I received a wonderful email from a woman who sums up some of what I have been trying to say about the unique sexism aimed at Sarah Palin.
An attractive woman can't be smart because other women are jealous and want to diminish her as dumb or fake; and men look at them as sex objects and also want them to be something less.
If you don't think that there is a sexual diminishing of Sarah Palin, than you have not seen all of the Photoshopped nude pictures and fake sex scenes of Sarah that pollute the Internet.
Here is the letter I received:
I think that the issue with Sarah Palin is that America hates Attractive, Intelligent, Firecrackers, who at their core are really good people.
Funny thing is, we Americans created that character.
When American drama started, we as a country even in our earliest stages where exhausted by the "female lover/victim" that was the main character of every European Romantic Play/Novel. We pulled the funny "Zany", comic, ballsy side out from behind the shadow of the romantic damsel in distress and made her the main character. We opened the door to vaudeville, Ethel Merman, and the good ol "Broads" of America.
All of that is fine and well, as long as these characters are singing and dancing and entertaining us, and powerful in that way, but what if one of those gals believes that she can do a fantastic job fixing our country? What if one of the little girls that was raised hearing "You can be anything you want to be" is Vivacious enough to go for it, with out losing her morality or (gasp!) her sense of style? Oh no... that is too much.
I think the reasoning is, that to be all the things that America admires in their women in REAL life is REALLY, REALLY hard... and not only takes guts but also takes being more than a little naturally blessed, realizing that and taking advantage of it to the best of your ability.
The attacks on Palin have been really upsetting, especially to a 25 year old who's been raised feeling that I'm supported and encouraged to become... well, someone like Sarah Palin!
I always think of the lines of this Ani Difranco (another strong American woman) song in relation to Sarah Palin. Thought you'd enjoy the analogies.
I highlighted the piece that reminds me of her in Red.
32 Flavors
By Ani DiFranco
squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
i am a poster girl with no poster
i am thirty-two flavors and then some
and I'm beyond your peripheral vision
so you might want to turn your head
cause someday you're going to get hungry
and eat most of the words you just said
both my parents taught me about good will
and i have done well by their names
just the kindness I've lavished on strangers
is more than i can explain
still there's many who've turned out their porch lights
just so i would think they were not home
and hid in the dark of their windows
till I'd passed and left them alone
and god help you if you are an ugly girl
course too pretty is also your doom
cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room
and god help you if you are a phoenix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying past
I'm not trying to give my life meaning
by demeaning you
and i would like to state for the record
i did everything that i could do
I'm not saying that I'm a saint
i just don't want to live that way
no, i will never be a saint
but i will always say
squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
i am a poster girl with no poster
i am thirty-two flavors and then some
and I'm beyond your peripheral vision
so you might want to turn your head
cause someday you might find you're starving
and eating all of the words you said
- Molly from Pennsylvania
Thank you Molly. Maybe Sarah Palin was just the first of many. It is always more difficult for the first. Just ask Jackie Robinson
11 comments:
So let me get this straight. Palin is a VICTIM? She has come from a position of obscurity from a national point of view and she is now in the midst of the biggest event of the year (and quite probably of the decade, possibly longer). She is in a position to "win" regardless of the outcome of the election. No matter the results politically she is on the top of the world from a popularity standpoint. She is going to absolutely clean up monetarily from this. We're talking multi-millions of dollars from speaking tours, book writing and everything else that goes with this immense popularity. Not to mention she now has a leg up if she dares re-enter the national political stage. Of course to do that she had better do something to improve her abilities because right now she's a mess. In any case it is totally ludicrous to paint her as a VICTIM. We should ALL be such.
And Barack Obama is a victim? McCain casually says "that one" during a debate and everyone is up in arms... while people are massively critizing Sarah Palin's choice to join the race as a VP candidate, because she has a special needs child. Really? Why the attacks? Why the attacks on her child... who is pregnant, and made her CHOICE as a woman to do that maternal thing and have her child. I don't think Sarah Palin, who sold a personal jet on Ebay to help the Alaskan government's debt, cares about her book deals... or millions. And seriously... you are calling her a mess...? She scared the democratic party after her first speech, and went from a status of "who is Sarah Palin?" to vicious attacks on all aspects of Sarah Palin's life in the biased media, because they were scared and intimidated. I really don't believe that if Hillary Clinton had won the party nomination her choices as a woman would be critized as Sarah Palin's have been...
You "anonymous" are most likely just annoyed because Sarah Palin is a woman, attractive and most likely smarter than you.
I have at no point thought Obama was a "victim." That is a pathetic argument to make about ANY of the nominees. McCain says "that one." So what. I object to Sarah Palin because she is patently UNQUALIFIED for the job. Period. That is my ONLY argument against her. What you say is typical of her defenders. "You hate her because she is pretty...she is aggressive....she is a woman....she is smart...." Give me a break. She is in no way ready to be president....and THAT is the only qualification she need meet. She does NOT measure up. That's it. That is my position and that is the position of 95% of the people who are against her. So come off your high horse and get a grip. It isn't about her kids and it isn't about her legs. It is about that coconut on top of her shoulders. She is not ready. And since NAMES are important to you I've added mine.
By the way Jennifer, she didn't SELL the jet on e-bay....she listed it and it got no takers. She then unloaded in a sweetheart deal to a political supporter. At least get your rhetoric straight. If you're gonna preach from that stump it is best to know what you are talking about.
Hugs, Tony
it wasn't a personal jet either, it was a state jet
Tony, the experiment that is the United States is predicated, fundamentally, upon a rejection of aristocracy. Sarah Palin is running a state. Her approval rating exceeds that of the vaunted "elites" in congress by some 60+ percentage points. I have a Stanford-Binet IQ almost three standard deviations above average and I can endorse a paraphrase of Bill Buckley with no compunction that I'd rather be governed by two thousand Sarah Palins than the two thousand faculty members at Harvard.
Upon what do you predicate your elitism, Tony? Care to offer up your ivy league bona fides? Hell, let's just dispense with the republic (since it elects such dissolute fools as W. and Palin), coronate Baracky and commence a line of philosopher kings? I mean, these boorish voters and their Sarah Palin boosterism; WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF THEIR OWN WELLBEING?!? Plebs! Insolent uppity hicks!
Tony -
Do you really think that Obama is more qualified to lead than Sarah? Just to set you and america straight, Sarah isn't running for president, and yet, people keep comparing her experience to Obamas... maybe because you can't compare in experience Obama and McCain... McCain just wins. Well to quote Sarah, running a state is "Sort of like a community organizer, but with ACTUAL responsibilities".
The sad truth of the matter from my perspective as a voter is that had McCain chosen Mitt Romney as his running he had my vote. I would absolutely be voting McCain/Romney over Obama OR Clinton. McCain chose a running mate that left me no choice but to vote for Obama. I'll say it again, Palin is not prepared to hold the office for which she is running.
malaclypse~ you go to all the trouble to demonstrate your extreme intelligence to the point that I'm embarrassed for you and then you call ME elitist? What in any part of any post do I show myself to be elitist? I gave my opinions and views on the subject. I'm sorry I'm just too plain stupid to understand you and your three standard deviations. My IQ is a meager 138. I'm slumming compared to you.
I am pretty sure everyone in American understands Sarah Palin by now. Can there be any disagreement that this vacuous woman has no place on a national ticket? Just imagine a ticket with her at the top! Does that make any sense? Well, given McCain’s advanced age, his unwillingness to make his medical records widely available and his having had bouts of the most deadly form of skin cancer, you must envision Ms. Palin at the top of the ticket.
Over the past six weeks she has proven her ability to learn and regurgitate information but does she have intellect to be the leader of the free world? I think the evidence against that is overwhelming. Furthermore, despite her deeply religious views, in just a few years as Governor, her ethics have proven to be challenged.
It has been determined now for certain, that she and her husband conducted themselves unethically in reassigning the Alaska Safety Director solely because he refused to fire her ex brother in law.
I was listening to a right wing radio host who said Sarah Palin was the ideal choice for McCain. “Who else” she opined “could fill stadiums for political rallies”. Is that the calculus that went into the Palin pick? Is that the criteria we use in America for choosing our VP candidates?
This same talk show host went on to say that the campaign was foolish to have Palin talk with Gibson and Couric. Alternately, she suggested, Palin should have been interviewed by local news people instead.
I saw the Gibson and Couric interviews. They weren’t exactly withering. Do you support the Bush Doctrine? What periodicals do you read? Are these what the GOP considers trick questions? The fact that Palin stumped by the simplest of questions should give everyone in America pause but the campaign considers it sandbagging.
Then we have the debates where the question wasn’t how well will she do but can she manage not to screw up. This is now the new bar in American politics.
Did she screw up? Well that depends on what your definition of is, is. She didn’t answer a single question posed to her. Instead, like Mr. Memory in Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, she emptied her brain of all she had been taught during the previous three days. In fact, she bragged to the moderator that this was her intent. She then proceed to wink and “you becha” her way through, substituting sex appeal for substance.
What of McCain in all this, the so called maverick? He is a maverick no more. A maverick would have bucked his staff’s insistence on picking Palin. We all know he had some very competent people in mind. People he had known and worked with for many years. People with the skill sets and intellect to take over as President on day one, if necessary. Unfortunately, the ex-Maverick was overruled by his campaign, a campaign whose communications director famously said “McCain doesn’t speak for the campaign” Sadly that is the state of the Republican Party at the national level lately. From Regan to Bush and now McCain, the candidates are controlled by architects and puppeteers like Rove. It is not the candidate that matters, only the party. (Could you imagine Clinton being control by political operatives like Rove?).
So at the GOP it is not competence nor intellect nor statesmanship that matters. The bar is set at who can fill stadiums.
I predict Palin will complete her term as Governor and then fade into the Alaska wilderness.
This is crap. Sarah Palin is NOT a victim. People may find her attractive even though I do not see why and I have a foot fetish also. Sexism has been around for years and even though we SHOULD NOT promote it, why is it just because some people do they are sexist? People got mad because they hated her not because she's a woman but because all she could do through her campaign was slam Obama, and now people are upset because someone likes her shoes. Get over your selves and find something legitimate to cry over. Like our economy and our dwindling future. She's made millions off of this campaign and off of her supporters so just get over this sexist crap.
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