Who Cares if Sarah Palin is a Feminist? A Response to Inaccuracies in The Claremont Port Side

Andrew Bluebond, the current editor of The Claremont Port Side, makes his argument that Sarah Palin isn't a feminist based upon three claims. He is wrong on all of them. On the first two points, he is wrong on the facts. On the final one, he doesn't give anywhere near a fair treatment of the law or its effects on the work force.

I shall treat each in turn.

1. Sarah Palin was instrumental in a policy that charged alleged rape victims for their rape kits.

Mr. Bluebond is no doubt referring to a now throughly discredited New York Times editorial by Dorothy Samuels. I'll quote from the Slate piece that demolishes this myth pointing out that Wasilla was never mentioned during the six committee meetings on the law before the Alaska state legislature.

I quote again from The Slate piece with the appropriate emphasis added.

Samuels also quotes from an article in the local Wasilla paper that police chief Charlie Fallon didn't want to pass the burden along to taxpayers. That is an undeniably boneheaded and offensive statement. What she leaves out is his statement that he was TRYING to bill INSURANCE COMPANIES, not victims. "In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible," is what he said. The story is old and incomplete. It doesn't say what Fallon would do if the insurance company rejected the claim. But the current mayor of Wasilla says there is no record of a victim being charged for a rape kit.

Through the Volokh Conspiracy, I found an even better piece from Newsbusters that demolishes the claims of the editorialist. (emphasis in Volokh's post)

In the end, it seems that this story is a wild exaggeration about Palin's role in this policy. There is no proof that she ever knew about the policy until long after the situation hit the news, it is untrue that her town was "unique" in blocking the measure, no evidence that she, herself, was notorious for the policy, and no proof that any victims were ever charged for rape kits. In fact, according to the Uniform Crime Report there were only 5 rapes reported in the 6 years she was mayor of Wasilla and four of those happened after the state law in question was passed.

So Mr. Bluebond, if a woman was never charged for rape kits in Wasilla, how then is Governor Palin an anti-feminist?

That is assuming that there is something morally wrong with charging a woman's insurance provider with the cost of the rape kit. Rape kits can cost $1,000 to process in most state labs. (It would no doubt be higher in Alaska as they have fewer labs and the costs of sending it to the lab are higher.) Given how rarely rape is committed in Alaska's small towns, it doesn't seem too wild to suggest that private charity, be it religious or other cover the costs. (Of course as Aditya noted to me in conversation, you could have the state pony up the money for the rape kit. If the woman lied or the man was acquitted, the woman could pay the cost of the rape kit. For people like Bluebond who seems so concerned with equality, this seems the most fair option for towns with few resources, but something tells me that he'll be slow in pushing for that kind of a compromise.)

What strikes me as so disingenuous about this argument is that progressives seem to be arguing on the one hand that her small town experience disqualifies her from the oath of office, while simultaneously referring to the rape statistics in her state as if they were the numbers from a big city or state.

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2. Sarah Palin tried to ban books from the Wasilla library.

This one is almost too easy. Let's go to the source herself, shall we? The Anchorage Daily News reported that no books were banned. I quote,

June Pinell-Stephens, chairwoman of the Alaska Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee since 1984, checked her files Wednesday and came up empty-handed.

Pinell-Stephens also had no record of any phone conversations with Emmons about the issue back then. Emmons was president of the Alaska Library Association at the time.

So instead, you have a disgruntled woman who was fired by then Mayor Palin after Emmons refused to sign a letter saying she supported Palin. (Emmons had backed the incumbent over Palin.) That city officials serve at the pleasure of the major isn't such an odd concept. It's actually quite common in small towns.

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3. Sarah Palin opposes equal pay for equal work by opposing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Anyone who has studied basic economics knows that when there is an increased likelihood that you'll lose a lawsuit for firing a woman, i.e. a cost, you'd be less likely to hire one in the first place.

I'll quote from Ted Frank of The American Enterprise Institute who does a fabulous job of explaining the problems with the Ledbetter case and the Lilly Ledbetter Far Pay Act.

Employers are not stupid. To the extent every employee is a potential lawsuit, that is a cost of hiring an employee. As those costs go up, employers will hire fewer employees, and charge "insurance" to the employees they do hire by reducing their wages to account for the possibility of a future lawsuit. If the misnamed "Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act" passes, the vast majority of workers will be worse off, as money that would have gone to pay employees will instead go to pay attorneys. There should be a better reason to pass such harmful legislation than the fact that Ms. Ledbetter's attorney sued under the wrong statute. If Congress really wishes to help workers, they should reject this legislation, and aim a closer eye at the liability system that hurts our economy.

Reasonable people can disagree on Governor Palin and her record, but it's really unfortunate that Mr. Bluebond didn't do his homework before he authored his piece. Given the history of his publication, vis a vis libel and the truth, he might want to consider instituting a fact checking policy, like those we have on The Claremont Independent or issuing a partial retraction.

While his authoring the retraction, he might do well to explain his views on Senator Obama, who is, after all, running for president, not vice president. (Presidents actually do this pesky thing of signing laws into being rather than simply presiding at the Senate or voting in the highly unlikely event of a tie.)

The real question is how any woman can vote for Obama, given his sexist income tax plan that penalizes upper class women for working. I guess treating rich women as if they were unequal is okay, after all. I wonder, though, is that feminist?