It's hard when considering Sarah Palin to move past her views on abortion. Abortion has always been, and will always be, a sticking point with me. Her conviction that abortion should be illegal except when the doctor decides a continued pregnancy will kill the mother is one that I cannot vote for. I have never and never will believe that such a decision should be legislated.

But I'm not talking about abortion right now, I'm talking about Sarah Palin.

Forgetting the abortion debate for a second I consider Sarah Palin as a legislator and a possible vice president. With John McCain's health it is increasingly possible that Palin would become president before the four years were up and so I must consider her as a serious law-maker as well. In all of those considerations Sarah Palin scares the ever-living crap out of me.

She's a woman who claims to be fighting the "old-boys network" in Washington. She's lauds her experience as mayor and governor as proof of her ability to run the country. She's a government official who claims she has worked to put the government by the wayside and put the power back into the hands of the people. I'm not misquoting out of context here, by the way, I'm taking all of these things off a speech I just watched.

First of all, everything she campaigns on is from the old-boys network. Anti-abortion, her ability to be a mother and a politician, her religion. She may have a vagina, but Sarah Palin sounds, and acts, like every other Republican candidate I've ever seen. She wants to lower taxes, but she offers no ideas as to help the ailing economy. So you cut taxes--where are the new jobs? She controlled the budget in Alaska; that sounds fantastic. Unfortunately, that's all she talks about. She doesn't mention what she did, or how she would apply her techniques to the much bigger task of running the country--instead she makes quips about ebay and her ability to slash the budget because of her innate "mommy skills." She could take a pay cut because her husband didn't care. She could fire the personal chef because her kids didn't care. What this says is, yes--she's a strong, Republican, female who still cooks for and mothers her children appropriately and relies mainly on her husband's income.

And that is possibly the most frustrating thing about Sarah Palin. She's not a bitch. She's not scary. She's Sarah Barracuda, but that name seems to carry more fondness than any name for Hillary ever did. People assume Hillary voters will vote for her because she's a woman. But the reason she is not a bitch and not scary, is the same reason Hillary voters (if they have any sense at all, which, admittedly, many of them don't) will not vote for her. Sarah Barracuda doesn't challenge gender roles at all. She doesn't shake things up. She isn't paving the way for women. She isn't changing jack shit.

I know, how can I say that you ask. Do we not have a woman nominee for vice president, on a Republican ticket no less? But here's the thing about power--power doesn't ever shift hands if the status quo remains the same. Imagine the goth kid buying his clothes at the mall; by purchasing his clothes at the mall he is doing the exact opposite of what it would appear he's attempting to do. Instead of rebelling against consumerism and capitalism he's supporting it. Sarah Palin is doing a very similar thing with the feminist movement. It appears she's paving the way. It appears she is change--this word that has become central to presidential elections this year. But instead of changing things she is simply solidifying them. By allowing claims of "sexism" when she's criticized over anything to float around she hides behind her gender--a wilting violet if you will that doesn't seem apt to someone nicknamed Barracuda. By campaigning on her ability to govern and mother she doesn't break free of the idea that women must find a way to do both, that she isn't a real woman if she isn't a good mother, that her existence as a politician is separate from her life as a mother, but holds up her life as a woman operating under a patriarchal definition of femininity who has succeeded by working with the patriarchy instead of working to break it as if that is earth shattering.

And by supporting anti-abortion legislature and being on record concerning the war in Iraq as a "task that is from God" she, like every other Republican, is mixing religion and politics. An unethical and unAmerican behavior. In a country that lauds freedom of belief and separation of church and state as two staples of its government we must govern free from religious agendas even though that religion may play a central role in personal morality. You can live your life according to the strictures of your church but you cannot pass laws, or go to war based on those strictures.

What bothers me most about Sarah Palin isn't her beliefs, though granted, her beliefs bother me plenty. Her politics are the same as everyone else in her party, better than some, worse than others. What bothers me is that because she happens to be a woman people are claiming she's radical. Because she happens to be a woman and a mother who works outside the home people are claiming she's a feminist.

Being a feminist has nothing to do with whether you work outside the home or stay at home. Is has nothing to do with whether you choose to have your baby or abort it. Being a feminist absolutely has nothing to do with your gender. Being a feminist has to do with giving every woman the option to make choices herself. And Sarah Palin isn't about giving people options. Sarah Palin isn't about changing the way we view women as objects and archetypes; she's about succeeding by being an object and an archetype. Her gender doesn't, by default, make her a feminist. But her goal to limit the choices of women absolutely marks her as not one.