From the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald:
Miranda Devine
September 4, 2008
You would think the prospect of a woman in the White House as US vice-president - and a working mother to boot - would be welcomed by feminists. Not one bit.
The excoriation of the Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin, since John McCain unveiled her as his surprise running mate last week just goes to show that establishment feminists are only champions of women who subscribe to a narrow set of left-wing positions. They despise conservative women more than any man, and civil wars are always the most vicious.
Which is why the largest American feminist group, the National Organisation for Women, wasted no time issuing a statement saying it did not endorse Palin because she was not the "right woman" and did not speak "for" women.
Palin is not "for" women because she is pro-life, the organisation said. Old-school feminists have long seen abortion on demand as an article of faith, even though half of all foetuses are female and the views on abortion among women are mixed, with opposition to late-term abortions growing.
Palin calls herself a feminist. As a member of the "Feminists for Life of America" pro-life group, she's just the wrong type. "I believe in the strength and the power of women, and the potential of every human life," she says.
The youngest of her five children, four-month-old son Trig, was born with Down syndrome. The disability was picked up during the pregnancy and her choice to go to term has struck a chord with America's "faith-based community." She said of her baby in a recent interview: "I'm looking at him right now and I see perfection. Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking: 'In our world, what is normal and what is perfect?'."
You might think such a joyous human reaction should be applauded by anyone. But the reaction of left-wing establishment feminists to Palin is visceral hatred.
In a column titled, "A feminist appalled by Palin", The Huffington Post's Sarah Seltzer described her reaction when she heard of Palin's nomination. "I was on the elliptical trainer, and my rage propelled me to the most furious workout I've had in a while … a lot of feminists out there are appalled by the cynicism and condescension inherent in this choice … It's no rare thing for the right wing to use prominent women to keep the rest of us down. But just because Sarah Palin is a woman doesn't mean she's good for women."
But being blackballed by the National Organisation for Women and denounced by enraged lefties is a plus for Palin, whose great appeal is the nose-thumbing ballsiness of her politically incorrect persona. She's a hunting, shooting former beauty queen/mother of five/career woman with a hunky blue-collar husband who not only works on oil rigs and runs a commercial fishing operation but is part Inuit and a snowmobile racer who has been dubbed Alaska's First Dude.
Palin is just so good you wonder if she is human or a cyborg created in Republican Party headquarters.
The attacks on her expose the elitism, condescension and moral rootlessness of the feminist establishment. It will serve to shore up support for Palin among those who are not so intolerant.
Her political life story does not begin in the usual feminist training grounds, not from a desire for power but a desire to help out at her children's school. In her first speech with McCain last week she paid tribute to her husband and described how she got into politics. "We were busy raising our kids. I was serving as the team mom and coaching some basketball on the side. I got involved in the PTA [school parents' group] and then was elected to the city council and then elected mayor of my hometown."
Her political trajectory will resonate with any "average hockey mom". But anti-Palin forces in the US media have been doing their best to marginalise her as a dangerous "right-wing extremist" "fanatically anti-abortion", "hard right", "global warming-denying", a "rabid conservative", and a "fire-breather".
No evidence is produced. She has been painted as a loopy Christian proponent of creationism, hell-bent on having the theory of evolution replaced in schools. But in fact, in what appears to be her trademark reasonable style, this is what she said about creationism in 2006 while running for the Alaskan governorship.
"I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum … Don't be afraid of information."
She is attacked as a homophobe, yet her first veto as Governor was to block legislation taking away health benefits from same-sex partners of public service employees.
This week she was branded a liar, covering up the fact that Trig was the child of her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol. The story wasn't true but it developed such momentum she was forced to reveal Bristol was pregnant and was planning to marry the father.
It does sound like a soap opera, but busy real lives can get messy, as anyone with one knows.
Then there is the question of Trig, who Palin is reportedly still breast-feeding. "What I've had to do … is, in the middle of the night, put down the BlackBerry and pick up the breast pump," she said last week.
How can a mother of five with a disabled baby manage to campaign for the vice-presidency while giving adequate attention to her children? Does it expose a selfish ambition? These are questions being asked most prominently by feminist women, of all people. As The New York Times put it: "Palin has set off a fierce argument among women about whether there are enough hours in the day for her to take on the vice-presidency, and whether she is right to try."
But these questions would not be asked of a man, and in any case Palin's husband Todd has taken leave from his job to take care of his family. Palin's family choices are not what every mother wants but they are choices plenty of our most accomplished women have made for at least two generations.
Palin is a woman who does seem to be able to do it all, yet feminists don't believe she should. So who is holding women back from the glass ceiling?
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