The New Palin Feminism
Sarah Palin, and many wonderful women of our generation like her, is simultaneously beautiful, and an organized, and thoughtful, and yes — powerful. We think she must have broken some sort of rule in doing so.
Both famous and infamous (some depending on your tolerance for vitriol) voices for feminism have decried the arrival of Sarah Palin on the scene; some actually going so far as to say the Governor Palin ‘is not a woman’ — a ridiculous statement, to be sure — simply because Palin has committed the crime of disagreeing with their own political and social agendas.
At some point, feminists parted ways with the rest of western society where the definition of a woman is concerned:
Obviously, these are silly arguments; but that won’t stop the divisive and judgmental cries that Governor Palin is set to rewind all the progress made thus far by the Feminist Movement. Enough, even, for self-identified ‘Feminists’ to rescind Palin’s claim to the gender.
While it’s true that these whiners may somewhat affect the vote of those women (and men) out there who associate themselves with their brand — they are tarnishing their own efforts by acting this ridiculous.
Somehow it is Sarah Palin’s ‘fault’ that she has been successful both in family and career. Those Feminazis who decry her as having ‘ruined’ all their good work are in fact pointing out that they don’t believe women should be seen as truly victorious unless they are only successful in one or the other. The fact that Sarah seems to be genuinely happy drives them even further over the edge.
In addition, the popular hunt for pictures of Sarah Palin in various stages of undress points more to the base level of ‘debate’ that the Left clings to (there’s that word again…) than to some imagined failing of Palin. Liberals are often enraged when their game is not being played on their terms and by their playbook; they believe that Christian Conservatives MUST be OUTRAGED to think that a woman may have, at sometime in her life, been scantily clad at some point — dare we imagine — NAKED while showering.
Guess what, Libtards — after all the preaching you do among yourselves about what we (CC) believe, and about how evil we are for being upset when you try to force your inflexible ideals on us (CC), the creation and feeding of shame always falls to those bereft of a moral compass and clamoring for power — not the Christians you so love to denigrate. To push the point: we feeble-minded Christians actually believe (I know, it’s just crazy!) that God created us NAKED, and actually MADE the differences between male and female, DESIGNED us to be attracted to one another — then looked back and was PROUD of His handiwork. How psychotic is that? (Um, that was rhetorical…)
Gina Cobb points out a CNN article that people on both sides of the aisle are responding to Palin’s optimism, work ethic, demeanor, and credentials:
“‘We’re here to show our support for John McCain and Sarah Palin,’ Easterling tells me. ‘We like their strategy on the economy and everything they say. He’s an honest man, he doesn’t lie and she’s the same.’How cute it is when a Democrat crosses the aisle to appreciate that Palin is also attractive — just as unacceptable as it is to challenge Barack Obama on evidential issues of his character and motives.
Most of all though, Easterling doesn’t like Barack Obama. ‘I’m scared to death of him,’ she admits. ‘I’m scared of what he stands for, the whole nine yards. He hangs with the terrorists and he lies. He never tells the truth and he’s a flip-flopper. He’s not to be trusted.’
Hardenburgh meanwhile has picked out a badge featuring a mocked-up image of a stars-and-stripes bikini-clad Palin wielding a rifle with the slogan ‘Caribou Barbie Shoot First!’
‘That’s what I like about her, right there,’ he says, pinning it to his Harley Davidson jacket.”
From Elaine Lafferty’s ‘Sarah Palin’s a Brainiac’:
“It’s difficult not to froth when one reads, as I did again and again this week, doubts about Sarah Palin’s “intelligence,” coming especially from women such as PBS’s Bonnie Erbe, who, as near as I recall, has not herself heretofore been burdened with the Susan Sontag of Journalism moniker. As Fred Barnes—God help me, I’m agreeing with Fred Barnes—suggests in the Weekly Standard, these high toned and authoritative dismissals come from people who have never met or spoken with Sarah Palin. Those who know her, love her or hate her, offer no such criticism. They know what I know, and I learned it from spending just a little time traveling on the cramped campaign plane this week: Sarah Palin is very smart.I’m a Democrat, but I’ve worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin’s nomination. Last week, there was the thought that as a former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine as well as a feminist activist in my pre-journalism days, I might be helpful in contributing to a speech that Palin had long wanted to give on women’s rights.
Now by “smart,” I don’t refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don’t really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a “quick study”; I’d heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.
…
For the sin of being a Christian personally opposed to abortion, Palin is being pilloried by the inside-the-Beltway Democrat feminist establishment. (Yes, she is anti-abortion. And yes, instead of buying organic New Zealand lamb at Whole Foods, she joins other Alaskans in hunting for food. That’s it. She is not a right-wing nut, and all the rest of the Internet drivel—the book banning at the Library, the rape kits decision—is nonsense. I digress.) Palin’s role in this campaign was to energize “the Republican base,” which she has inarguably done. She also was expected to reach out to Hillary Clinton “moderates.” (Right. Only a woman would get both those jobs in either party.) Look, I am obviously personally pro-choice, and I disagree with McCain and Palin on that and a few other issues. But like many other Democrats, including Lynn Rothschild, I’m tired of the Democratic Party taking women for granted. I also happen to believe Sarah Palin supports women’s rights, deeply and passionately.
Many of those—not all—who decried the sexist media treatment of Hillary Clinton have been silent as Palin has been skewered in the old ways that female public figures are skewered, as well as a host of sexualized new ways as well. Some feminists have weighed in; “Even the reportedly clear glasses she wears to play down her beauty queen credential and enhance her gravitas can’t make up for experience,” writes my heroine Suzanne Braun Levine, former editor of Ms. Oppose her on policy? Fine. But how sad for feminist leaders to sink this low, especially when Palin has worn glasses since she was 10 years old.
Last month a prominent feminist blogger, echoing that sensibility, declared that the media was wrongly buying into the false idea that Palin was a feminist. Why? Well, just because she said she was a feminist, because she supported women’s rights and opportunities, equal pay, Title IV—that was just “empty rhetoric,” they said. At least the blogger didn’t go as far as NOW’s Kim Gandy and declare that Palin was not a woman. Bottom line: you are not a feminist until we say you are. And there you have the formula for diminishing what was once a great and important mass social change movement to an exclusionary club that rejects women who sincerely want to join and, God forbid, grow to lead.”
Further Reading:
Sarah Palin & the “servant’s heart” (theanchoressonline.com)
A HuffPo commenter wants her barefoot and at home… (proteinwisdom.com)
Sarah Palin: Girls Want To Be Her, Guys Want To Be Married To Her (MelissaClouthier.com)
And the Hunt Is On! (Ace of Spades chronicles the hunt for more bikini-evidence)
We would LOVE to see someone re-do this commercial
(‘I’m a Woman’) for the McCain/Palin campaign:
Not a new phenomenon: Below is an image that was circulated
when these same issues were raised — by liberal mouthpieces
– during the previous Presidential election season.
