But Aside from Bumper Sticker Snark
Ever since Hilary Clinton was railroaded out of the democratic race by sexism and even “her own” party (I scare quote that because women don’t really have a party, no matter how much dedication they’ve shown to “theirs”), I’ve largely lost interest in the election. But of course it is difficult to impossible to avoid seeing anything about it. So I caught a few of the highlights of the Democratic convention, culminating in the Republican candidate’s announcement that – surprise! Look he’s picking a woman for VP! See, Republicans don’t hate women after all!
Of course, being Republicans – for anyone not clear on US politics, that’s the major political party which openly and aggressively loathes women, not the major political party which pretends to care about “women’s concerns” (like laws that say it isn’t okay to beat your wife to death and allowing women a teensy bit of say over what goes on in their state-owned uteri) fr just long enough to get a sizable chunk of them to vote for them and then forgets all about it (i.e. Democrats) – to allow one of the little ladies to arise to such a height of significance they had to search the party for a woman who shows she absolutely, completely understands the patriarchal mandate and will support it at all costs. So they end up with a first class god-bag – she’s from Assemblies of God, and lest any angry people come along and say I’m being unfair, I was raised in that church and I know exactly how hateful they are. She has five children, the youngest just a few months old. She is an ardent defender of laws that make women into incubators for the holy sperm without any say in the matter once a male has decided to dump some inside a receptacle of his choice. She’s won beauty pageants, demonstrating her desire and willingness to adhere to the patriarchy’s double standard of “do whatever men expect of you to be sexually attractive but zomg don’t be a slut!”
Now, in the tradition of the great Andrea Dworkin, I do want to be fair to Palin. I have never been to Alaska but from all I hear it is a place more heavily infected with manly patriarchal culture then many others. You know, the open frontier tough guys myth that always discounts all the work women have done and did do on the frontier (as well as glossing over how they had to kill rape and murder the indigenous inhabitants and destroy the ecosystem to bring the “wealth and civilization” they brought). So first of all I would like to say that in spite of that, and in spite of even just the general American misogyny and the patriarchy of the whole world – she’s done damn well for herself. She’s made the deals with patriarchy all of the prominent right-wing women you’ve ever heard of have made. In a sense, she is one of capitalist-patriarchy’s favorite types of women – the tough little gal who isn’t TOO tough and is still pretty in spite of it all, but by gum she’s smart and feisty and look at her go! *patronizing chuckle* She will never be allowed to be as good as one of the boys, but as long as she shows she is willing to take second place and support their agenda unquestioningly, they will let her play. Somehow she swallows that crap and has become “successful” – something I damn well couldn’t manage, I just left home at the earliest possible moment.
What I am more interested in is not a critique of Sarah Palin herself, her life and choices, but more a look at why, exactly, McCain chose her, and public reaction to this. Well people can come up with whatever they want to say but to me it couldn’t be more obvious that a major, major factor in McCain’s choice for an extremely young, inexperienced politician from a state most Americans barely think about is, ironically enough for a party which claims to reject “identity politics” and “quotas”, because she is a woman. I guess he had to look real hard to find a woman who supported the hardline anti-woman campaign the Republicans are running. Most women are able to muster a little more self-respect than Palin, but she has almost completely bought in. Now I say almost because she’s a member of “Feminists for Life” (insert snarky comment about that organization here) and has done something very interesting recently which I will discuss a bit further down. But back to McCain – he has chosen a person who, by all lights of the political establishment, including McCain’s own statements earlier in this very campaign, is completely unfit to be president if McCain should die. Not a shred of international experience, very little political experience at all, very young. He only picked her because she was a woman.
Now WHY did McCain think it was important to pick a woman as running mate? Could it be he spontaneously realized some of the inequities facing women in the world and wanted to give a deserving woman a chance to break a glass ceiling? That would be nice, heartening, and totally, completely out of character for the Republican ethic. No, he chose her BECAUSE Hilary isn’t on the ticket. He chose her because this is what he thinks of women: that all the women who were going to vote for Hilary Clinton were ONLY going to do so because she has a vagina – because he believes all women who support other women in politics only do so out of vagina loyalty. “Heh well those chicks are all disappointed over Hilary, if I just put a woman on the ticket, they will ignore the fact that we directly oppose women’s best interests and come vote for her! It’s a gal thing, just like whatever it is you all do in the girl’s bathroom when you’re powdering your little feminine noses.” THATS HOW LITTLE HE THINKS ABOUT WOMEN’S POLITICAL SENSE.
He could have chosen Condolezza Rice if he wanted a powerful woman as a running mate (and some are wondering why he didn’t.) He could have chosen any number of prominent Republican women. But he chose a nice, safe little nobody – who outside of Alaska has ever heard of Palin? Raise your hands. He chose he BECAUSE she’s safe. She is the anti-Hilary. Hilary was “too bold” for America – daring to fight to keep her own name (even though she eventually lost that fight), speaking boldly for her own self in public, acting like and expecting to be treated like any of the men in her political circle. While Hilary too, of course, to get the support she did, had to cling to the mainstream, middle of the road psuedo-liberalism of the Democratic party, whenever she could she made an effort to reach out to women and stand up for women’s rights. It is difficult to imagine Palin doing the same.
But this segues nicely into American reactions to Palin. Of course, there hasn’t been a lot of chances yet – this was a true political surprise. I didn’t hear her name mentioned until the day she was named. And the first conversation I had about this with a man – a “liberal” man, mind you – I heard “well she has five children and the youngest is just a few months old, so she has NO BUSINESS RUNNING FOR VICE PRESIDENT.” Upon calling him on his bullshit he backtracked heavily saying well, you know, her husband isn’t raising them either, they have a nanny, and he “just doesn’t believe” nannies should raise children. Considering every political family raises their children this way and the existence of young spawn has never been mentioned as a detriment to any man’s campaign, I was, of course, quite irritated by this. But this coming from a supposedly liberal guy who is, sadly, one of the less sexist men I know, tells me that her many children will become an issue to some people. Lesson one for Palin – they won’t let you do it all. As a woman, you are screwed no matter what you do. Marry and have lots of kids because it is the patriarchal godbag mandate, then get told you can’t “succeed” because you’re supposed to be home taking care of them.
Lesson Two for Palin – while vagina loyalty is expected from the masses of women who should supposedly vote for her because of it, she herself is not allowed to show any. So while even Palin herself recognizes, or pretends to recognize, that she owes a great debt to Hilary Clinton – another woman – for forging this path she is now walking on, she isn’t allowed to say anything about it, even as a way of graciously acknowledging someone she’s moved ahead of:
“I think as well today of two other women who came before me in national elections, and I can’t begin this great effort without honoring the achievements of Geraldine Ferraro back in 1984 and of course, Senator Hillary Clinton,” Palin said. The reaction from the audience was loud boos. No solidarity with other women is allowed, Sarah. To succeed at this game, you must think only of yourself and act like you got here on your two feet with no help or support from anyway else, because that’s the Republican myth – you do it by your own bootstraps, not by standing on the shoulders of giants.
And finally we get the news that her daughter, age 17, is pregnant. NOT ONLY is she planning to marry this high school student off (one suspects the girl is being given little choice), a move that in itself fills me with nausea, but the reason she announced it is because of these rumors that her youngest child was really her daughter’s and she was pretending it was her own to protect her. Palin apparently hid her recent pregnancy up until the end – with the discrimination pregnant women face, that is quite understandable to me – and worked up until she was in labor. Her daughter is apparently further along in her pregnancy than he new baby is old, thus effectively making it impossible for Palin’s youngest child to be her grandchild. But the mere fact of these inquisitive rumors and the judging of every step taken in these matters is sickening. It is understandable, in a party that caters to godbags who demand virginity (for girls) until marriage and forcible birth and compulsory marriage, that Palin would take this route with her own daughter, essentially sacrificing her life and future for her political campaign. It is that she is forced into such choices and political grandstanding with her own family that makes me ill. That she has to expose her daughter in such a way to fend off offensive queries about her own uterus.
From a “purely political” standpoint – leaving aside such “silly” concerns as the rights and status of half the population – we know everything we need to know about her appointment by looking at the news that Christian evangelicals are practically creaming themselves over her appointment. Anything that makes the ultra-religious fundamentalist terrorists of any country this happy is pretty much guaranteed to be a bad thing, not only for women (although mostly for women), but for everyone except the ruling elite.
And we know everything we need to know about how terribly women are hated and how they are seen as inhuman by the existence of such phrases and sights I have seen in just a quick web search looking for information about this candidate out of nowhere: “Sarah Palin is otherwise known as the hottest governor in the country.” And the term “PILF” and “VPILF”, which I will not define, but leave it up to you to figure out.
I can’t not wish her luck – if she thought being a good Christian Republican girl would keep her from being vilified and ridiculed and made into a sex object, she’s totally wrong. But I can’t wish her well either, niot when she’s working to take my rights away from me for her own self-aggrandizement.
