Sarah Palin Article

So, I haven't posted anything in quite some time. I'll post a few of the articles I wrote for Georgetown University publications to start off with, and try to be more regular after that (just for you multitude of fans!)

First, here is my stirring defense of Sarah Palin. To clarify: I do not like this woman all that much. I hope she doesn't run for President. Nevertheless, just as I always find myself defending President Bush Jr., I found myself having to defend Palin. So here it is, folks:

Note to Feminists: Sarah Palin Is A Woman (And Women Love Her)
Caitlin Barr ‘09

Sarah Palin is not a feminist. Indeed, despite the lipstick and the skirt suits, she is not even a woman. At least this is what many angry feminists would have you believe. In practically the same breath, mainstream feminists accuse the media of sexism directed against Sarah Palin and claim that Palin is not a woman. This is simply baffling.

The National Organization for Women was the first to respond to McCain’s shrewd choice of Palin as his running mate: female voters, according to their press release, “will surely not find Sarah Palin to be an advocate for women.” The shape of feminism’s response to Palin begins to be defined here. Palin may be a female, but she doesn’t speak for women and certainly isn’t a feminist.

This sentiment was echoed in stronger language by Feministing.org’s Jessica Valenti, who spoke at Georgetown University last spring. Jessica wrote on her blog, “even more interesting is that the reporters touting this Palin-as-feminist nonsense are people who pretty much know jack shit about feminism.” With this brief statement, Jessica, a twenty-something young woman who has held brief stints at such illustrious organizations as NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and Ms. Magazine and now devotes her time to running a blog, dismissed out of hand her fellow female journalists working at, among others, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Despite Jessica’s claims to authority, she’s just a little bit out of her league.

But dear old Jessica Valenti wasn’t, for once, the most radical feminist out there. A commenter on her website wrote, “What defines a woman is not what is between her legs, but what is between her ears.” I see. Modern feminism not only knows better than any woman with any conservative leanings what gender she is, but also better than biology.
Sadly, this commenter was not the only woman who denied Palin her womanhood.

Apparently, these days, femininity and traditional values actually make you less of a woman. Wendy Doniger, Professor at University of Chicago’s well-respected Divinity school, wrote for the Washington Post: “[Palin’s] greatest hypocrisy is in the pretense that she is a woman.” Doniger goes on to make a limp, yet resentful argument about how sex is just like religion and how Palin should stop imposing her views on the subjects on everyone else (when liberals like Obama do it, though, its just fine.)

A vicious article on Salon.com opens with the claim that “Sarah Palin may be a lady, but she ain't no woman.” The article goes on to lament Republican misogyny while simultaneously describing Palin as a “Republican blow-up doll,” a “hyperconservative, f***able, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a 'sexy librarian' costume,” and a “power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty.” But how could this be sexism? After all, Sarah’s not even a woman. The mainstream feminists have truly lost it.

Luckily, the fear that these mainstream feminists’ vitriol is surely based in is warranted. A recent Lifetime Network poll shows that McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate has helped him overwhelmingly amongst women voters. When asked who has a “better understanding of women and what is most important to them,” 44% of women answered McCain/ Palin and 42% answered Obama/Biden. This stands in stark contrast to Lifetime’s July poll, which found only 18% of women responding McCain to the same question. Most women have not lost their minds and can see Palin for what she is: a strong, fearless and impressive woman who stands up for what she believes is best for women and for all Americans and will not sacrifice her values for any contrived notion of who she should be.

I have only a layman’s understanding of feminism; I have never taken a class on it and have read only a little feminist literature. Nevertheless, it has always been my understanding that the movement was intended to allow women to define their own identities and futures outside of external pressures. Instead of advancing women’s freedom to define themselves, mainstream feminism has become just another pressure telling women what they can or cannot do. Instead of being told that we must submit to our husbands, cook, clean, and raise children, young women are now told that we must support liberal economic policies, advocate for abortion and birth control, and even vote against a female candidate in order to properly be considered women. This leaves all women – even career-oriented, intelligent, successful women, who hold traditional or conservative views – in the dust.

So what does make Sarah Palin a woman and even a feminist? The fact that she has five children, a husband, and can walk so well in heels proves that she is indeed, a woman. But Palin is also a feminist, a new, less bitter and more prudent kind of feminist. Sarah is a member of Feminists for Life, a wonderful organization that tackles the abortion issue from a pro-life and uniquely feminist standpoint and has done more than any other group to get young pregnant mothers the help they need, particularly on college campuses. Palin is also living proof of what a feminist can do if she sets her mind to it: namely, rise to a position of great political power without sacrificing family or femininity.