2008 Woodie Awards
Palin is at odds with feminist ideals
Issue date: 10/9/08
Sarah Palin's vice-presidential bid has brought a confusing maelstrom of criticism and fervent support from women across the country. The debate over Palin's qualifications, political views and personal life reflect deep-set and bitter social issues that characterize gender relations today.
But let's start with confessions. I think I am one of the few 20-year-old American women today who will admit to being a feminist. At some point in the journey from the 1960s women's movements to our own generation, in which many kids our age watched mothers juggle careers and families, it has somehow become taboo to be a feminist. The stereotype today is that a feminist is a militant liberal who refuses to shave her legs. I do shave my legs, I am not a militant liberal, I am a feminist and although I decided long ago to vote for Obama, I liked John McCain up until the day he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate.
While Palin's religion-infused ideology is abhorrent to many women, I think what really bothers us about her is not so much what she says, but who she is, and how the McCain campaign has tried to manipulate this identity to win women voters. It is the fascinating issue of Palin's own femininity, her identity as a "hockey mom," her photo shoots and the famous picture of her wearing an American flag bikini and shooting a rifle that makes her so interesting to us all.
A Sept. 7 spread in the British newspaper, The Telegraph, declared: "Sarah Palin brings the Hillary Clinton era to an End." The editorialist, Anne Applebaum, opines that Palin has broken the "powerful woman" archetype laid out by Hillary Clinton's style of "frequently chilly, determinedly frumpy, visibly calculating, pointedly humorless," as the norm for powerful American women. For the women of Clinton's generation, motherhood and public power sat in an uncomfortable and often unmanageable arrangement.
Palin however, according to Applebaum's analysis of our society, proves that women can attain political power without "wearing shapeless trouser suits and looking frosty," but instead by engaging their femininity as an asset and fighting point. Palin's generation of "post-feminists," born at the tail end of the baby boom, was the first generation able to take a woman's right to a college education and a career for granted.
But let's start with confessions. I think I am one of the few 20-year-old American women today who will admit to being a feminist. At some point in the journey from the 1960s women's movements to our own generation, in which many kids our age watched mothers juggle careers and families, it has somehow become taboo to be a feminist. The stereotype today is that a feminist is a militant liberal who refuses to shave her legs. I do shave my legs, I am not a militant liberal, I am a feminist and although I decided long ago to vote for Obama, I liked John McCain up until the day he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate.
While Palin's religion-infused ideology is abhorrent to many women, I think what really bothers us about her is not so much what she says, but who she is, and how the McCain campaign has tried to manipulate this identity to win women voters. It is the fascinating issue of Palin's own femininity, her identity as a "hockey mom," her photo shoots and the famous picture of her wearing an American flag bikini and shooting a rifle that makes her so interesting to us all.
A Sept. 7 spread in the British newspaper, The Telegraph, declared: "Sarah Palin brings the Hillary Clinton era to an End." The editorialist, Anne Applebaum, opines that Palin has broken the "powerful woman" archetype laid out by Hillary Clinton's style of "frequently chilly, determinedly frumpy, visibly calculating, pointedly humorless," as the norm for powerful American women. For the women of Clinton's generation, motherhood and public power sat in an uncomfortable and often unmanageable arrangement.
Palin however, according to Applebaum's analysis of our society, proves that women can attain political power without "wearing shapeless trouser suits and looking frosty," but instead by engaging their femininity as an asset and fighting point. Palin's generation of "post-feminists," born at the tail end of the baby boom, was the first generation able to take a woman's right to a college education and a career for granted.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
leslie
posted 10/10/08 @ 12:16 AM EST
My dear, if you feel "belittled and enraged" because of Sarah Palin, my guess is you were enraged long before her--and my heart goes out to you. However, you are quite wrong--Sarah Palin is redefining feminism in a distinct and marked way, and she is changing the public consciousness. (Continued…)
D
posted 10/10/08 @ 3:12 PM EST
Hillary isnt frumpy but professional. If she looks tired its because she is working hard. Sarah Palin looks like a church lady. She should open up another button on her shirts and free up that bee hive hair a little. (Continued…)
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