I have wanted to see a woman in the Oval Office since I was but a wee thing, and not only because I spent a rather small portion of my high school career wanting to be that woman. At the same time, however, I have always known that said woman would have to be tough as nails, because while every success will be interpreted as her own, every failure will be interpreted as a referendum on the fitness of any woman to hold the office. The moral of every gaffe, snafu, and poor policy decision will be, 'And that's what you get for letting a woman be your Commander In Chief', and whosoever fucks it up will fuck it up unto the seventh generation for women who might follow her.
Sometimes it sucks being a woman competing in mostly-male arenas, because you can never tell how much your vagina gives stat bonuses or penalties. If you get passed over during a selection process, is it because the people doing the choosing didn't think you could do it, or because they didn't think a woman could do it? Likewise, if you get chosen, is it because those same people thought the position was right for you, or right for a woman?
I remember
a political ad on the Commercial Closet that has two gay men discussing mayorial candidates, one gay, one straight. One of the gay men says, 'Don't we have to vote for one of our own?' The other one responds by basically saying, no, you have to look at more than just the candidate's similarities to you.
There's a difference between being selected while you have a uterus, and being selected because you have a uterus. The former is when you're Hillary Clinton, a well-educated political powerhouse who can hold your own against some real nasty bastards. The latter is when you're Harriet Miers, and nobody can figure out how your name got on the long list, much less the short one.
It's not only possible for women to be anti-woman, it's downright easy, especially when you're a woman of privilege. So many so-called 'women's issues' -- birth control, abortion, child care, and education, just to name a few -- are significantly tied to economic considerations. Many women with enough wealth to exercise full control over their reproduction and offspring seem all too ready to forget that they have access to choices and resources that lower-income women can only dream about.
What do all these thoughts have to do with
McCain's VP choice? Hard to say. (On a related note, Wikipedia has taught me that
she's Pentecostal! Now there's something you don't see every day!)