Bristol Palin's been in the news a lot lately. The daughter of former Alaska governor and vice president candidate Sarah Palin burst back into the spotlight with her criticism earlier this summer of the liberal media coverage of Josh Duggar's acts of molestation, ignorantly pointing to Lena Dunham as a comparable child molester the liberal media had mostly left alone. Then, following an interview Miley Cyrus gave to Paper mag, wherein Miley told the magazine that she maintains a particular contempt for fundamentalist lawmakers who rally against the potentially life-saving changes she and her organization, the Happy Hippie Foundation, stand for, Bristol again alleged hypocrisy in a blog post:
"Is it just me or does it seem more than a little fake that someone claiming to be accepting of everyone and everything would spew such judgment toward her own parents and their deeply held religious beliefs? She wants everyone else to let her be 'free to be Miley,' but seems unwilling to offer the same respect to her parents and those who wish to live out their Christian faith."
This dig at Miley's respect for her parents comes from a line in the Paper mag interview where Miley affectionately refers to them as "conservative-ass motherfuckers."
The internet and the media responded to both of these stories with an unwarranted frenzy of enthusiasm, and since, Bristol has again been a subject of media attention.
And then, as an unwed mother of one, she got pregnant with her second child.
She announced the pregnancy on a blog post, writing, "I wanted you guys to be the first to know that I'm pregnant. Honestly, I've been trying my hardest to keep my chin up on this one.... I know this has been, and will be, a huge disappointment to my family, to my closest friends, and to many of you." She has since claimed the pregnancy was planned, but even a planned pregnancy for Bristol Palin at this time in her life flies in the face of many of the values for which she stands. She's pledged to remain celibate until marriage, frequently writes about her opposition to reproductive rights, and has been an abstinence-only advocate.
Now, she's perceived as something else: a cautionary tale, illustrative of the fact that abstinence-only sex education doesn't work (twice--her first child was born when Bristol was just 18). When we refuse to teach young people about safe sex and family planning, the likelihood of pregnancy increases.
When she announced her pregnancy, she stated, "I do not want any lectures and I do not want any sympathy."
I respect that, so this isn't a lecture. Please don't take it as one; honestly, I don't feel I have the moral high ground necessary to dole out a lecture without being a hypocrite.
But Bristol Palin doesn't either--and she's been doing a lot of lecturing lately.
When we presume to judge other people, we, if only in a de facto sense, assert that we are not guilty of the thing of which we are critical in the other person. That's a dangerous (and unwise) position to place yourself in when you're the subject of the kind of media attention that has the resources to find out if that's true or not and where any slip-ups will be broadcast far and wide.
Bristol Palin has been judgmental. She's been hypocritical, sometimes mean, and she really should take a hard look at her life and stop taking a hard look at everyone else's (an observation that applies to many of us).
That being said, when we criticize and slut-shame Bristol Palin for this pregnancy, we are no better. It can be difficult to talk about her situation without sounding judgmental--when an unmarried Christian abstinence-until-marriage advocate gets pregnant, irony abounds, and having genuine conversations about what that says about our society are important, but there's a line between frank conversation and judgmental vitriol. Skepchick's Alex Rudewell explains why the latter is so harmful, saying, "In case you need to be reminded (and apparently you do), no one deserves to be slut-shamed. Hypocrisy is not an excuse for abuse." Bristol Palin may be a hypocrite, but she's first and foremost a woman, a person, and deserving of privacy, dignity, and respect--even if she doesn't give those things to other people.
We are all a product of our upbringing, and Bristol grew up a fundamentalist Christian in a patriarchal society, the daughter of a highly visible Republican. She grew up surrounded by ideas of what a good woman is and what a good woman isn't. She is what she was raised to be, and she has been molded by a society we are all participants in--for better or for worse. And unless you want to become the subject of scrutiny for the things you've done, well. Probably better to refrain from voicing your judgment of her on this. I'm sure her judgment of herself is more severe than anything we could dole out, anyhow--and that, that dismay at a pregnancy she no doubt knew would bring an onslaught of hate and criticism and the subsequent probability that the lesson in how to treat your fellow humans will be lost amid that hate, is the true disappointment in this situation.
In the immortal words of Kimya Dawson, "If you are judging them while they are judging you, and you think that makes them assholes, maybe you're an asshole, too."
From this liberal to you, congratulations, Bristol.