If you look like this, you might NOT be a feminist
After making anti-women policies a hallmark of her short political career, Sarah Palin really wants to be a feminist.
Sarah Palin is making the rounds of the campaign scene, and trying to invent a “conservative feminism” along the way. While many real feminists are outraged at her audacity, few are willing to take a stand against allowing someone like Palin into our ranks. After all, isn’t feminism “supposed” to be about tolerance of all perspectives and all types of women?
Such a stance will only serve to create a world of feminist relativism, where the word means nothing.
There are certain actions that are simply fundamentally anti-feminist, that is, they threaten the freedom, equality, dignity, or rights of a various group of people. Certainly being “tolerant” and promoting “diversity” among our ranks cannot be more important than promoting standards of true equality and progressive social change.
Just being a woman does not make you a feminist, particularly if your policies and positions are blatantly anti-woman. For those who see Sarah Palin calling herself a feminist and are confused about what feminism really means in 2010, I not only argue, but insist, that Sarah Palin is no feminist. And to prevent further confusion I have come up with four sure-fire ways to know if you or someone you love is NOT a feminist:
1) You want to take away a woman’s right to choose.
The reason here is simple, and fundamental to feminism: anti-abortion policies are at their core misogynistic. Sarah Palin’s views on abortion are so extreme that she has said she does not believe in giving women the right to choose, “With the exception of a doctor’s determination that the mother’s life would end if the pregnancy continued.”
Where is the room for someone in the feminist community with such extreme anti-abortion views that she opposes legal abortion even in cases of rape and incest?
Feminist activists such as myself who have spent years fighting to ensure that reproductive rights remain intact should naturally be offended to hear Sarah Palin, an alleged fellow feminist, mocking our efforts. Palin has recently stated that “liberal feminists” “were wrong to tell women with unwanted pregnancies that they are ‘not strong enough’ and ‘not capable.’” She has also accused “liberal feminists” of “selling women short.” “Its very hypocritical” she says of our efforts. (Oh no she didn’t…)
It is our very belief in the self-actualization of women that we fight for their right to make their own decisions about their body and life.
Sarah Palin seems to only celebrate and respect her own decisions, and quite openly at that.
2) You oppose gay marriage (even if you have gay friends).
While Sarah Palin is clear about the fact that she has gay friends (I, for one, am very impressed), she strongly opposes gay marriage. During the Vice Presidential debates Palin stated: “I will tell Americans straight up that I don’t support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman.”
The belief in gay rights is fundamental to feminism because the right to choose a spouse is an integral civil right. How can a person, female or male, achieve full independence and empowerment (meaning the self-actualization to make fully-informed decision about things that directly impact your life) if not given the right to choose a partner?
For centuries the powers that be have tried to control women’s sexuality. Gay rights are a fundamental feminist issue because at its core, it is a fight for sexual freedom, and equality for all.
3) You support the recent immigration reform in Arizona.
The recent reforms in Arizona have created outrage because the laws attempt to strip minorities of their dignity, something that real feminists cannot and must not tolerate. It is however, something that Sarah Palin celebrates.
The first women to call themselves feminists began organizing for the purpose of changing power structures in our society, the power structures that keep one group of people subservient to another. The Arizona reforms serve to not only reinforce oppressive power structures, but also spur their growth. At its core the reforms disrespect the dignity of individuals who are seen by elite white communities as “different.”
Besides being reforms that generally discriminate against minorities, the anti-immigration bills in Arizona have a very specific and very dangerous impact on minority women. Advocates fear, with good reason, that the new reforms will prevent victims of domestic violence from contacting authorities when needed. Instead of creating an environment that is less accepting of abusers and safer for women, these unjust immigration reforms are serving to create a society that is even more hostile to women.
Feminists must not support the emergence of the police state!
4) You don’t believe women should be fully ordained and fully recognized spiritual and religious leaders.
Although this criterion does not have to do with anything I have heard Sarah Palin say, it is a fundamental cornerstone of feminist ideology. Spirituality is an essential part of human life and the most intimate. Excluding women from full participation in spiritual and religious activity is oppressive to women because it instills in women from a young age that they are not capable or worthy of being fully spiritual beings. Being exposed to only male spiritual and religious leaders teaches girls and women that men are natural leaders and that the natural place as women is as followers.
Religious institutions that do not tolerate women at the highest realms of leadership merely reinforce the same types of power structures that we as feminists should be seeking to change.
While some women who belong to and supporting misogynistic religious institutions claim to be feminists, it is my contention that they cannot be. There is no other place that should embrace the full participation of women more than in spiritual and religious institutions and communities.
Well there you have it, four sure-fire ways to know for sure if you or someone you love is NOT a feminist. To answer the question of what a true feminist IS, I encourage you to continue to read the words of the feminists who write for this blog and are dedicating themselves to protect and promote the rights, dignity, and equality of all.
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Janice is a Virtual Assistant, aspiring doula, and long-time feminist activist with a passion for women's history, nonfiction, nature, and wearing flowers in her hair. She is the Founder of The Feminist's Guide, a women's history travel website, which can be found at www.thefeministguide.com. |
So well said! Sarah Palin is definitely NOT a feminist.
Clap, clap, clap. Thank you for saying this, Janice.
yeah, ‘conservative feminism’ HA!
So well said! Sarah Palin is definitely NOT a feminist.
I absolutely agree that Sarah Palin is NOT a feminist and creating relative feminism will get us no where. While I agree that feminism should be against all forms of discrimination, I don’t agree with your assessment of the new Arizona immigration law.
The legal immigration system in this country is broken and the current situation is not beneficial for citizens or immigrants. However, the new Arizona law does not create any new laws that did not exist before. What it does is make already existing federal laws state laws, in order to allow state authorities to enforce those already existing laws. Is it the best way to handle our broken immigration system? I don’t know. What I do know is that continuing to ignore our laws is only making the situation worse. What I do know is that illegal immigrants in this country that are convicted of a felony are not deported after they have served their jail sentence. We need to figure out a way to help those immigrants in need, while not rewarding the immigrants who commit felonies.
I have written about this issue further on my blog: http://www.feministlab.com/media/the-news-media-on-immigration-fact-vs-opinion/
I know this is an old comment, but I had to speak up. I was born overseas on a Naval base in Spain. My birth certificate is in Spanish. Also, I am brunette with brown eyes and I do not look strictly “Aryan” in appearance. I have had people ask me what ethnicity my child is, and have had them remark that I look American Indian (I probably have some ancestry) or “Hispanic.” If I were living in Arizona, all it would take is me losing my certificate of birth abroad, the same document that makes John McCain a born citizen, and then to be pulled over for speeding. I’d be gone. Even if that didn’t happen, having to carry my documentation with me everywhere would put me at greater risk of identity theft.
It’s not enough to say “well, it’s federal law.” Federal law says women on welfare cannot go to college full-time to fulfill their work requirement for welfare. Federal law is not strict enough about protecting the environment or endangered species. Federal law does not allow abortion to be covered by Medicaid. Federal law does not classify rape as a hate crime. Is that our new standard for good behavior? Emulating the Feds? Really?
Great essay, thank you. I heard Gloria Steinem make the connection between racism and feminism recently and couldn’t agree more that you cannot be a feminist if you are a racist, and visaversa.
Good to know that I am indeed a feminist
Kim, i think you have valid points on the immigration situation. I also applaud the essay overall. that being said, i don’t like that we laugh at conservative feminism; we should examine and fully allow a debate before we attack- otherwise we are becoming oppressive ourselves.
You can’t be a racist feminist but we must also not be oppressive feminists. If some conservative women are slowly making progress let us enter into intelligent discussion to allow them to fully realize the need for feminism. BUT let me be clear, i in no way feel Palin is a feminist and in fact dislike her very much, i feel she sets us back years with every speech. But, i would like to say to such women, “Thank you for your interest, let’s have a conversation about the tennents of feminism and see if this is really a fit for you.” Let us have the strength to endure the conversations without oppressing them as they do us.
Arguing with a privileged upper-middle-class white woman is not oppression. Please do not insult actually oppressed people by watering down the term.
Drea, I appreciate the reminder that we need to be open to and listen to all voices of feminism. Sarah Palin definitely pushes my buttons, claiming the power for the women who have come before her and worked so hard to attain but trying to shove women right back into the same patriarchal constructs we have been fighting so hard against.
Kim- i could not have said it better.
This is why feminism has become a freakin’ joke! How dare a woman not be anything other than Pro-Choice. I dare a women not have her own beliefs and disbeliefs, just like a man. I don’t believe in abortion, but I do believe in gay marriage, and women having power in the work field. But since I am pro-life, I cannot be a feminist. I dare I go against the cult.
It’s not a cult. At least the pro-choice stance allows for you to refuse an abortion. You would not pay someone wishing to end a pregnancy the same courtesy. If rigidity of belief is one of the defining traits of a cult, YOUR beliefs are the cultish ones.
Thanks for this. Well said!
The only (very nit-picky) thing I’d disagree with, or at least make more open-ended is the religious institution piece.
I totally agree that “Excluding women from full participation in spiritual and religious activity is oppressive to women… [and]… Being exposed to only male spiritual and religious leaders teaches girls and women that men are natural leaders and that the natural place as women is as followers.”
Yet I don’t think all feminists should to abandon (traditionally) patriarchal religions, but should be fighting from the inside for the full participation of women.
My partner is Roman Catholic (I’m Lutheran), and we both struggle daily with the oppressive patriarchy of our traditions. Yet we deeply believe that our role is to fight for a future of equal ministries, regardless of how hopeless it may seem. The Lutheran Church (ELCA) has come further than the Catholic Church, but they both have a long way to go…
@ Dan, thank you for your comments. Regarding your opinion that feminists should not abandon patriarchal religious establishments, do you think that there are exceptions or points at which it is more productive to walk away?
who are you to define feminism?
Muffy – you can be pro-life. Being pro-life is only an issue when someone tries to make everyone pro-life through political force and agenda.
And Sarah Palin isn’t a feminist in any sense of the word.
If this blog post proves anything, it’s that at least one feminist has lost her way.
Feminism cannot be defined by four wildly unrelated points about abortion, gay marriage, immigration reform and religious leadership.
Feminism can be defined as a stance promoting political, social and economic change that benefit women. What is in women’s best interests not only changes from generation to generation, but also from woman to woman.
Therefore the most important thing you must do as a feminist is to empower women to make decisions without being encumbered by social prejudice or economic circumstance.
What’s written above is a crude attempt to leverage the desire of the reader to be a feminist in order to force together several topics that are central to the authors beliefs, but are mostly unrelated to feminism.
Abortion is a feminist issue because outlawing abortion relegates women to the status of mindless breeding machines. These are our bodies and we should be the ones determining whether they become or remain pregnant, whether we carry to term or not, etc. Not anyone else. No one forces men to become organ donors, the nearest analog I can think of.
Gay marriage is a feminist issue because discriminating against someone because of the gender they are attracted to amounts to sexism. Feminism is supposed to fight sexism. When the conservatives said the Equal Rights Amendment would allow gay marriage they were very serious–and they were right.
Immigration is a feminist issue because women immigrate here. And when they do, legal or not, they are mistreated by the system. Arizona’s law makes it worse because every issue of sexism that immigrant women face, they will have to face on their own now because if they dare go to the cops for help, all they can hope for is deportation. Even if you come here legally it is remarkably easy to lose your legal status. All you have to do is misplace one document. If your husband beats you up five minutes after your purse with your green card in it is stolen, what are you supposed to do?
The religious leadership bit should have been the most obvious of all. How in the world is that one not feminist?
And if you really think feminism is only about benefiting women, who the hell are you to come pronounce from on high what the movement is supposed to be about?
And why the hell am I asking these questions a year late anyway? :/
I totally agree with you Dana. Your first paragraph is on the spot. I fail to understand why this is even an issue in this country. Having an abortion or not is the fundamental or natural right of the person.
Sarah Pain, a feminist? What next? Adolf Hitler a Zionist? Malcom X joins the KKK?
I lived in Alaska for 20 years, and I can assure you one thing is true: Alaskans truly believe “We don’t give a damn how they do it Outside” (“Outside” referring to the other 49 states).
The frightening thing is not that Palin is a political candidate; the frightening thing is the number of people who support her and think the same way she does.
“Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now?”
Muffy, I think you can be against abortion, but pro-choice. I personally would never recommend an abortion to anyone, but I feel that women should have the right to a safe, sterile abortion if they want one. It’s their body, they should be allowed to do what they want, as long as the fetus isn’t viable.
But as I said, I’m against abortion, would never have one or tell anyone else they should have one.
Muffy- I think what you will find is that being pro-choice does not take away a women’s right to have beliefs and disbeliefs, it enables them to have both.
If you do not agree with abortion then that is very much your right and you are able to live by that by making sure you never put yourself into a situation where you are pregnant but unprepared, or by choosing even if somebody else puts you into that situation out of your control to still decide against abortion.
Your body, your beliefs, your choice. However, another women = HER body, her beliefs, her choice.. not yours or anybody else’s.
Hence why not agreeing with abortion isn’t necessarily anti-feminism, but believing in making abortion illegal is.
I’m actually quite disappointed with this piece. The Arizona immigration reforms have been extremely necessary due to lack of federal intervention. As a feminist who supports this reform, your validations on what constitutes a feminist now mean nothing to me. Sarah Palin has indeed been labeled an idiot by the liberal media, but she also embodies feminism. I think that you let politics get in the way of something beautiful and profound that you were trying to state. The fact that you aren’t accepting of a female who is in politics, causes your claims to collapse. Feminism is not about singling out certain individuals, it’s about equality, and you completely lacked that in this piece.. highly disappointing.
So it’s your definition of feminism or not at all? I always thought that feminism was about supporting women and allowing them to make their own choices, I have no particular opinion on sarah palin but I object, as a woman to the way she is pilloried in the press. Regardless of her beliefs, would you stand by in the street and watch a woman being subjected to the kind of verbal abuse that would put a spouse in jail? Why do we think it is ok to demean a woman just because we disagree with her politics and her choices, is that not the kind of tyranny we are trying to escape? As for all the other ‘musts’ that one must conform to to join the feminist club, historically the second wave women’s movement failed partly because the femininst movement lost it’s focus and attempted to be all things to all prople. Lets concentrate on supporting all women and let’s be mature enough to reaise that exclusion is a form of bullying best left in the school yard.
-Tolerance IS and ALWAYS SHOULD BE more important than one’s ideological hang-ups. When a movement becomes this dogmatic, it loses all its worth.
-Not only would your rules of conduct alienate many feminists today(as shown already in comments), it would discourage many in the future from considering feminism, and it retroactively strip many feminists in the past of the title, including some of the most important figures in the struggle (Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, etc.)
-While I personally am pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and pro-female clergy, the idea that one should be disqualified and excommunicated from the movement due to holding an unpopular opinion is anathema to the spirit of feminism.
@bunny – I don’t understand how your arguments are responsive to this article whatsoever. No where in this post did Janice demean Sarah Palin as a person or because she is a woman. The point of this article is to debunk the false claim that Sarah Palin is a feminist. Because she isn’t. She doesn’t support women’s rights or “choices” — which is something you yourself claimed to be a key value in the women’s movement.
And feminism isn’t about standing behind and promoting all women at all costs. Feminism is about supporting the women that SUPPORT women. Sarah Palin is unfortunately not one of them.
And people have a right to be upset. Sarah Palin believes that women shouldn’t have the right to an abortion EVEN if their own health is in jeopardy. This is also ONE example of a litany of anti-women policies and beliefs that Sarah Palin supports.
p.s. – as a general comment — Although I understand that feminism can mean different things for many different people, I still think there are certain tenants basic to the idea of feminism. Making the claim that anyone who calls themselves a feminist is a feminist is just flat out B.S. It would be like a racist calling themselves a civil rights activist. Just doesn’t make sense.
This is not a definition of feminism; it is the definition of liberalism. Feminism is the promotion of the equality between genders, the new Arizona immigration laws have absolutely nothing to do with this. You don’t have to be a liberal to support womens’ equality. This article seems to be more of an attack on Sarah Palin, not an attempt to define feminism. There is so much more you can attack Palin with, and this particular essay provides such a ridiculously weak argument.
you are completely giving a generalization of what a feminist should be, yet this is in your eyes. there is no correct or wrong answer. she may be a feminist just as you are. you may be a liberal feminist just as i am a conservative feminist. you cannot give this broad of a term a concrete statement and explain it with such a brief explanation.
one point i had the most conflict with was abortion. this act is a brush to clean up mistakes women and men have chosen to make. life is about making mistakes and learning from them by living through the consequences. yet the fact is that pregnancies are not a mistake. it is a gift. the mistake is the timing and partner. but these are mistakes that young women are meant to go through. yet think of this, you give the mother the choice of killing, yet do you give the baby the choice of life?
a feminist to me is one that doesn’t conform to the rules society places on women. those rules you wish to not pay attention to, you get to choose. you don’t need to break all of them. feminism is not being an extreme liberal, were you go against everything.
of course this is the opinion of a mere seventeen year old. pay no attention to me.
While some women who belong to and supporting misogynistic religious institutions claim to be feminists, it is my contention that they cannot be. There is no other place that should embrace the full participation of women more than in spiritual and religious institutions and communities.
This is why I left the Catholic Church. I felt like it wasn’t fair that women cannot be priests, bishops, cardinals, or the Pope. I didn’t like the gender roles, the homophobia, the transphobia.
And I agree with Robyn’s comments about Alaska–we’re very committed to our own ways of life, and way too many of us support Sarah Palin. I can’t stand her.
I could call myself a herring. I still wouldn’t be able to breathe under water.
Being pro-choice is NOT synonymous with being pro-abortion. Pro-choice means that the pregnant person gets to choose. Choosing to carry a child to term does not necessarily make one pro-life.
What Arizona has done is to attempt to deal with illegal immigration from the wrong place; using available laws those employers who hire immigrants should be punished in the pocketbook. That should be much more effective.
Oh, you left out the part where Palin MADE RAPE VICTIMS PAY FOR THEIR OWN RAPE KITS. Which is sort of like making victims of burglary pay the police to dust for fingerprints.
Ty, that is a really good point. Palin also rejected federal funding for domestic violence services, even though the only funding for DV services in Alaska comes from the federal government. They have the highest domestic violence and sexual assault rates in the country. Go Sarah Palin!
Yay, this is an amazing post. I am one of those religious feminists, but MY religion fully supports feminism. I am a Feminist Witch!
Yea, I agree Palin is not a feminist. *rolleyes*
Thanks so much for reading!
The right demonized feminists for years, trying to take away our credibility. Their attempts FAILED, and now they think they can sweep in and try and co-opt our name and soil our efforts with their presence.
Lets all stand up and say NO!
Hearing Palin call herself a feminist makes me sick to my stomach. I think it is pretty clear from her work as politician that she doesn’t even know what feminism *is*.
Great article. I agree with all of your points. I hate when pro-life people say pro-choice people *want* women to have abortions. That is so ridiculous. I don’t WANT any woman to feel the need to have an abortion, but the fact of the matter is that there are many situations in which women simply cannot have a baby and then a safe and legal abortion needs to be available to said women. Same with stay-at-home moms – I don’t WANT every woman and mother to work. I want every woman and mother to have the choice to either work or stay at home – just as I want every man and father to have the choice to stay at home or work.
While I feel that I’m a feminist, I agree with everything you say except for the statements about immigration reforms. I’m all for people immigrating to the U.S, however I feel that they need to go through the process that grants them legal citizenship. I understand the harsh conditions that they go through in Mexico, however, I don’t understand how legal Hispanic citizens are being stripped of their dignity if they are asked for their papers for probable cause. While there is a growing oppressive power structure in Arizona, it is only towards the illegal immigrants, not those that have legal citizenship. At first I was highly against the immigration reforms, but after being in Arizona for a couple weeks, I can understand why the reforms were written. I support immigrants that are coming with the intentions of being a US citizen, but I don’t believe that disagreeing with illegals makes me any less of a feminist. Feminism, while being about the activism for a minority, to me is not about anyone besides female citizens that deserve equal rights in any way, shape or form, as well as re-imaging the way that women are seen in society. I would rather have a society with more immigrants than one where women are seen as nothing more than an airheaded sexual object or a domestic.
Conservative Feminists of the Pro-Woman Sisterhood of white, middle class, straight women are a throw-back to the early 1970′s. Women of color, poor women, gay women, women with health problems, elderly women, women without citizenship, trans-gender women, unemployed and underemployed women were not embraced by early feminists. You may not be a feminist if you think these women were not (and are still are not) discriminated against.
Two questions. First, why don’t feminists ever allow female politicians to have opinions on anything other than abortion, healthcare, and fuzzy save-the-planet things? Don’t you believe women are intelligent enough to have ideas about economic issues? Ought we be allowed to care about that, too, even though we happen to be female? … Or is all that number-crunching a man’s job?
Second, if opposition to religions that oppress women is among the top 4 criteria to be considered a feminist, why do most feminists oppose the liberation of Muslim women in the middle east, under the guise of “religious tolerance”? Why are you ranting about Sarah Palin when millions of women are being violently abused and killed because they’re trapped in a country, a religion, a household where their rights are less than an animal’s? Rant about something that matters– you might actually make a difference in the world.
I only take away from this article that you oppose Christianity and (of all things) the laws in the state of Arizona that protect it’s people. Do you even live in Arizona? If not, what do you care? I do, and I don’t want people who have no legal right to be here using up limited resources, crossing the border to bring drugs and crime. (Please don’t take that as a generalization that I think all immigrants are criminals- I’ve known several illegal immigrants that are very good people and wouldn’t do those things- but many of them do, and that’s what AZ is trying to prevent). If you want to live in this country, gain the right to do so. There is a process, right? Just like if I wanted to live in any other country, I would have to go through all kinds of red tape to do so. Sorry, I don’t know what that has to do with feminism.
I agree with the principles stated in the article, and would encourage those who support SB 1070 to research the horrendous situations that many undocumented immigrant women face. These include rapes by traffickers, separation from their families, little recourse for domestic violence, and exploitative working situations. These are feminist issues. Just as we argue that, even if a woman does something to make her more vulnerable (such as drinking excessively), she is still entitled to not be raped, we need to remember that just because someone is in our country without Uncle Sam’s permission, she is still entitled to protection.
I am curious, why is a virus (a micro organism) considered life, yet a HUMAN cell, starting its life’s journey in its mother, not considered life ? Why does the women get to choose who gets to live and who does not? Even though your life may be hard, does that mean the little life can be extenguished because your curcumstances does not line up? When has life ever been perfect? You fight for women’s rights, but what are you losing with that? There is always two sides to every thing. As far as gay marriage, since when can two of the same sex make life (create a young child)? Marriage was sacred, some thing that was created so that fornification would not take place. Things that are being argued today baffles me. What happened to the women who needed to be taken care of by a gentle men? One who did not have the stress of working a job, taking care the children, and still trying to do every thing else. What ever happened to the need for a gentlemen who would protect women because they are the fairer sex. Women back in the old days did have some stress but, look at today. Women are stressed out, angry, and so many things come to ruin. Why? What has changed from the old days to now???? I am just saying look at what advances are causing versus what they are helping.
@ a mother–You present a very romanticized notion about women in earlier times. Much of that is because the thoughts and struggles of women were not recorded and we have little record of what actual women felt and thought. Women were raped, often by husbands or family members and told to suffer in silence. Abortion took place, just illegally and medically unsafe. The current state of womanhood is not perfect and while feminism has come a long way, there is still a long way to go. But to romanticize the notion that women were better off in earlier times, when they had only a single choice–to be wives and mothers and financially dependent on men–is to deny the struggles that women did face and to deny women any agency in their own lives. To choose to be a wife and mother is a beautiful thing, but to be forced is something quite different.
This seems to indicate to me that a woman cannot be a feminist if she wants to choose; choose what she believes on many social political views. It indicates to me that you are trying to take away the belief that a woman is intelligent enough to develop informed decisions on many matters that affect her life, but rather, in order to be a feminist, she must go along with the beliefs of a crowd. If that is the case I should think the term “feminist” would be considered a bit more demeaning.
Lily, that’s not Janice’s argument at all. Janice argues that if you call yourself a feminist, it means that you work to improve the quality of women’s lives. Similarly, if I call myself a vegan, I have to stop eating animals. To claim otherwise is to erase any meaning from the word at all. You can’t slash funding for domestic violence services and call yourself a feminist, just as you can’t grill yourself up a steak and call yourself a vegan. This isn’t demeaning to anyone – it’s simply demanding that words mean something.
It is really selfish and sick for women to think they have the right to kill a baby, their baby, your baby!!!! ????? I don’t care if I was raped, a victim of incest, too young, didn’t want it. WHATEVER! Iv’e been in all those shoes. It is our body, but it is that babies life. Who are we to take a soul out of this world. We all endure the struggles of life. It isn’t easy for anyone. Things happen! I am a strong woman who believes women deserve the same rights as men. Can a man kill someone for his own convience? No, and neither should a woman, Its just sick!