Choosing Sarah Palin is an insult to women
Saturday Night Live using Tina Fey’s impression of Gov. Sarah Palin, has been skewering the hypocrisy of the use of “sexism” and the subversion of “feminism” quite effectively lately.
But what most people don’t seem to get is why feminists and women would be so against electing Palin as the first woman to national executive office. I am going to skip the frequent and detailed explanation of why Palin, despite being a woman, is anti-woman when it comes to abortion, contraception, rape, and other issues that women actually care about. Instead, I will explain why Palin offends me on a personal level — why women in general and feminists in particular don’t like her.
The nomination of Palin is an insult to me as a woman and an insult to the legacy that feminism has attempted to build. Nothing is clearer to me than Palin being selected for little more than her pretty face, “adorable” accent and extreme willingness to subvert her opinions to those of her male superiors — in short, she was selected simply because she is a woman and acts in a way that is acceptable to the insultingly paternalistic Republican Powers-That-Be.
Her “experience” is pathetically negligible. Her lauded public speaking appeal dissipates in the face of minimal opposition, which is completely unacceptable for someone who is dealing with the national media, dirty partisan politics, and international delegations on a regular basis.
She is disturbingly ignorant about basic political concepts: from the “Bush Doctrine,” to Supreme Court cases that were not Roe v. Wade, to what counts as foreign policy experience. The longer she talks, the more confused and rambling she becomes, making it increasingly clear that, as another critic put it, she is incapable of saying anything in public that wasn’t already written down for her on a 3-by-5 card. She is being babied, patronized, sexualized and objectified by the entire nation.
This is not what feminists want.
Feminists and women do not want the game to be made pathetically easy and stacked in their favor. They do not want the bar of expectation to be lowered to sexist preconceptions of feminine inability and incompetence. Women don’t want to be babied and win because the “big boys” are just “playing nice” — we want to win because we’ve worked hard and earned it. With Sen. Hillary Clinton it was a free-for-all “hit her with your best shot,” but with Palin, it’s “be nice, she’s new at this”? Is it not evident from us having to treat her with kid gloves and “play nice to play fair” that she isn’t even fit to be in the game?
Comparisons between Clinton and Palin are especially infuriating. Clinton has been actively involved in building credentials for years, following the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophy that conservatives are so fond of. And look what happened: She was called a harridan and a ball buster, and when she complained was accused of “pulling the gender card.”
Clinton gets borderline emotional at an inspiring moment, while Palin blatantly flirts and winks at the crowd. Remind me who’s the one “pulling the gender card.”
Some pundits actually suggested that Palin “held her own” in the vice-presidential debate, essentially suggesting that she did well … considering. Considering what?
Considering she’s spent fewer than two years in office as the governor of one of the nation’s least populated states after being mayor of a town with fewer people in it than the amount of people attending San Diego State?
Considering that it’s becoming increasingly clear that she is cluelessly parroting buzzwords in the desperate hope that some combination will resonate with the American public?
Considering that she is the physical manifestation of the stereotype feminists have worked for decades to overcome — a woman who got where she is based on looks instead of intelligence and diligence?
Considering that if she were a man with the same credentials and experience she would be laughed off the national stage?
I repeat: This is not what feminists want. And because conservative pundits think that she is, it just goes to show how completely and blissfully ignorant they are of the meaning of equality. Either that or they’re trying to make Palin the bar by which we measure equality in a sinister attempt at reverse psychology.
Well, it isn’t working. Palin is being shown for what she is and America is weighing her, measuring her and finding her wanting.
Which is the only reason why I haven’t had an aneurism yet.
Read the original column online here.
