Are we really still interested in her?

Sarah Palin delivered a speech to investors in Hong Kong, well, that makes sense seeing as she’s studied so much business, signal eye roll. She’s a half-term governor whose outspoken moral values do not even jive with what appears to be her personal moral life. I don’t mean to be ‘one of those people’ who goes and talks about her daughter becoming pregnant, because I am not here to judge that, however she had the opportunity to be a realist conservative, and to help bridge the divide between liberal and conservatives. However, she has continued to stand for abstinence only education and her home town charged women for rape kits until 2000. And this is in a state that has the highest rate of rape and the highest rate of women murdered by men. I have a hard time respecting her as a woman who has accomplished a lot when she seems to have such little respect for her fellow women. Reminds me a little of a speech I attended at Mount Holyoke College by the anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly. I went wondering what her perspective was, and I left unbelievably angry when she refused to answer my questions about violence against women. She alluded to the idea that lots of the women had it coming, or more precisely that we should just wait longer for conclusive evidence before protecting women who finally come in with a claim of abuse. I think there are few times in my life where I have been as angry. Yes, there are the sad minority that probably abuse the justice system, but the truth is the majority of domestic abuse cases are never even exposed. We need to be there for victims of abuse and not judge and blame them for their situation. It is not our place to change the past (ie, telling a woman she shouldn’t have gone after the bad boy), but rather help others gain personal agency to improve their future and their now. /rant