The Palin Glass Ceiling Bypass
I was sitting with my husband this morning and he suddenly wants to know what I've been doing with my life. Why am I not considering a bid for Secretary of State? The Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court and now Sarah Palin being picked as McCain's VP should tell women something: We don't need to be qualified. So why haven't I heard from Barack?
Then there is Director of the CIA. I'm not a gossip. So right there is an advantage. I move rather quietly and don't look threatening. The Russians and Chinese would never suspect me. I could plant spy devices everywhere. That's what they call them, right?
Director of Homeland Security might suit. Every night, after the kids are in bed, I make sure the doors are locked. I don't delegate. I've tested the rest of the family and they just can't be trusted.
I need to move fast because a lot of women are going to wake up today with this same idea. Hillary must be kicking herself. Who knew if you became a Republican they'd just move the glass ceiling and yank you out of obscurity? Who knew that monstrosity could be moved, that we didn't need to make 18 million holes in it? Didn't anyone read the insert?
Gotta go. My husband appears to be packing my bag, shredding my useless resume, and writing down some things I should say like, "Yes, of course I'm carrying a gun." He's a fast learner and supportive -- like Republican men.
Dr. Reardon also blogs at bardscove.
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The main difference between Hillary and Palin is that Hillary was VOTED IN as a viable candidate for the Presidency.
Palin was BROUGHT in a a political ploy for Distraction.
Huge difference!
LOL
:-)
Loved this.
Brilliant. There are so many angles to this ridiculous pick for VP that I expect I could write a new angle of it each day for the next 67 days.
As Ms. Bee said on the Daily show, McCain's pick of Palin shows that he believes women don't think with their big head but their little hood! I mean, Palin is Clinton's gynecological twin after all!
When I hear Palin or HRC speak of the glass ceiling, I wince. The expression "black men open a door and white women walk in" comes to mind. If blacks hadn't sacrificed their lives and liberty, the equal opportunity laws would never have been enacted. For Palin to celebrate her selection as a victory for equality is offensive. If I, a white woman, have this reaction, surely some black people do as well.
Not quite right sequence. Black men got the vote in this country 50 years before women were allowed to vote, although those were mostly white women. White men opened the door for black men shortly after the Civil War. Women had to wait until WWI in order to get the vote and mostly with many hard fought battles with state legislatures and the federal government. The Civil Rights movement did do something for equality pay for equal work but not every state adopted such a concept. And even into 70s women, white and black, were still marching for ERA which never became an amendment to the Constitution. States like New York did adopt something equivalent to that but not Congress.
Doubt if Sarah Palin has ever heard of the Equal Rights Amendment.
You hit it on the head. I am thinking of getting a sex change operation. Years of hard work and learning and all I really needed to do was join the other half and say the right words. What a revelation!
I never supporter Hillary in the primaries, but I hope she takes Palin on. Hillary has worked for 35 years helping women's issues. Palin will do everything she can to reverse what progress has been made.
Hillary, please give her a thumpin'.
Ms. Reardon, you have nailed the offensive, anti-feminist mindset of the Repubs so accurately with your wicked wit. These people with their willy-nilly promotion of any woman to any old thing are completely insulting to women and only serve to prolong the mindset that women are just interchangeable parts with no particular ability.
Better four years of McCain and force the Democrats to get their act together, run a responsible primary, and nominate someone with real experience. I will not vote for Obama, not because he beat Clinton, but because he is not qualified, demonstrates poor, improvised judgement, and is completely unpredictable when it comes to governing.
I have said it thrice: what I tell you three times it's true!
I have three words for you:
The Handmaid's Tale.
Look it up on the Internets. 'Nuff said.
I was insulted when she made reference to the 18 million cracks as if to say you all cracked that celing but it didnt work out so why dont you just jump on my bandwagon. Its an insult to even mention those 18 million voters in the same breath as Palin. She didnt have women look up to her as a role model went out and fight and canvass to get her elected she was just chosen promoted overnight. I find it offensive too that they are comparing her to Obama as if Obama didnt put together a camapign that came from 20 points down to make a run for the white house that he didnt have one of the most organized ground game ever in political history as if he didnt have millions and millions of people go into the booth and cast their ballot for him. Sarah Palin is an embarassment to women and its embarassing to compare her to someone who ran a camapign and got the most pledge delegates to become his party's nominee who was a Civl rights attorney adn a constitutional law professor. Not some bachelor's in journalism who wanted to be a sportscaster and who is a former beauty queen. What an insult.
Carol
It's interesting that you didn't run a similiar column when Hillary went from just having been a lawyer and housewife to being a transplanted New Yorker running for the Senate.
Palin was picked to lure Hillary voters. But no pro Hillary voter I've spoken to would vote McCain and disapprope of Palin's conservative positions on Choice,Ira
She was also selected to calm the conservative and evangelical base, which she can do up to a point. It would be a big mistake to diss her. Just deal with the substance and issues. She's all wrong, but don't underestimate her as she is presented as wife,mothe
morris1030
Definitely, we deal with substance and issues only. Drawing comparisons and contrasting them.
I think Palin was picked to help with the white male blue collar worker, in particular.
For lots of reasons. A lot of them won’t mind about the lowered ceiling or even recognize the fact. They will be robust in their defense of her.
She will represent the little woman, perky, done good for her family, has some appealing gumption, gun tottin, fishing even, Christian.
Her stance on issues won’t be taken seriously becos she has the very experienced McCain to show her the ropes. This won’t be seen as a negative but a norm.
She won’t be as offensive as others to some of the “culturally conservative’s”. They won’t have to think about why the other is an issue to them. They have a more palatable excuse now. Dare I say, a liberal excuse to vote for the first woman VP.
I feel uneasy, but am hopeful that their will be more votes for the Obama/Biden ticket.
If only voters were that rational. There is a guy I work with who apparently doesn't vote on issues at all. He says he was for Hillary, but switched to McCain when Obama won because he says Obama was a no-experience puppet handpicked by the misogynistic Good Ol' Boys Network in the Dem party to keep a woman off the ticket. Friday morning when everyone else was having a WTF moment, he was going crazy excited about being able to vote for McCain AND a woman - any woman. Who cares what her political ideas are, for him, this is all a symbolic theatre in which to act out his emotional issues about race and gender. I don't think he is the only one like that in this country.
I would have respected Ms. Palin more if you turned down the offer. It would have shown her understanding of the situation.
The disrespect should be directed to John McCain, who shows his lack of respect for the position he is trying to be elected to.
All the women who I know said they felt insulted by the pick, not out of disagreeing with the political vies of Ms. Palin, but with the thinking that her total lack of experience would not be noticed by them. Hillary Clinton is so qualified to be president. Can you say that with a straight face about Ms. Palin?
Wish that was true Morris but I am on a blog on which many of the women and a few men are planning to vote for McCain and have a blind eye to any of Palin's faults with the environment or oil companies. She will appeal to the gun guys and the conservatives who don't think the environment needs any help from us.
Thanks for your thoughts. I am still trying to digest what John McCain did for the women of America. What he said is basically that we should encourage our daughters to enter beauty contests rather than waste their time getting an ivy league education. Even if they come in second in a beauty contest, they might end up running the country because old men get an ego boost out of traveling with beauty queens.
I can imagine that Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, both former Governors must wonder how they failed to measure up to McCain's standards. Surely if something happens to the 76 year-old President, Sarah Palin is unlikely to lead this country like Romney or Huckabee.
McCain just blew the most important decision that a president has to make before taking office. He chose a beauty queen from Alaska.
I guess Hell has frozen over so McCain has made history.
Obama's not qualified. If Palin had your opinions, I doubt you would say anything if she were Obama's VP pick. The "glass ceiling" doesn't appear to have anything to do with women; it has everything to do with your policy litmus tests.
I think the experience bit can be a bit overrated myself. There's no fool like an old fool. Palin would be a bad Vice President not because she is inexperienced, but because she is ill informed, not because she is some sort of token woman or she lacks the charisma, work ethic, and dedication to be a worthy candidate, but because she does not have a grip on the biological sciences, or the scientifically agreed upon evidence, which is visible to the eye in her own home state, of people doing first hand studies of global climate change all over the world.
Say what you will about Obama, the man does his research. McCain and Palin are running on policies that have consistently failed the American populace. You can keep on believing the Emperor is wearing all the new Vogue fashion, or you can own up to the failure. Obama is qualified because he speaks loudly and clearly to that failure and offers the American people a participatory opportunity to do something about it.
Thanks for the civility. But I hear you saying he speaks loud and clear the messages you agree with. I assume you're talking about global warming and abortion. Science never concludes anything ultimately, despite Al Gores contention
Well said, CitizenE, thank u.
I understand why Republicans have picked up on Obama's lack of experience. He was not a governor but in the dtate senate. He was in the U.S. Senate and ran during his first tern, but they underestimated that he is a serious leader. He built his campaign and has earned the respect of people in his party. And he got all of those votes. He has a cohesive message, and he is now the leader of the Democratic Party and moved the platform to follow his more centrist message. McCain chose Palin to enter the national stage. She wasn't there yet. She had not earned it yet, and by making that choice, McCain has done his party, Sarah Palin, and the country a disservice. She is not ready to be president. And now the Reoublicans are going to have to spend the next two months defending her instread of attacking Obama.
The Palin nomination is a bait and switch, and the sooner Dems pick up on it, the better it will be. This is not about picking up the disaffected Hillary folks at all, though there will probably be some pick up among the younger women who supported her, and were turned off either by Obama or his campaign followers. No, this is about energizing young and socially conservative Republicans, energizing grass roots on polling day, and it needs to be taken quite seriously.
She is a remarkable, engaging, seemingly intelligent, attractive, hard working individual. We need to stop calling Governor Palin inexperienced and stop looking at her as an affirmative action candidate. and start reminding people that she is:
like the Bush administration that censored global climate change information, someone who has denied the human connection to the facts on the ground and will stand as a powerful obstacle to the work before us;
like the Bush administration anti-science in her philosophy, most especially in her pro-teaching Creationism in the biological sciences classroom at a time in history when scientific literacy for upcoming generations has never been more essential;
like the Bush administration in desiring Supreme Court justices to tear down the Roe V. Wade decision for all circumstances, and will reinforce a President McCain's similar desire.
We need to hammer away at just what kind of disaster her ascendancy to the Vice Presidency might actually mean.
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