I am trying very hard to see where Newsweek’s choice to use Sarah Palin’s Runner’s World photo as their cover is a horribly sexist decision that belittles women everywhere. No, seriously, I am — I’m aware I’m not going to see a flaw the first time I look at something, and I find it not just possible, but likely that a major newsmagazine would use sexist imagery to depict the most popular woman in the GOP.
But I’m sorry, no matter how many times I’m told the sexism is obvious, I just don’t see it.
It’s not that the image doesn’t play on sexist tropes. Dear Ceiling Cat, does it ever. If it was a Photoshop job, I’d absolutely decry it for portraying Palin as a bizarre faux-patriotic fembot. I mean, look at it:
That’s out of control. And it reminds me of another image that mixed faked überpatriotism with extreme conformity to gender roles. You may remember this one. It was all the rage in April 2003:
The images are almost a perfect yin-yang of the conservative vision of female and male. Sarah Palin: athletic, but not so athletic that she can’t strike a cheescake pose. A mom, first and foremost, keeping the home fires burning (note the careful positioning of the Blue Star banner over her right shoulder). So in love with her country that she’ll desecrate the flag in order to show it. And George Bush: a total warrior with a big cock. Not concerned about family, but about blowin’ stuff up. A guy fighting in war (or, you know, avoiding it; same difference, right?). So in love with his country that he’ll use soldiers and an aircraft carrier in a premature photo-op to prove it.
Both of these images were calculated — Palin’s, to show she’s not one of “those” women, who choose sensible clothes when they run, but who is sexy all the damn time, because she can be. To show that she loves her country, war, apple pie, and the beautiful scenery you can see from her front porch, the one that was built with kickbacks she received as mayor. And Bush? Bush, of course, to show he isn’t a wimp like Clinton, but a true Warrior-King, one who literally conquered Mesopotamia himself.
Both photos also show something else, something hiding behind the artifice: that both Bush and Palin are Potemkin representations of these ideals. By trying to oversell the idea that they are perfect representations of their genders, Bush and Palin remind us of how hollow those representations can be. Bush is not a warrior, and he looks silly playing dress-up. Palin is not a pin-up girl, and she looks silly playing dress-up. Both took what could be powerful symbols and went so over-the-top with them that they look like fools.
That’s why Newsweek chose this cover. Not because it shows Palin as sexy, but because it shows her as a caricature of herself. As a sitting governor, Palin chose to engage in a photo shoot that would do a better job of validating the “Caribou Barbie” epithet than anything the most misogynist liberal could come up with. As Lindsay Beyerstein accurately says:
Predictably, Palin complained that Newsweek’s use of the image was sexist. Yes, the image was plucked from its original context. The whole point was that the picture was appalling it its original context. Newsweek is holding this picture up to the world and asking: Who does this?
The bottom line is that Palin’s a clown. She doesn’t get a pass because her chosen clown persona is stereotypically feminine.
She caricatures herself. Day in and day out. Good for Newsweek for pointing and laughing.
And that, my friends, is the point. One cannot point out the absurdity of Sarah Palin’s wallowing in sexist tropes without using the very sexist imagery that she herself approved of. Yes, the image is appallingly sexist. But that is not Newsweek’s fault. It’s Palin’s.
Using a photo shoot that Palin posed for and endorsed after the fact to make the point that Palin is a caricature of herself is not sexist. It’s good journalism. Believe me, I will defend Palin from true sexism wherever it rears its ugly head (like, say, this bit of “humor” from HuffPo, which is crappy, and simply an excuse to attack Palin for being a woman). But this is not a case of sexism being used to attack Palin. This is a case of Palin’s own sexism being used to attack Palin. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Yeah, I agree. I was somewhat baffled by the suggestion it was sexist myself.
i think the argument that its sexist rests on decontextualizing the image from a runners mag to a political mag. when i first started working on wall st a very prominent female banker posed for a pantyhose ad. it created quite a stir. if Forbes took that photo and but it on their cover, assuming the story was about her financings, it would be problematic.
(at the time i worked with a woman who happenned to be the first female partner at lehman bros. she loved the pic, saying she could’ve never gotten away with it).
it sounds to me like the real gripe is that the pic is righwingish, not sexist, though to you that may be a distinction without difference. i grant you that palin’s comfortableness with her conventional femininity reflect the rightwing belief in nature over social construction vis a vis gender roles, but we’re getting into a very abstract sexism here.
put it this way, i don’t see obama being criticised for his hyper-masculinity: posing with a football and a dog, the Mussolini-like jawline move while speaking. yet palin gets smacked for the wink, which granted, seemed inappropriate but thats because we’ve never really seen female sexuality on parade in politics. Hill, Maggie, Indira, Golda, Aquino, kept it wrapped up like my Lehman Bros Partner. You try to be fair by smacking bush who (like the shritless Pooty-Poot) went over the top, but i think Palin’s barely scandalous pose is more in line with reagan on a horse, Kerry windsurfing, or obama, che, and malcolm…all who have became male pinups, oozing their machismo as their followers oooh and aaaah.
palin’s the 1st female pinup pol. there’s no real precedent. plus there’s a class issue. condi pushed it a little by exposing some leg and one time inspected the troops in black dominitrex boots. camille paglia practically orgasmed at the sight. but that was vogue-like sophistication. palin’s more porny working class aesthetic is ironically more threatening to the status quo, i submit.
It’s sexist because not in one million years would Newsweek put a photo of, say, John Kerry in a wetsuit on the cover, or George Bush golfing, for a feature story that wasn’t about their leisure time. It says “We, Newsweek, think Sarah Palin is not a serious and legitimate Important Person.” Now I don’t think Sarah Palin is all that serious, but she was the VP candidate last year and a governor/our first line of defense against the Russians for all those months. Newsweek would never put a photo of (pick the one you find least serious) Al Sharpton or Newt Gingrich or Dennis Kucinich or Ross Perot or any other male Important Person on their cover in anything but a suit and tie.
Newsweek would never put a photo of (pick the one you find least serious) Al Sharpton or Newt Gingrich or Dennis Kucinich or Ross Perot or any other male Important Person on their cover in anything but a suit and tie.
I disagree. As a Minnesotan, I can tell you that one of the enduring images of the 1970s politically is Time’s “The Good Life in Minnesota” cover, which featured the then-Governor, Wendell Anderson, fishing in a plaid flannel shirt and jeans. And of course, from 1997 to 2000, we had oodles of images of our governor bedecked in feather boa and sunglasses, images that he posed for as governor. Magazines routinely attack politicians for choosing to look like idiots, and they also love photos that aren’t boring suit-and-tie pictures, because they stand out.
And just as Jesse Ventura’s goofball image was not unfair to him — as he had posed for the pictures knowing full well what he was doing — neither is this image sexist, or unfair to Palin. After all, look carefully at the picture. This was shot in her home office. She’s holding a Blackberry. This is where she works, and did much of the business of Alaska. She’s making a conscious, intentional presentation of herself as someone who literally can do it all, while looking great in a patriarchy-approved way. Yes, if Barack Obama posed in a track outfit in the Oval Office while clutching The Button, draped in the American flag, and pointing to a picture of his kids, I’d think that photo would get reused — especially by his enemies.
She doesn’t look like a fembot. She’s wearing glasses, her hair isn’t loose, and her expression is awake and alert.
i’m going to have to disagree with you. whether or not palin willingly participated in sexism doesn’t justify sexism being used against her. if we (all of us) are going to criticize her, we should do so without engaging in an “ism.” and i think making the distinction between “real” sexism and (what? fake sexism?) is more problematic in the long run. it’s still sexism. i don’t care if she posed for these pictures. besides, there are other pictures inside the magazine which we’re not even discussing here…
One cannot point out the absurdity of Sarah Palin’s wallowing in sexist tropes without using the very sexist imagery that she herself approved of. Yes, the image is appallingly sexist. But that is not Newsweek’s fault. It’s Palin’s.
This would be better if the picture were inside the magazine and not on the cover.
On the cover, many people are going to walk by and see it on the rack without consciously thinking anything about it, and so “pointing out the absurdity” is not the effect this picture will have on them. If you look at sexist imagery in a critical way, then this may weaken the effects of such imagery on your subconscious. But if you are not making the effort (and it is an effort) to view it critically, it will just reinforce the sexist messages we have all already absorbed from society.
When you display bigoted imagery in order to try to critique that imagery, sometimes — not all the time — you end up reinforcing it, because the bigoted messages sent by the imagery drown out the critical message you are trying to send. This is especially likely to happen if you are using techniques that require people to actually think and interpret. Like sarcasm or irony.
So, yes, it’s Palin’s fault this photo exists, but Newsweek’s choice to put it on the cover was their own. Their good intentions (to critique sexist imagery) matter less to me than the actual effect of their actions, which I fear may be, overall, negative. Now, I don’t believe that Newsweek (or anyone) is responsible for their audience’s every reaction. But I do think that if the effects on the audience (which includes people who just see the cover as they walk by) can reasonably be said to be foreseeable, then yes, they are responsible for that.
typical. How can one tell if something is sexist if they don’t have a clue what sexism is? Funny how all the so called progressive men don’t see this as sexist, but the women, not so much. I guess it is the same reason they shrug off the complete sellout of women’s reproductive health when it comes to HCR and the new insurance industry friendly mammogram guidelines. Liberal women may dislike Palin fiercely, but they know sexism when they see it (unlike the male author of this piece) and they know that in this case Palin is right.
I don’t think any image of Michael Dukakis was shown in the media more frequently, while he was running for President, than the goofy-looking photo of him posing in a tank. At the time, the photo was used to make the point that Dukakis was not a serious and legitimate candidate.
I seem to recall it being on newsmagazine covers, too, although it was a long time ago and I could be mistaken about that.
How often can you even go out running in shorts in Alaska anyways?
This photo is just one more proof that Palin can’t be taken seriously. There are people like that, of both genders. It just goes unnoticed in men, unless the tendency is pronounced to a socially unacceptable degree. For example, calling Bush 2 an airhead is entirely accurate. And there are female airheads, but I suppose it’s politically incorrect to call them out on it.
I’m on the fence. No doubt, male politicians have appeared in similar stupid photos, but I don’t recall seeing Stockwell Day and his wetsuit on the cover of a major news magazine. Hey! Stockwell and Sarah would be good buddies, too.
I guess the “they’d never put a man on the cover like this” argument doesn’t work since men have been made fun off for being too hypermasculine. But Putin actually took his damn shirt off, Duke looked ridiculous with his huge ass head popping out of the tank, and Bush didn’t get mocked until the war failed, after which the pic perfectly illustrated the problems of premature ejacelabrations.
But its unclear to me what so obviously mockable about this pic. she’s in some tight runner outfit with a little hip swirl and you people on the left are reacting like she just did “Girls Gone Wild” or something. I suppose this reflects feminist suspicion of traditional femininity being an oppressive social construct enforced by conservatives (like Palin) who believe its natural. (I don’t actually have an opinion on the nature vs nurture debate other than to say I think scientists not ideologues should resolve it and whatever way it comes out we as a society should just respect libertarian individualism and let deviants deviate, regardless of whether they’re deviating form nature or nurture. As long as you don’t raise my taxes, i’m fine with you.)
So I guess that’s how Palin’s pic manages to exude “sexist tropes.” She’s paying the price for not challenging gender roles while men like Obama don’t pay a similar price. Also, if the pic were in black and white she could’ve gotten away with it, for reasons only Gloria leonard can explain.
w/r/t wetsuits etc;
There is a big difference between a posed photo and a candid photo.
At the time this was taken, Palin probably still had a professional team–a decent sized one–who vetted access and controlled image. There isn’t much doubt but that Palin wanted the photo to be taken.
If the magazine had snapped a pic of her at the local beach and used that for its cover, it’d be hideously inappropriate. But this is a picture she chose.
Quite simply, femininity is stupid. Those who chose to play into femininity deserve to be mocked. Women can’t help being women, but we don’t need to play into stereotypes.
First, I’m going to go out on a limb and piss everybody off by saying I think she looks lovely in that picture. She appears powerful and athletic, hardly the “fembot” you describe her as. And the fact that the only flesh showing at all is her legs, which are not made longer with high heels, but shown in a pair of fierce running shoes, makes the hysteria over the photo by those calling it prima facie sexism and those who don’t find the use of it sexist in the context of the Newsweek cover, all the more bizarre.
It’s interesting that you leave out the text on the cover “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sarah” I’m not sure what part of that would pass the sexism smell test. Coupled with a photo that almost all (except for me apparently) consider sexually provocative, I’m not sure how you can say this wasn’t meant to be a sexist hit against her.
There’s much to say about Palin’s politics that doesn’t need to resort to sexism. I have a hard time understanding why liberals find that so difficult to abide. If you are going to argue that Carrie Prejean shouldn’t be slut-shamed, why is it okay to slut-shame Sarah Palin? Her politics are a problem, but “Sarah” is not. She’s smarter and more shrewd than she’s ever given credit for.
And she’s dangerous, in much the same way Glenn Beck is dangerous. But I’ve yet to see one article making fun of the feminine (read: gay) tone to Beck’s voice to make the point that he’s dangerous. Liberals are smart enough to avoid taking on Beck with “Ha! Ha! His voice sounds like totally gay!”
Because that would be gay-bashing, and gay-bashing is wrong. Making fun of Palin for being a feminine sterotype, a “fembot” as you say, is somehow kosher. But I don’t think it is.
This article makes me think of the Hole song “Live Through This”
Was she asking for it?
Did she ask you twice?
Yeah she was asking for it
Did she ask you nice?
This is just a way of spinning against Palin and you know it damned well.
What’s with this woman that you and so many others find it necessary to lampoon her. If she is that useless her own words and actions will condemn her.
Newsweek will go out of business just like Time magazine, if they persist in demeaning Palin.
Readers get fed up with blatant bias and petty school girl criticisms.
Okay, they did do a cover of Bush golfing, for a negative political story about him. I found it in a very quick google image search. http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/magazines/deconstructing_bushs_presidency_one_newsweek_cover_at_a_time_47447.asp
For further context, which I think effectively reveals Newsweeks’s intent, please consider they apparently ran this image accompanying a Hitch essay on Palin, in the offending, or not so offending depending on ur POV, issue.
@Politicalguineapig
Feminine people do not deserved to be mocked just for being or dressing feminine.
Discuss or joke about public photo shoots that take it to the extreme sure, but that’s a bit different. I dress feminine (sometimes!), being trans there’s incredible pressure to do so, and if I didn’t people would treat me terrible and stare at me moreso than they already do, which would destroy my self esteem.
So I object to saying it’s ok to mock any feminine women, at least some of whom dress feminine because they don’t have much of a choice. (others might just like the feeling of long flowing skirts(to give one example), I certainly know I do!)
I think it would a lot more productive to mock things that tell women they *have* to dress feminine (which could potentially include these sorts of magazine covers I think)
Both of these images were calculated — Palin’s, to show she’s not one of “those” women, who choose sensible clothes when they run, but who is sexy all the damn time, because she can be.
These are perfectly sensible clothes for running. Baggy clothes chafe. There are plenty of things wrong with this image, but the way Palin is dressed in a picture taken for a running magazine isn’t one of them.
The Stockwell Day in a wetsuit photo wasn’t a candid shot. He showed up for a press conference on a jetski:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2000/09/12/day000912.html
In fact, it was way in excess (politically speaking) of Sarah Palin posing for a picture in a running magazine. And, don’t get me wrong. He was mocked for it.
Wow, seriously?
I’m a masculine woman, and I find this really sexist and offensive. Femininity isn’t stupid. It’s a cultural construct that includes many bad and many good things, same as masculinity. Statements like this play right into sexist tropes about masculinity, and therefore men, being more real, more serious, smarter, stronger, superior. There is nothing wrong with being a person who has the cluster of qualities we label “feminine.”
I’m really disturbed to see this sentiment expressed here. It’s a rank dismissal of the majority of women.
Isn’t the sexist part contextual?
In the context of a running magazine photo (the context where the picture was taken) the photo comes off as at most mildly sexist. It uses sexist tropes, but it isn’t in a serious context anyway so we give it some slack. (Or maybe we don’t. If you have trouble with sexist stereotypes in running magazines maybe you should have a problem with it.)
Take the photo and put it on a ‘serious’ magazinge. Transpose the exercise context into a discussion about politics. Title it “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sarah”. At that point you’ve totally recontextualized the picture in a sexist way.
Lets take it out of politics. If you have some nude pictures of your children in the bathtub that is one thing. If you collect lots of nude pictures of other people’s children in the bathtub that is another thing. Right?
Taking the running magazine picture and running it on a political magazine changes the context enough to make it very questionable.
I don’t really know what I think of this. I’m scratching my head in puzzlement.
But I do disagree with Manju’s and Sebastian’s comments that its sexist because the context is moved from a runners’ magazine to a political magazine. The glaringly obvious flaw in that argument is that when a politician appears voluntarily in _any_ public context, its a political one. Any magazine that features a politician in it is by definition a political magazine.
It’s surely naive to say that, for example, when Putin gets himself photographed doing Judo he’s not politically campaigning, or that when Blair used to appear on light-weight chat shows in preference to serious political ones he wasn’t engaging in politics. Our Boris Johnson virtually got himself elected mayor of London by virtue of his performances on a TV quiz show.
Palin appearing in that magazine was clearly engaging in politics, so it was _already_ a political context (though those old pics of her in a beuaty contest or whatever it was probably weren’t because she wasn’t actually a politician then).
I also disagree with letope that you wouldn’t get a male politician pictured in some stereotyped macho hunk pose. I could well imagine someone like Putin, who makes as big a deal of his manliness as Palin does of her femininity, being shown, I dunno, wrestling a bear or something, on the cover of a magazine that was either critiquing or endorsing that pose.
Of course they wouldn’t feature Newt Gingrich because he’s hardly a guy who trades on his looks, is he? But if our own Lord Adonis lived up to his name (sadly, he doesn’t, as he himself admits) I’m sure he’d appear on magazine covers with some frequency.
But would such an appearance have gotten such a negative reaction? That I don’t know. Maybe what’s sexist is that everyone is talking about it so much? If everyone stopped commenting on Palin’s looks magazines would stop running such pictures.
I’m not sure what it means, but its interesting to me how Dukakis looking goofy in a tank got such a different reception to the infamous photo of Thatcher doing much the same thing http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/politics/Thatcher1986440.jpg. I guess people could just more easily imagine Thatcher actually commanding a tank regiment and blowing stuff up.
I do find the seemingly _endless_ fixation on Palin’s looks, by all parts of the political spectrum (and, it appears, by Palin herself) to be really tedious. Its not as if there’s a shortage of moderately attractive famous people to look at. OK, so we have a conventionally attractive female politician. Wow. Can’t everyone get over it by now?
One thing that keeping an eye on this blog has taught me is that context matters. Numerous discussions of race have had as an important point that the language and images one uses depends on who you are (e.g., the use of the word “n____r”). This picture was taken for use in a specific context. To pull it out of that context and use it as the cover graphic for a news magazine’s lead article regarding her political philosophies and future is a clear attempt to degrinate her in a sexist fashion.
It seems to me that on both sides of the political spectrum men have often allowed their sexism to color their tactics and commentary with regards to female political figures.
I have a hard time seeing Sarah Palin as President. But my current lack of enthusiasm for seeing her as the Chief Executive of the U.S. is separate from what I think of her opinions regarding what policies the United States and its Chief Executive ought to pursue.
Once again:
“Readers get fed up with blatant bias and petty school girl criticisms.”
Yeah, you’re not sexist.
Politicalguineapig:
There are problems with femininity. Suggesting that these can be reduced to “feminine people deserve to be mocked” is stupid, and once again, I bet it’s something you don’t really believe.
Do you resist every pressure to put on makeup or a dress? How lucky you are not to need to play any feminine roles in order to avoid violence or to be taken seriously. But please, if you do make any concessions — any at all — for safety or for personal preference — including shaving your legs or dieting or not telling strangers “Fuck off, why do you assume I like kids because I’m a woman?” when they show you a baby, let me be the first to point and laugh.
Wider thread:
Sarah Palin has made herself into a Brand. This is part of the political process. It is peachy to mock this brand. This is different than mocking her as a woman, although the fact that she is a woman is part of her brand. It’s a variety of cultural criticism.
Thank you, Rose, Bond, and Sebastian.
Jeff Fecke: seriously?
This is a case of Palin’s own sexism being used to attack Palin. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Dude, even if this photo were as bad as you say, even if you could see into her soul and know that she was being a “calculating” “fembot” (instead of putting the kind of effort on her appearance it takes to be a conventially pretty woman in this country) yes there is someone wrong with that. You’re still using a woman’s internalized sexism as a weapon against her. What the fuck? Of course that’s wrong!
Also, maybe as a man you shouldn’t pronounce things ABSOLUTELY NOT SEXIST?
Sarah Palin was one of the more famous political candidates in the entire country. When she posed for a running magazine she implicitly consented to an understanding that people who weren’t runners might use that picture. She knows that because she’s a political, public, figure who has very smart people advising her. It’s not as if Michelle Obama’s Vogue appearance wasn’t expected to come up in Obama discussions, right?
Generally I think the gloves are (and should be) off for most things about political figures. What I dislike is mixing personal/political, but I don’t think this is it.
EVERYTHING in political is thought through. Clothes. haircuts. Shoes. Remember Clinton’s $200 haircut? Remember the talk about his ties?
people pose for photos just to have the photo taken; they give interviews just to get a message out. there is no way in hell that Palin didn’t plan this. the Runners’s article wasn’t private, it was a political maneuver just like everything else that presidential candidates do in public is a political maneuver.
Now, in theory at least she may not have planned to have her political message taken out of context. but the taking of political messages out of context is fair game in politics.
How come no-one has commented on the way Bush’s ‘package’ is … uhm … enhanced by those cinched straps around his groin in that picture?
Let me be clear here: Private femininity, like putting on makeup or skirts is fine. Public femininity, like going on beauty shows or trading off your appearance is fair game.
okay. let me just say that no matter how annoying Sarah Palin is, we should not justify using sexism against her. ever. it does not matter if she engages in it. we call ourselves feminists, we denounce sexism. these are principles which should be upheld no matter what because we believe in equality. to think or do otherwise is to engage in hypocritical thinking that principles can be applied or revoked seemingly at random. there should be no exceptions.
yes, sarah palin is pretty obnoxious. we’re all waiting for her fifteen minutes to be up. and yeah, i hate having to defend people like her, but i don’t believe sexism is ever okay. and i don’t think creating an imaginary gray area in yet another woman-related discourse accomplishes anything.
Why is everyone ignoring the catholic-schoolgirl-with-a-red-bra-and -belly-button-showing in the room?
The “out-of-context” argument doesn’t wash, and here’s why: the blue-star banner and the draped American flag. What do those have to do with running? If the goal was to have a running-based photo shoot for a runner’s magazine, why were those included?
They were included because the Palin camp wanted to make a political statement, even in a photo for a runner’s magazine.
I have no problem at all with the way Palin is dressed or posed. It is the laughable attempt at hyper-patriotism (“I’m so g-d American I can’t even go RUNNING without an American flag draped over my shoulders!”) that earns this picture all the mocking it gets.
If Newsweek used a picture of Al Franken with Satellite Antenna on his head on their cover to discuss his Presidential run, I guess you’d have no problem with that.
If Newsweek used a picture of John Kerry windsurfing to discuss his Presidential run, I guess you’d have no problem with that.
If Newsweek used a picture of Barack Obama dressed in a tribal robe to discuss his Presidential run, I guess you’d have no problem with that.
Context my friends, it’s something you have all been lacking for sometime.
Hypocrisy is what you’re swimming in.
Actually, Anon, I really wouldn’t have a problem with the first two, and the third I only have a problem with because the right has spent so much time decrying Obama as a secret Muslim.. Heck, I myself celebrated Franken’s win by posting a video of him imitating Mick Jagger, and that was arguably far more unfair than what Newsweek did to Palin; my video was shot many years before Franken entered politics. Palin’s photo was shot while she was governor.
I see, and your post regarding Franken was titled, “How Do You Solve a Problem like Al?” and was critical of Al?
It’s sexist because they only chose that picture because they think it’s sexy.
It’s sexist because there are plenty of people who use their own sexual image to sell themselves, yet Times has managed to not go along with it on most occasions.
But just because Palin does fit a pre-conceived narrative about what sexy is, they went along with it.
Just had a runin with another view.
tbogg at firedoglake thinks that the reason newsweek chose that picture was to say “she’s caricaturing herself! who does this?!”
If that’s true, then guess what? Still sexist!
Because presidents and politicians have been going for photo opportunities in workout clothes and workout out FOR DECADES.
Oh, but because palin posed in an office, holy shit, now that’s caricature. As if it’s not when president bush or clinton went for a jog in front of a hoard of paparazzi.
@Hostrauser, what does the flag have to do with running? Very little if anything (but hey, tell that to Meb who is the first American to win the NYC marathon since the 80’s IIRC, after the end of the race the flag seemed pretty integral to his celebration…). But that’s the format for the “I’m a Runner” article this photo was taken for- if you go to the Runner’s World website and check out past articles, there’s a picture of Sir James Dyson in his running kit with a Dyson vaccum cleaner which arguably, has even less to do with running than patriotic imagery. She’s not the only politician featured who has the flag prominently displayed in their photo either- I see a picture of the NY govenor in running kit at his desk with a flag in view.
I like this photo shoot of Sarah Palin (as much as I don’t like Sarah Palin at all- as a person with a rural background, I don’t think she does anything for the rep of rural people, amongst all the other stuff that other people have said online better than I could) and mostly just think it’s stupid for Newsweek to use this image on their cover, and I don’t feel like the picture even matches the caption on the mag.
I do wonder; what is it about Sarah Palin that makes her such a lighting rod? There have been plenty of failed Vice-Presidential and Presidential candidates that have remained politically active. The roster currently includes Sens. John Kerry and John McCain, both of whom have been outspoken on the issues of the day and have done their bit with campaigning and public speeches. God knows Al Gore hasn’t exactly been quiet. There have been plenty of others in the past as well. But I don’t think any have been the subject of nearly as much attention and speculation as ex-Gov. Sarah Palin. This is stretching well beyond the proverbial 15 minutes.
I was going to put in what the speculation on this matter is on the right, but I deleted it. I’d like to know what you think.
So in love with her country that she’ll desecrate the flag in order to show it.
BTW; I have taught dozens of this country’s youth the proper methods of raising, lowering, folding, etc. the flag and have read through the U.S. Flag Code a few times. I’d say that desecrate is a bit strong of a term to use here. I’ve had a few discussions with people whose politics I’m otherwise in agreement with in opposition to the concept that an American flag is somehow sacred, not secular. I’d agree with the use of the concept of “disrespect” in this context, however.
I’m not sure I understand this thread. Using a picture of Sarah Palin is sexist? A staged picture that’s already appeared in another magazine? Okay, it’s a different context, but what are we objecting to? The fact that she’s not in a business suit, clearly ready to be taken seriously?
I don’t want this to be taken as an attack on other’s viewpoints – I’m really confused. It seems like Time could have chosen a more fitting picture (and the caption is sexist as hell – women are not problems to be dealt with, thank you very much) but the picture is obviously for public consumption. Is it a respect thing not to show politicians in shorts on the cover of Time? She’s not even showing skin – those are panty hose under her shorts.
At risk of rambling, the point I’m getting stuck on is – yes, it’s sexist if Time never treated male figures that way. It’s not sexist if it’s just about the picture – she’s got a woman’s body. It shouldn’t be a problem for her to take pictures that don’t disguise that fact.
The whole point was that the picture was appalling it its original context. Newsweek is holding this picture up to the world and asking: Who does this?
So newsweek’s doing some important work in the fight against sexism eh? I suppose they forgot their mission in the second picture shown here .
following thru on B.Adu’s comment, first let me say that I can certainly see how one can see the running pic as non-sexist, as I respect the subjectivity inherent in a lot of these subtle bigotry discussions. i wasn’t certain myself and most of my earlier posts focused on criticizing the framing Palin’s pose as a “play on sexist tropes”, which i thought an unfair (by virtue of the charges of sexism) imposition of leftist social construction analysis on the rest of us, as well as an analysis unequally applied—since Obama isn’t singled out for similar masculine posings.
having said that, the discovery of additional photos in the mag convinced me that something more sinister was going on here. sorry to be so repetitive, but don’t these other pics, especially the bra and belly button exposing plain schoolgirl, by virtue of context, result in you seeing the cover now in a different light?
RonF: The Republicans love her because she fits their idea of women to a T. The feminists tend to dislike her because she insists on being an airhead where the public can see her. I think another part of her appeal is the sheer train-wreckiness of her public and private life.
I disagree. In my experience (and personally, as a self-identified feminist), feminists tend to dislike her because of her anti-woman/anti-feminist policies and beliefs, coupled with her jarring and hypocritical misuse of feminist talking points for her own personal or political gain. Although in this case I do agree that her treatment by newsweek was sexist, generally her appropriation of feminist lingo is way off.
I think that’s quite a lot of it too. I personally can’t understand why any woman would support unwanted childbirth and hold other women’s fertility hostage. And most pro-lifers just parrot back the lies their clergy (usually male) told them.
Another thing: Palin is not just Palin, she’s a woman who lives in the public eye, so she represents American womanhood. Like Paris Hilton, if she acts dumb where the men can see her, she’s letting women all over the world down.
Palin has been playing the sexist tropes for all they’re worth in her own campaign every since she hit the national news. For her to complain because somebody turned it around on her is a day late and a dollar short. Yes, I know sexism when I see it — and I saw plenty of it in the media coverage of Hillary Clinton — but it’s hard for me to get all wound up about this relatively mild example when Palin has been doing far worse on her own account.
It is great to look back at the cover picture now. I don’t think it was or was not sexist. It was Newsweek trying to sell magazines and get their candidate Obama elected. They have helped in the one cause while never figuring out how to make their magazine profitable. Oh yeah, it is not their fault they cannot make money!!