Sarah Palin Helps the Dems -- But What about the Ladies?

First there's the evident unreadiness - you just can't fake that. As Palin's interviews unroll against the backdrop of the unraveling national economic mess, voters of all parties are blanching at the idea that their families' or the nation's future might end up in her hands, fun lady though she may seem. Bob Herbert in the Times on Saturday and Kathleen Parker in the National Review on Friday uncharacteristically came to similar conclusions on Palin: out of her league, a danger to the nation and to the party. The readiness is all at this point, it would seem.

The candidacy adds up to more votes for Obama, and not just via Palin herself. If she doesn't have the experience that would prepare her to be president, McCain's cynical choice of an unready lady in an attempted double play to win over both the dissatisfied Hillary voters and the dissatisfied conservative Republicans demonstrates that he's not ready either--very short on judgment. Equal opportunity bad candidates.

From another direction, Palin's example, itself, makes the case against her politics and for the Democratic agenda. And not just because her support of abstinence-only sex education and lack of support for access to birth control and abortion are all problematized in her family story. The choices she and her husband make for their family are not those everyone would make, and the key word here is, of course, choice.

Her example works against her politics, in addition, because Palin's energy, charisma, and big ideas, even if you don't agree with them, make it clear that there's an enormous amount of talent just waiting to be tapped among the women on both sides of the political divide. Whether or not she supports it, Palin embodies the case for government intervention in support of families-- in the form of widened availability of good and affordable childcare, funding for FMLA, and support for active fathers. Another good idea, as Ann Crittenden has suggested, would be a restoration of the pre-1948 tax rule under which married people file separate returns, so that the second (often the woman's) income does not largely disappear into taxes and so come to seem expendable. These are programs that would make it possible for more women to rise within the ranks of industry and government and to contribute to our common wealth both as workers and as mothers. Such support would put more talented women into the pipeline and ensure that more and more of them are ready to lead, as well as willing and able.

Will Palin's difficulty on the big stage set back the progress of women into higher office? It certainly needn't-- after all we just had a woman candidate whom 18 million voters found sufficiently ready with answers on domestic and foreign policy.

The enthusiastic welcome Palin received from the right demonstrates that, in spite of our continued national ambivalence about what work women are permitted to do, working mothers are now an accepted reality of life all over America. There is a host of women who could lead us well at all levels of business and government, given the proper supports for family, in the coming years. Women's work has been political all along-- now it's increasingly coming to involve political office.

If Palin's vexed case can, among the other things it does, move us forward in our reflection on how we as a society can support the decisions mothers and fathers make around family and offer them a real range of good options to decide among, it will have served our society well and readied the stage for lots more women candidates to come--good, bad and in between, just like the gents.

Elizabeth Gregory is the author of Ready: Why Women Are Embracing the New Later Motherhood (Basic Books).

Comments

[OhSusana]

It is clear that working mothers are indeed an accepted reality in American life. Yet, I haven't seen much media attention focused on the rigors of running for national office while caring for a family--with a special needs infant no less. I also haven't heard Palin or anyone around her speak to the challenges she faces as a working mother or how women could be supported better in this arena.
As for sexism in politics and the media, her run for office has turned media analysis on it's head. I am convinced that the McCain campaign successfully shielded her from the press in the early weeks of her roll out in large part because she is a woman. Now that she has been interviewed, she needs McCain to run to her rescue, to clarify her positions, to make sure she behaves appropriately. The fact that Palin AND McCain had to be re-interviewed by Couric after her appalling solo interview tells us all we need to know about how the McCain campaign views her--a child, window dressing, a lipstick-wearing bulldog. And today the MCain camp announced that Palin need not answer all the debate questions correctly. She need not know the complexities of the issues at hand. She just needs to be liked!
There is one career that Palin's candidacy has already helped enormously--Katie Couric's. She has gone from being a relative lightweight to a hard-hitting journalist in a matter of days.

[Elizabeth Gregory - Huffpost Blogger]

Palin"s candidacy emerged suddenly and has had to respond quickly on many fronts, so there hasn"t been time yet for the nation to address all the issues, including those around women"s work and childcare" for both infants and older kids. Apart from the initial furor around her willingness to take on such a big job with an infant at the breast, and with special needs to boot -- and then the backlash (from the Right) on how raising that issue was anti-feminist, I"ve seen no thoughtful discussion of the way Palin handles work/family balance or the way we as a society could make that more workable for women generally. Time to get that discussion started, and I"m guessing we"ll see more in that vein in the coming weeks.