What my friends and I are talking about these days: Sarah Palin.
Among those I know, she truly has solidified existing pro-McCain or pro-Obama feelings; this was a pick aimed straight at the base, and it’s performing accordingly. What’s interesting to me is the cynicism with which conservative commentators and party faithful have embraced and defended her, and the largely hands-off approach the Obama camp has taken.
Clearly this was not the most qualified woman McCain could have chosen. But if you need a pro-life candidate to make the social conservatives happy AND you still want to seem moderate and reasonable, then choosing a pro-life woman is the only way to go. You can’t be accused of looking down upon women and not trusting them to make difficult moral judgments if you chose a female running mate, right?
Republican male friends of mine seem surprised that feminists like me are not lining up behind this woman who could break the glass ceiling (though not the highest one, as Palin herself called it, unless we’re all assuming McCain will keel over before 2012). But there’s obviously a difference between the first woman who is elected VP because the ticket needed someone in a skirt, and the first woman who is elected because she was the best for the job, regardless of her gender. The latter is the goal. The former might wind up being a necessary first step, but it’s still a bit insulting when there are so many remarkable, strong, accomplished Democratic AND Republican women to choose from. And it certainly would not do women much good if the first XX chromosome to occupy the Oval Office is a disaster–as, given Palin’s lack of experience, would be a distinct possibility. No need to give male chauvinists any “evidence” that women aren’t up to the challenge.
So far Obama’s decision not to go after Palin’s qualifications seems like a good one. There’s no need for them to become part of this story. Plus, by picking Palin, McCain has already implicitly conceded that this election is about change and judgment, not experience–why put that issue back on the table?
A few great pieces on Palin that have been forwarded around: Gloria Steinem weighs in on why female candidates in general, and Sarah Palin in particular, are not necessarily good for women. Meanwhile, lots has been made about how Palin and her daughter made the right “decision” to keep their babies–as if there was more than one option to consider–and that such decisions should not be politicized or questioned by others. Hmm, that doesn’t sound like your typical pro-life rhetoric. Feministing.com’s Ann summarizes:
In other words: My family and my daughter deserve a choice, but no other woman can be trusted with this decision. This fits nicely with the narrative on both Palin’s decision to carry her Down’s syndrome child to term and her daughter’s decision to carry her own pregnancy to term. Their decisions are seen by the antichoice Republican base as affirmation that Palin shares their values. But the underlying message that each woman had a choice is a validation of pro-choice values.
So should women be able to make this choice for themselves, or not? The Daily Show’s Samantha Bee picks up on the same point in a series of great interviews with RNC delegates. They could use the word decision, but couldn’t bring themselves to say “choice”. As a friend of mine joked, “you could just see everything misfiring in their brains, it was amazing.”
