Shakesville has started a new series which is bound to be depressing, but which is a really good idea: the Sarah Palin sexism watch which will be documenting instances of sexism against Sarah Palin. Melissa writes:
And I’ll go ahead and put it right in the fucking inaugural post in this series: I will defend Sarah Palin against misogynist smears not because I like or support her, but because that’s how feminism works.
On a separate note, she also has a pair of excellent quotes by Palin about Hilary that reveal the “women’ll vote for any woman! Right? Right. Even if she’s considerably anti-woman!” mindset of this choice:
Sarah Palin, earlier today:
I can’t begin this great effort without honoring the achievements of … Senator Hillary Clinton, who showed such determination and grace in her presidential campaign.
Sarah Palin, last March:
[At the NEWSWEEK Women & Leadership Event in Los Angeles], Palin talked about what women expect from women leaders; how she took charge in Alaska during a political scandal that threatened to unseat the state’s entire Republican power structure, and her feelings about Sen. Hillary Clinton. (She said she felt kind of bad she couldn’t support a woman, but she didn’t like Clinton’s “whining.”)
Shakesville has, in my opinion, done a very nice job of media watching during the past season. I think the blog excels at creating documentation of sexist and racist phenomena, like racism against Obama, sexism against Clinton, or the sheer volume of disembodied women presented as novelties.
Points for integrity, then. I may go over and take a look around.
They pretty routinely blog about things like sexism (and transphobia) aimed against Ann Coulter, too.
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Some observations:
1. Over at Shakesville, Melissa bolds: “There’s no goddamned reason to criticize her for anything but her policies.” I don’t think that’s fair. I criticize candidates all the time for all sorts of things that aren’t their policies. I don’t think Palin should get a free pass on this.
2. Also on Shakesville, Melissa gets upset that indictments of Palin include information that her husband works for an oil company. How is this sexist? And how is it an unfair criticism? If Palin and her husband’s genders were reversed, the criticism would be just as valid. The relevant point (whether you agree with it or not) is that Palin is in the pocket of Big Oil.
3. If Palin really thinks that Clinton showed “determination and grace”, then she owes her a (public) apology for her slander in March. Simply changing her tune when it becomes politically expedient is not enough. More than anything else I’ve heard so far, this is indicative of a lack of integrity.
4. We came down pretty hard on Ahnolt as well for his history as a piece of man-meat. While sauce for the goose isn’t necessarily sauce for the gander, there are those who feel that modeling, bodybuilding, beauty-queening, and the like demonstrate an obsession with pulchritude and a shallowness of character that is likely to be incompatible with executive office. Whether you agree with them or not, somebody criticizing from that platform isn’t necessarily sexist.
Bjartmarr, I am surprised that inquiry into the Palin family’s industry/economic ties is considered sexist by some commenting at the referenced site, though a quick reading of the very long comment section did seem to indicate that. This is probably covered somewhere specifically, but I can’t quickly find the reasoning. Can someone either explain or post a link?
As a stay at home dad though, I’m fully aware that gendered criticism may be thrown around because of his current occupation as a primary care giver.
Not as surprised about the beauty contest issue, but I personally feel that the contests are reprehensible tools of the patriarchy, and elected official’s participation is as noteworthy as any other activity that some may find offensive. That primarily females participate in these kinds of contests does create an odd twist, but no more odd than other schemes used to recruit women to oppress other women such as her participation in anti-choice organizations.
The women participants do have agency and it seems the exercise of that agency should be fair game.
On the other hand, maybe I completely misunderstand the positive nature of beauty contests?
staydaddy,
It’s not that beauty pagents are considered feminist or anything, nor that one can’t criticize another women’s choices. I think it’s more that the bloggers and regular commentors over at Shakesville don’t really think most of the people who would deride Palin for having been in a beauty pageant would do it in a non-sexist way. A view which is supported by the fact that most of the comments so far re: Palin as a beauty pageant contestent have been of the “bimbo” and “vpilf” variety, both of which are very sexist.
For criticisms of her being in the pageant to be unsexist, they’d pretty much have to be about her participating in such an un-feminist activity. Which probably won’t really play well to the general public – and is very much overshadowed at the monent by her current political views on women’s rights in any case. (Also, participation in beauty pageants isn’t something I’m uniformly against as an individual choice. context matters. such as: girls can win a lot of money for college that way.)
re: her ties to big oil through her husband. Whether or not such criticism is sexist is actually being debated over at shakesville, not unformly derided (by regulars, anyway) as the vpilf site is.
The gist of the argument that pointing out such ties is sexist tends to have to do with the way it’s presented (as in: alongside accusations of her being a puppet for her husband and his big oil interests, not big oil’s interests), although the people arguing that it’s sexist aren’t making that very clear.
The difference is subtle, and not everyone pointing out the ties (which should be pointed out) is doing it, but some certainly are. Often I’m guessing without realizing it simply because of un(explicitly)spoken assumptions (that are nevertheless implied via language) about gender, marriage, and power.
Thanks Mickle. That was a concise explanation and easy to absorb. You probably saved me massive effort trying to comb through threads, and I appreciate it very much, as I’ve got so many things going on this weekend.