A Feminist on Sarah Palin
A wonderful long rant from "Dr. Violet Socks" over at
Reclusive Leftist:
Feminists and the mystery of Sarah Palin
I don�t usually comment on other blogs; I have little enough time to keep my own gig in working order. But the other day I was over at I Blame The Patriarchy, where I was dismayed to find in the comment threads some of the same Palin-bashing that has become drearily familiar from the rest of the inner tubes. Now, IBTP is just about the best feminist blog going, with a genius proprietor and a thoughtful commentariat. Hence my dismay. Even here? I thought. Fortunately, some of the commenters there did try to set the record straight, though they got significant guff from others.
She warms up for a few minutes and then lets fly:
Sarah Palin is only the second woman in the history of this country to run on a major party�s presidential ticket. That alone makes her, to me, a fascinating figure worthy of serious investigation. When McCain announced Palin as his choice for VP, I immediately tried to find out as much about her as I could. I wanted to know who she was, what she believed, what her politics were. It never occurred to me that this interest would make me in any way unusual among feminists, but apparently it did. Apparently most feminists � at least the ones online � are content to just take the word of the frat boys at DailyKos or the psycho-sexists at Huffington Post. That amazes me. Aren�t you even interested in who she really is? I want to ask. She�s only the second woman on a presidential ticket in our whole fricking history!
But even weirder is what happens when you try to replace the myths with the truth. If you explain, �no, she did�t charge rape victims,� your feminist interlocutor will come back with something else: �she�s abstinence-only!� No, you say, she�s not; and then the person comes back with, �she�s a creationist!� and so on. �She�s an uneducated moron!� Actually, Sarah Palin is not dumb at all, and based on her interviews and comments, I�d say she has a greater knowledge of evolution, global warming, and the Wisconsin glaciation in Alaska than the average citizen.
This is just a taste -- the whole thing is brilliant and Violet absolutely nails it.
The 260+ comments are a fascinating cross-section of human thought...
Posted by DaveH at July 6, 2009 7:05 PM