ongoing thoughts on Sarah Palin
I plan on writing about how (and why) the VP nom for Sarah Palin will set back women in national, executive politics by years. But first:
I'm torn about the Bristol Palin thing, honestly. The coverage on this story exposes a mode of thinking, pervasive in both parties, that women, especially teen-aged women, who get pregnant out of wedlock are morally bankrupt and deserve our scorn. It also exposes the rather short (and perhaps incomplete) vetting process that McCain undertook before announcing his VP pick. Both underscore the overwhelming sexism in this country.
McCain chose a running mate, he thought, would draw the disaffected Hillary supporters and shore up his own standing with religious conservatives. What he's gotten is a lightweight politician with a record of flip-flopping and seeking out earmarks who is facing an ethics investigation in her home state--hardly the maverick he envisioned. Which leads to the question: Why Palin?
Simply put, the McCain campaign was more concerned with nominating a "historical" VP than experience or balancing out the ticket. So who was McCain trying to draw in with this pick? Pro-life women? They were already with McCain by and large. Hillary supporters? Does he truly think women vote with their genitalia rather than their brains?
No. He's drawing in men, who think "she's hot," who get to decry the sexism in the media when it's used against Palin but who enjoyed (if not participated in) it when it was used against HRC.
And he does this under the banner of breaking the glass ceiling. What hypocrisy; what a joke.
Similarly, McCain's supporters are decrying the media circus over Bristol Palin as an invasion of the family's privacy. They hold up Sarah and Bristol Palin as a moral mother and girl deserving of our sympathy (as opposed to scorn). That's all well and good. If only they acknowledged that the other teen-aged women, the ones without a governor for a mother, face this same choice and don't deserve our scorn. If only they didn't use the problem of teen pregnancy as a stick to herd religion back into public schools. If only they acknowledged a woman's pregnancy, indeed her entire body, is her own, private matter in all situations, not just when one some pretty Republican is under fire.
I'm torn about the Bristol Palin thing, honestly. The coverage on this story exposes a mode of thinking, pervasive in both parties, that women, especially teen-aged women, who get pregnant out of wedlock are morally bankrupt and deserve our scorn. It also exposes the rather short (and perhaps incomplete) vetting process that McCain undertook before announcing his VP pick. Both underscore the overwhelming sexism in this country.
McCain chose a running mate, he thought, would draw the disaffected Hillary supporters and shore up his own standing with religious conservatives. What he's gotten is a lightweight politician with a record of flip-flopping and seeking out earmarks who is facing an ethics investigation in her home state--hardly the maverick he envisioned. Which leads to the question: Why Palin?
Simply put, the McCain campaign was more concerned with nominating a "historical" VP than experience or balancing out the ticket. So who was McCain trying to draw in with this pick? Pro-life women? They were already with McCain by and large. Hillary supporters? Does he truly think women vote with their genitalia rather than their brains?
No. He's drawing in men, who think "she's hot," who get to decry the sexism in the media when it's used against Palin but who enjoyed (if not participated in) it when it was used against HRC.
And he does this under the banner of breaking the glass ceiling. What hypocrisy; what a joke.
Similarly, McCain's supporters are decrying the media circus over Bristol Palin as an invasion of the family's privacy. They hold up Sarah and Bristol Palin as a moral mother and girl deserving of our sympathy (as opposed to scorn). That's all well and good. If only they acknowledged that the other teen-aged women, the ones without a governor for a mother, face this same choice and don't deserve our scorn. If only they didn't use the problem of teen pregnancy as a stick to herd religion back into public schools. If only they acknowledged a woman's pregnancy, indeed her entire body, is her own, private matter in all situations, not just when one some pretty Republican is under fire.