“Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame”
By medusa on October 10, 2008 at 7:20 PM in Andrew Sullivan, Barack Obama, Chris Matthews, Civil Liberties, Democratic Party, Equal Pay, Feminism, GLBT, Gender Bias, Hate Speech, Hillary Clinton, Human Rights, McCain/Palin 2008, Media Bias, Misogyny, Political Correctness, Race Card, Sarah Palin, Sexism, Vice President, Women, Women's Suffrage
Sarah Palin has become my new hero. While I don’t agree with some of her political positions, I love that she is unapologetically herself. And she is a REAL feminist, representing many of us who don’t toe the line of some definition of what that is. The so-called “progressives,” men and women alike, don’t approve of anyone diverging from their definitions. Like me, Palin could care less what they think. From her interview with Curic:
I’m a feminist who believes in equal rights and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed and to try to do it all anyways…[A feminist is] someone who would not stand for oppression against women.
I like that definition. I like it because I am a lifetime radical feminist who believes that real feminism is not about receiving the approval from a misogynist like Andrew Sullivan, but rather about women living full and free and authentic lives. I may disagree with Palin on some matters of policy, but I agree with her that feminism is about the existential choices women make for themselves. It’s all about freedom: women can stay home or work, get married or have a partner, take their husband’s name or keep their own, have children or not, run for office or run corporations, be a Democrat or a Republican. Feminism is freedom and it dovetails perfectly with American freedom.
I love listening to Palin calling out the Poster Boy of Male Privilege, Obama, for his lies and omissions, and she does it with relish. WaPo quotes Palin:
Okay, so, Florida, you know that you’re going to have to hang on to your hats, because from now until Election Day, it may get kind of rough.
And while the Democrats and the main stream media attack her for everything from her mothering to her idiomatic, “Joe six pack” speech, The Barracuda flexes her muscles and says:
“For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off”
Sharpening her attacks against Obama’s lack of support for our troops, she has the audacity to speak the truth:
Obama doesn’t like American soldiers. He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, ‘air-raiding villages and killing civilians’
Palin continues to hammer home Obama’s close association with unrepentant domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers:
Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers’s living room, and they’ve worked together on various projects in Chicago. These are the same guys who think that patriotism is paying higher taxes — remember that’s what Joe Biden had said. “And I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America, as the greatest force for good in the world. I’m afraid this is someone who sees America as ‘imperfect enough’ to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country.
You can see this speech in a post by SusanUnPc, which also includes Paul Villareal’s videos.
I love Sarah because she’s one of us. As Truthteller documented, like us, she’s been accused of racism for daring to criticize Dear Leader. She’s been accused of being a hick, a barbie, a pig with lipstick, and in Ani’s post about the misogyny that has welcomed her onto the national stage, Palin has even been called “disabled.” The insults range from the horrendous to the ridiculous, as in NewHampster’s post about the extreme closeup designed to expose Palin’s wrinkles. The list goes on and on.
In a brilliant post, feminist writer Dr. Violet Socks suggests that the attacks on Palin from women are sycophantic acts to gain favor with the “liberal,” male power structure:
Whenever women in a patriarchal society buck male opinion, there’s hell to pay and they know it. Women in America really went out on a limb this year by backing Hillary in the face of withering derision from men (and from young women attempting to curry favor with men, consciously or not). Now they’re making amends by piling on Palin.
Ridiculing Sarah Palin as a moron — which she clearly is not — is de rigueur for everybody now in the Obama camp. It’s their preferred sport. It’s true that Palin is verbally awkward in interviews, but then, Obama himself is a man whose unscripted remarks are so confused they defy belief. A teleprompter-deprived Obama thinks there are 57 states in the Union, believes Oregon is in the Great Lakes region, doesn’t know which states border his own state of Illinois, and has no idea which Senate committees he’s on.
But still: people always make fun of their political opponents, and they’re rarely fair about it. What interests me about the Palin attacks is their vigor. To a large extent, it’s a continuation of the misogyny that is such an integral part of the Obama movement: from the campaign itself, from the media collaborators, from the male supporters, from the self-loathing young female supporters.
Typical of liberal sexism, PBS’s program NOW has a poll asking if Palin is qualified to serve as vice president, although Palin has more executive experience than any of the three male candidates, their names are conspicuously absent. Why the question is not asked of Obama, a man who was in the senate for 143 days prior to running for president (and before that a part-time state senator) just shows the incredible bias against women who seek power. Vote in the poll here.
The sexists attacks on Palin are the same sexists attacks on Hillary, and from the same sordid cast of characters: Obama, Sullivan, MoDo, Josh Marshall, Chris Matthews, et al. An Obama victory will codify sexism in the media and Democratic Party for a generation. That’s why I can disagree with Palin and oppose Obama.
When asked in an interview what attacks on her REALLY get to her–which ones wake her up at night–Palin just laughed and said something like, none, that it comes with the territory. But then she paused and looking deadly serious for an instant and said that the attacks against her children got to her and brought out her “mama bear.”
Pit Bulls can do serious damage, but if you get between a mama bear and her cubs, you’re lunch.
(You can watch the two-part interview at the Patriot Room linked here.)
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