Palin doesn't represent transplanted Iowan
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By Sarah Hahn Brooks | Monday, September 29, 2008 |
Dear Iowans,
I’m an Iowa girl at heart (raised on a Scott County hog farm just outside Davenport, educated at Luther College in Decorah), but I’ve chosen to make my home, raise my family and teach middle school English and history in Alaska. And Sarah Palin, John McCain’s pick for vice president, is my state’s governor.
I need you to listen — as Iowans, as people who value real, honest, personal perspectives — to what I have to say about her.
I need you to listen, Iowans, to the kind of leader Sarah Palin claims to be — but is not — for me as an Alaskan, as a mother, as an educator, and as a woman.
Sarah Palin claims she stands for me as an Alaskan, but 50.1 percent of us (split between a Democratic and an independent candidate) voted against her in 2006. I voted against her not because of her political affiliation, but because of her lack of experience to govern a state almost three times the size of Texas, when she had only previously worked as the mayor of a town called Wasilla — population 6,000.
I voted against Palin because of her outspoken commitment to sacrifice as much of Alaska’s precious wilderness to development as possible. I voted against Palin because she allows her religious beliefs to shape her policy-making. I wanted a governor willing to listen to all sides — someone who could make the best decisions based on each situation. I want the same from my president.
Sarah Palin claims she stands for me as a mother — particularly as a mother who juggles family-nurturing with professional ambition. But please, Iowa mothers, do not fall for the publicity photos of Palin nursing her baby while she meets with McCain. Palin is not one of us. She has a nanny for her children, housekeepers for her mansion, a chef for her kitchen.
In my city — Juneau, the state’s capital, where Palin’s mansion and office are — daycare is so expensive that it is becoming impossible for families with young children to continue to live here. I pay $900/month for my 2-year-old to attend full-time day care. Palin has not helped alleviate these basic issues for mothers in Alaska. She won’t represent mothers across the U.S.
Sarah Palin claims she stands for me as a person who values our children’s education. In her state of the state address last January, she said Alaska needs “kids prepared to take life’s tests.” However, as governor, she inappropriately infuses her discussion of education issues with her religious beliefs, advocating for the teaching of creationism and for funding faith-based curriculum even when public schools are in dire need. As a teacher, I have been disappointed and horrified that — in a time when Alaska’s schools are struggling to meet adequate yearly progress, when our students’ reading and math skills are falling, when our dropout rates are growing — Sarah Palin has ignored those serious core issues in favor of her personal religious opinions.
Finally, Sarah Palin claims she stands for me as a woman. Here, the only similarity is the number of X chromosomes Palin and I possess in our bodies, and our first names. Palin stands only for women who make strictly dictated choices about their bodies, even in cases of rape or incest. She stands only for women who agree that abstinence education is the only allowable conversation in schools.
When I voted for governor in 2006, I voted for a candidate who happened to be a man. I never thought, “I should vote for Palin because we’re both women.” The candidate for whom I voted advocated for women — all women — and had a history of doing so. That is the kind of person who stands for me as a woman.
Sarah Palin is a perilous addition to the McCain ticket. She does not stand for me.
In November, vote not for X chromosomes, but for honest advocacy — for all of us.
Sarah Hahn Brooks was raised on a farm near Walcott, Iowa. She attended Walcott Elementary and Junior High, and graduated from Davenport West High School in 1995.
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