Letters to the Editor: Women sound off on unfair double standard for Palin

In response to Alex Sanders' "Palin too busy to be VP and mom/grandma" (09/04/08)

By:

Posted: 9/5/08

I am writing because I was deeply offended by Alex Sanders' backwards view on working women [displayed in her article, "Palin too busy to be VP and mom/grandma (9/04/08)"].

My own personal feelings on Sarah Palin aside, Sanders' argument basically stated that a woman must choose between her work and her family and that career women are making a selfish choice at the expense of their children's wellbeing. Sanders states, "Five children and a grandchild are a handful for any stay-at-home mother. The only way Palin can seemingly make this work is to hire a staff to care for her children. If she does that, she will rarely be present in the lives of her children."

Doesn't Sarah Palin have a husband, Todd Palin, who shares in the parental responsibilities and can certainly help with the duties of childcare while she is at work? Who was taking care of her children when she was serving as Mayor of Wasilla and Governor of Alaska?

No one questions whether becoming President would affect Barack Obama's ability to parent his two young daughters, so why should Sarah Palin be held to a double standard? Furthermore, as the first woman to run on a GOP ticket, Palin is making a great statement for women and girls everywhere. As Hillary Clinton did in the primaries, Palin is demonstrating that women are capable of potentially being elected to our country's highest offices and that one should not put a cap on their ambitions simply because of their gender.

While I agree with Sanders that raising a family is no easy task, it is ridiculous to say that Palin is "too busy" to be vice-president because of her demands as a mother. Perhaps Sanders should take her own advice about the circus-like state of this election and evaluate the candidates not on their personal lives but on their political merit.

- Lia Albini, 5th-semester communications and international relations double major, CLAS USG Senator

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I don't get it. We whine about equal rights, opportunities and treatment for both sexes, about the injustices of the 'glass ceiling' and how we as a nation must work to finally break through it, yet it seems as if simply complaining is as far as we will get. I say this after reading Alex Sanders' commentary in Thursday's publication ["Palin too busy to be VP and mom/grandma (9/04/08)"] about Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin's "unfit-ness to help run a country as an individual" because, in short, she was "unjustly" forced to choose between her job and her family - further arguing that by attempting both, each would suffer. Sanders said that Palin would be unfit to lead due to the fact that she has her "hands full" with five children and a grandchild. Sanders argument is absolutely unfair and insulting. In a healthy human family, the father is also of significant importance and is absolutely capable, among other things, of "everyday chores that a healthy baby brings."

Sanders' argument implies that the father is an insufficient caregiver for his children in times when he is needed. Sanders failed to mention Todd Palin as well as their daughter's fiancée at all within her commentary as if they do not bear any responsibility within the structure of their families or even as if they are out of the picture entirely, which is evidently not the case. It is disheartening to read something like this today, written by a fellow female classmate, as I feel it highlights a certain troubling hypocrisy in our society.

Frankly, it makes me ill to at one moment hear that women are coequal with men, thus deserving reciprocal respect - yet in another moment read that women are irresponsible, unfit, and doomed to "sloppy work" if they so choose to compete in the same arena as men while having a family.

Have we forgotten or ignored what makes a healthy, loving family work? It's important that both parents are involved in their children's lives, that a balance is reached and communication is open. Why do we insist on championing successful women in our rhetoric when it feels appropriate, yet proceed to tear them down in some perverse effort to send them back to their proper place in the home?

- Mary Anders, 7th-semester political science and philosophy double major