A Palin of Our Own (NY Times 8/29/10)

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Date: Aug 30, 2010

A Palin of Our Own (NY Times 8/29/10)	Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29traister.html In the 24 months since her appearance onstage in Dayton, Ohio, Ms. Palin has enthralled pundits and journalists who devote countless television hours and column inches to her every Twitter message and Facebook update, while provoking outrage and exasperation from the left. Case in point: Ms. Palin, now a Fox news contributor, and her cable colleague Glenn Beck planned a rally for Saturday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, 47 years to the day after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, a wily usurpation of an anniversary cherished by progressives and civil rights activists. The left should be outraged and exasperated by all this — but at their own failings as much as Ms. Palin’s ascension. Since the 2008 election, progressive leaders have done little to address the obvious national appetite for female leadership. And despite (or because of) their continuing obsession with Ms. Palin, they have done nothing to stop an anti-choice, pro-abstinence, socialist-bashing Tea Party enthusiast from becoming the 21st century symbol of American women in politics. What makes this all the more frustrating, of course, is that progressives helped to give Ms. Palin her start; her political career was a natural outgrowth of feminist successes. As a teen, she played basketball thanks to Title IX; as an adult, she enjoyed a professional life made possible by the involvement of her load-bearing husband Todd, entering Alaska’s governor’s mansion at 42 with four children in tow and giving birth to a fifth while there. Ms. Palin, in turn, has been making a greedy grab at claiming feminism as her own. She recently marked the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment by expressing her gratitude “to those brave feminist foremothers who struggled and sacrificed, endured imprisonment and ridicule ... to grant future generations of American women a voice.” On the same day, she sent out this Twitter message: “Who hijacked the term ‘feminist’? A cackle of rads who want 2 crucify other women w/ whom they disagree on a singular issue.” The hijacking accusation goes both ways. Ms. Palin’s infuriating ability to put a new twist on feminism — after decades of the word’s being besmirched by the right and the left — allows her to both distance herself from and accentuate the movement’s maligned reputation. Her new spin, of course, is that she does not support policies that move women forward. You’d be forgiven for thinking she does. Ms. Palin has spent much of 2010 burnishing her political bona fides and extending her influence by way of the Mama Grizzlies, a gang of Sarah- approved, maverick-y female politicians looking to “take back” America with “common-sense” solutions. Sure, the Grizzlies sound somewhat progressive on paper. But from their opposition to reproductive rights to their work against health care reform and labor policies that would empower American women, their ideas are just antiquated clichés dressed up in designer suits. Like Ms. Palin herself, their talk about being “mama bears” and “tough as an ox ... wearing lipstick” simply reduces female candidates’ political prospects to maternal worth and sex appeal. But the sad truth is that Democrats often prefer their women fulfilling similarly diminutive models for behavior. Consider how Hillary Clinton has been treated, at times, by those in her own party: Democratic leaders never really celebrated Mrs. Clinton’s nation-altering place in history as the first female candidate to get so close to a major party’s presidential nomination. Indeed, she is most appreciated when she plays well with others in the Senate or the State Department; when she behaves like a fierce competitor, she is compared to Glenn Close’s bunny-boiling virago from “Fatal Attraction.” The left’s failure to nurture and celebrate female politicians has had a significant effect on its policies. In recent years, Democratic majorities and progressive legislation seem to have been built on steady trade-offs of reproductive rights, culminating this year when the first female speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was forced to push through health care reform with a compromise on abortion financing. An older generation of female Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Pelosi, are about as eager to mount a Palin-style girl-powered campaign as they are to wear a miniskirt on the House floor. For them, proudly or aggressively touting one’s feminist credentials (if you’re actually a feminist, that is) is taboo. It’s considered too, well, female. __________________ Nobody puts THIS baby in the corner!

Sanders

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Date: Aug 30, 2010

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How very true! Hats off to ANNA HOLMES and REBECCA TRAISTER for writing it well and getting it on NY Times Op-Ed column. They sure nailed it on all fronts on this!

Jen, Thanks. Great find!

Hey, Matthews! Getting more thrills yet? Want to take out the garbage from the WH?

__________________

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freespirit

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Date: Aug 30, 2010

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I totally agree. Great article. __________________ It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less. ~Susan B. Anthony

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