanted the first woman in the White House to be a Democrat! So we'll go back on our own identity politics principles! Waaah!

**even assuming she's telling the truth when she claims to have a majority on her side, Steinem is doing the same thing to women that Rev. Wright does when he claims that blacks who don't agree with "the community" are really "white", or "enemy", or otherwise to be excommunicated from their identity of their own body.

If a black man is excommunicated from his skin color, we call him "white". What do we call women who are excommunicated from her body, what do we call that? Surely she's not a "man". Steinem's answer appears to be "Phyllis Schlafly", but that's not satisfactory to me, because:

1. just because you disagree with someone doesn't make it any less infantile to make their name into a dirty word
   
   
2. logically, it's not right to define a thing as itself. If Palin is a Phyllis what would you say Phyllis is?
   
   
3. the alliteration possibilities are fun but not at all PC, since Phyllis is a Phyllis is a statement that couldn't be complete without a phallus - and we know Steinem would never approve of that.

***since unlike a lot of liberals, I actually have faith that in the end truth will win out, so why fear the debate? Why belittle the opponent instead of treating opposing views with respect?