Is the Woman in the Year of the Woman Sarah Palin?

I just heard Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC reporting a conversation with a female delegate at the Republican convention last night. Before vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech, the delegate allegedly told Mitchell that she was pro-choice and therefore little inclined to support Palin, who believes that the government should force women to bear children even when raped. But afterward, Mitchell reported, the woman had done a 180. When she saw the Palin family, her pro-choice principles just evaporated. "I'm a mother too," the pro-choice delegate said, "and now I'm completely behind her."

Reproductive solidarity: now there's a political movement. Setting aside for the moment the question of how sincerely pro-choice a delegate to the 2008 Republican National Convention actually is, can it be that the feminist icon in the 2008 presidential race is a beauty queen mother of five who believes girls should carry their rapists' babies to term? Boy, everybody's a feminist these days. And why not? Decades ago, the feminist movement, which started life with a clarion call to women to lose the girly stuff and get a job lost its nerve. Choose whatever you want, the movement said. As long as you're a woman, your choices became feminist choices. Marry a jerk, it's your choice. Quit your job because it's impossible to raise a family with little help from the jerk, private business. Depend on the unhelpful male for material survival, there's a choice. Become defined by the fact of your motherhood, well, that's what women are for, no? It's the act of choice that counts. Feminism gave birth to "choice feminism."

What next? Feminists calling themselves "intersectional" assert that all issues affecting humanity are feminist issues. Some African-Americans are women, so racial justice is a feminist issue, even if the particular person involved happens to be male. Women breathe, so environmentalism is a feminist issue. War. Peace. What a movement! Everything is a feminist issue, and women's choices about those issues are feminist choices by definition.

The good news is that by being so open, feminism was able to grow. It became such a part of American life that much of the next generation of women just assumed their feminist rights, and conservatives like Sarah Palin considered themselves part of the movement. All kinds of groups bearing the label sprang up. The bad news is that feminism grew so large the word seemed to lose its meaning.

Thus, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's group dedicated to pressing women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term can call itself "Feminists for Life." Not anti-feminist women trying to tie all women to the reproductive cycle with ropes of criminal law, but "feminists." For Life. Because their "choice" that all women should make the same choice they do is a feminist choice.

And Palin running for beauty queen is not perpetuating the stereotype that women are only valuable for their youthful physical beauty, but rather the crucial first step for a woman to become vice president. Well, actually what Comedy Central, in their pitch perfect connection with contemporary culture called TVPILTF. (Hint: The Vice President I'd Like to... ) Choose to exploit your beauty, choose to exploit your brains. Reports from Alaska reflect a serious subset of Palin supporters who just like to look at her legs. Hey there's a leg up for future feminist candidates.

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And the would-be mayor, with a degree in journalism would not run for office based on her professional credentials, but as a PTA activist and self-styled "hockey mom." Years in the classroom or hours in the labor room; same difference. Why rack up all that student debt getting a college degree anyway? Choose to rest your identity on motherhood, choose to work at your craft. No wonder Palin is willing to run with the man who voted against enforcing equal pay.

If intersectional feminism takes in all causes that affect women, why exclude Palin's causes? If you believe in universal feminism, you must acknowledge that some fundamentalist believers are women. So Palin's position that evolution is no more credible than the Bible becomes a "feminist" choice. Hey, some SUV drivers are women, so drilling in the ANWAR wildlife refuge would be feminist, some heterosexual married people who feel diminished when gay and lesbian people get married are women, so Palin's opposition to gay marriage would also be a feminist act. And so on.

Republicans hope that Palin will be just the ticket to win over the foolish females who were miffed when the Democrats didn't nominate Hillary. After all, they're both "feminists." On the one hand, Senator Hillary Clinton, former head of the American Bar Association Commission on Women, NARAL pro-choice America record 100%, sponsor of the Lilly Ledbetter bill to restore enforcement of the equal pay law; on the other hand, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

* * *

I don't believe in Andrea Mitchell's female Republican convert. I'm guessing the crucial group of women voters the Republicans are after -- independent white women and right-leaning Democratic white women -- are going to figure out the difference. As Nation columnist Katha Pollitt put it in her inimitable way, McCain "must think we have the collective IQ of a Tampax."

But if voting women reject the Palin gambit, they are going to be saying something much bigger than she's no Hillary Clinton. They are going to be saying that even on a mass basis and among women who never said the word feminist in their life there is meaning and content to feminism. Like anything with meaning and content, there are "choices" and "interests" that are beyond the pale.

In rejecting Palin, the coveted voters will say that women's lives have moral weight, so you cannot be a candidate for their votes and simultaneously want to use the criminal law to compel childbirth.

Women voters will recall that the Enlightenment, with its scientific breakthroughs eventually put an end to widespread deaths in childbirth and enabled women to control their reproductive fate through birth control, so you can't care about women and substitute the Bible for biology.

They will positively assert that meaningful work at fair pay is part of a flourishing life, so they won't vote for someone who voted against enforcing the equal pay laws, even if his running mate happened to find the one dude in Alaska who wanted to stay home from work and raise the kids.

A movement that represents everybody actually represents nobody. Rejecting Sarah Palin could be the beginning of a renewed women's movement, a movement of content and boundaries, that uses its electoral power to achieve its ends, strategically making alliances when necessary but never losing sight of its own interests. Sarah Palin may be the woman in the year of the woman after all.

Comments

[RFBorjal]

With everything in life becoming a feminist issue, I'm now tempted to launch the Masculinist Movement.

[athenasword]

Excellent post. We reject her based on her lack of skill, her lack of demonstrated effectiveness, her poor leadership and her total lack of policy experience (foreign or otherwise). We should reject this vp pick and this ticket because they think anyone with female plumbing will do. And we should reject her/them based on their incredibly extreme views. Women by and large are insulted by her. I certainly am.

[KarateKid]

I have to wonder about that woman who could be converted 180 degrees by a speech. Actually, it scares me that there are so many people who can be swayed so easily and fall for all the palaver that is being flung. Substitute the feces of a bull for palaver and you have the right term.

[csherlan]

Sarah"s speech was written for her it does not prove you are ready to be commander and chief because you can deliver a speech. Governor Palin was groomed last night for exactly why she was picked. Which brings me to the point so she has a beautiful story okay so does most of the population. Do you think the Russians will care. How did the speech address a woman, like my best friend who has been out of a job for one year with five children because the mortgage company she worked for went out of business? How did that speech champion the right for a woman"s right to choose? How did that speech discuss equal pay and equal rights for women? She did address being a champion for special needs children and what does that mean exactly? And why is religion so prominent in this convention? Is this separation of church and state? Also the final question this speech left me wondering how good is this really for women. Obama and McCain for 18 months campaigned and won their primaries on their sweat and here comes someone that was put on a ticket for whatever reason and is given a "gun" to take aim at a person that is the Presidential nominee of the Democratic party with over 18 million votes and tell him you have done nothing. This is politics at its finest. But he is black and the GOP only recognize white.

[zann]

Palin did graduate college in Idaho, though her husband did not.

[Marmann]

Yes. She has a BS Degree.

All politicians have one of those, whether they go to college or not.

[jeanrenoir]

In selecting the pro-life under ANY circumstances except the mother's death candidate, McCain should have made the perfect move to attract every Hillary woman who was a feminist. We have to forget the Evangelicas and Catholics for life. But every other woman should now be rabidly anti-Palin, since Palin is feminism's worst nightmare, a female Reagan with the potential to quickly become the most popular woman in America among the white working class, and maybe the majority of white women period. If this happens, Palin can then bring the sword of God straight down on not just abortion rights, but every value of feminism except the right of anyone with a vagina to shatter glass ceilings, whoever they are, and however antideluvian their politics. Palin would annihilate Hillary if they met in '12, annihilate her. She's a much better snide mocker than Hillary, just for starters, and she would have plenty of fun with exposing Hillary as a phony Annie Oakley from Wellesley, whereas Palin is undeniably the real thing. No way Hillary could beat Erin Brockovich with the mob of white American women. So Hillary and every other feminist had better follow Gloria Steinem's lead today, and attack Palin with everything they've got. Because it she wins in '08, it's not going to be four more years of Bush, but twelve, and the last eight under a woman who hates all Hillary has fought for, except female ambition on the job.

[Marmann]

I've heard it alleged that Democratic women are "threatened" by Sarah Palin. You bet we are. Sarah Palin wants to break through the "glass ceiling" so she can replace it with cement.

She doesn't believe in any of the issues involving equal rights that brave women far more accomplished than Ms. Palin have fought so hard to achieve in the last 30-plus years, and she would use those very achievements in order to extinguish them.

[sdskelton03]

To the left, ms. Palin's accomplishments are to be belittled because she doesn't agree with the hard line of NOW and Naral on abortion.

I have news for you, when you belittle this woman, you alienate many voters of both genders who respect and admire this woman for all of the obvious reasons she should be admired.

For most women, abortion is not the absolute that the political class believes it is. Many woman who disagree with her on abortion will consider the republican ticket because they admire her and see in her a great role model, even if they disagree on this one issue.

[csherlan]

I am sick of this not because she is a woman does not mean she is for women. She is for the Republican Parties Agenda. Why are we so stupid. This is not a gender or peronality contest. We are at war people are dying. Senior Citizens can not afford to eat. What are you talking about. Okay when McCain Wins then let me see how we will survive. Do you think with a Military so spread can we take on Russia. WOMEN PLEASE WAKE UP YOUR CHILDREN ARE THE ONES THAT WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS.

[muddymaesuggins]

Please, expound on those "obvious reasons" for admiring Sarah Palin. I'm afraid I'm completely at a loss for coming up with even one.

[ScienceLady]

No way do I see her as a great role model. I do not agree with her position on choice/reproductive rights, creationism, theocracy,...
Let's discuss issues in addition to those. Have McCain/Palin (Obama already responded) answer the 14 questions posed in the SCIENCEDEBATE08.com. These questions ask the candidates issues about science and technology that include health care, terrorism, innovation, education, research, sciencific integrity.

sciencedebate08.com

[Bush 08]

I was quite worried to see some voters (PUMA's mostly) falling for this GOP trickery.
After reading this article, and the comments, I can see that most of us are aware of the true motivation behind choosing Palin- and all of the implications that follow... Kudos

[Lorretta]

Here we gals go again. First, Hillary, with all her accomplishments, experience and intelligent policies, gets dissed by the media as they fawn over Obama. Male bloggers spew sexist comments, female bloggers declare that she's "old school" feminist, and the DNC completely disregards her supporters because they believe the "girls" will forgive and forget because Roe v. Wade might be overturned. Now, the Republicans, after years of berating and demeaning Hillary Clinton as a woman, wife, mother, and public servant, are trying to reinvent themselves as the party of the working mom. We did it to ourselves, people. You cannot allow sexism when it suits your cause. If Chelsea Clinton wound up pregnant at 17, the Clintons would have been declared immoral and unfit parents. Had this primary been one of absolute fairness and all votes counted, we would have had a Clinton/ Obama ticket and we Democrats would be in the white house. Now, a Republican woman may beat us to it.

[stayinsouth1981]

I just clicked on the NARAL site and made a contribution. I am praying too.

[kathy001]

I love this article!!

In my view, a feminist works for the world to recognize that women are equal to men in all ways. Equally intelligent, equally productive, equally valuable. I think the 'equally intelligent' part is what is most important in the year of the woman. I absolutely LOVE Katha Pollitt's line, "...must think we have the collective IQ of a Tampax..." And I think the women of the US are going to prove to McCain that we do, in fact, have a much higher IQ than he is willing to credit us with.

[booker52]

As a woman Gov Palin does not appeal to me. Her values and beliefs are just to backwards. So no I am not buying into this ticket.

[Boadicea]

Great piece. Thanks.

[jazzman]

The imposition of burkas on the female population will come from a woman. Probably one who calls herself a feminist.