Violet at Reclusive Leftist has defended Sarah Palin's feminist chops before, but it's almost like she couldn't believe the piling on trash talk from the Left regarding Palin in this post.
I like Reclusive Leftist because, unlike other lockstep feminist sites, Violet takes women at their word when they claim feminism, even if those women don't embrace all the tenets of that cause. It's sadly amusing seeing Violet having her come-to-Jesus moment regarding leftwing feminists and conservative women.
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 didn’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.
But after you’ve had a few of these myth-dispelling conversations, you start to realize that it doesn’t matter. These people don’t hate Palin because of the lies; the lies exist to justify the hate. That’s why they keep reaching and reaching for something else, until they finally get to “she winked on TV!” (And by the way: I’ve been winked at my whole life by my grandmother, aunts, and great-aunts. Who knew it was such a despicable act?)
Violet's post is wonderful and should be read by all, but she doesn't really say anything that a lot of us haven't said before: What is it about Sarah Palin that drives the nutso left batshit crazy? What makes them lie about her positions on almost any and every subject? And knowingly lie?
This argument has been raging over at Common Sense Political Thought where the usual trolls are arguing that Palin is (a) a liar, (b) unethical, (c) a nut, and (d) a hypocrite. Oh, and she doesn't take the ridicule lying down, but rather, tries to defend herself.
I find those explanations to be only true if you want to believe all the lies about Palin. If you want to believe she charged for rape kits, wants Creationism taught in school, was controlling the sexual activities of her daughter (that's how a 17-year-old's pregnancy is your fault as a parent), and opposes sex education, then, of course, any information that doesn't confirm those ideas must make her a liar.
I'm not one of those people who thinks Palin walks on water. I think she saw an opportunity to leapfrog onto the national scene and she took the risk, even if she wasn't prepared for it. But the treatment of Sarah Palin is nothing if not a double standard, from the interview questions she was asked to the scandal about who is Trig's mom to how much money she spent on clothes. The "diva" talk is decidedly sexist, and Violet notes that, as well.
it has not escaped my attention that many of the things Palin is accused of, falsely, are actually true of Obama. This is a guy who, as a U.S. senator from Illinois, didn’t even know which Senate committees he was on or which states bordered his own. (And don’t even get me started on Joe “The Talking Donkey” Biden, who thinks FDR was president during the stock market crash and that people watched TV in those days.) I’m not saying Obama’s a moron, but he’s sure as hell no genius. People say Sarah Palin rambles; excuse me, but have you actually heard Obama speak extemporaneously? As for being a diva, surely we all remember the Possomus sign and the special embroidered pillow on the Obama campaign plane. The fact is, Obama is an intellectually mediocre narcissist with a thin resume who’s lost without a teleprompter and whose entire campaign had all the substance and gravity of a Pepsi commercial. Yet people say Sarah Palin is a fluffy bunny diva.
Violet argues that Sarah Palin is the designated Hate Receptacle of the left, and that's about as close to the truth as we're likely to get. I've had this discussion with people I respect, people who are very intelligent about other things, yet have this blindspot where Sarah Palin is concerned. They were outraged at the way Hillary Clinton was treated during 2008, yet laugh with unmitigated glee at the viciousness and lies Sarah Palin has had to face. These people don't seem to get the fact that most of the nastiness about Palin had as much to do with her femaleness, her mother-ness, her abilities to do her job while being a woman as it did about any qualifications for higher office. They laughed off David Letterman's disgusting "slutty stewardess" joke as being a good shot at Palin, rathr than accept that such misogynistic characterizations smear all women who don't fit the preconceived stereotype. Don't feminists usually write screeds about all women being judged as sluts and whores on the basis of their appearance? Why is Palin any different?
IMO, feminism lost its credibility when it embraced sexual harasser in chief Bill Clinton. But no intelligent woman should accept the outrageous behavior of leftwingers towards Sarah Palin. As Violet says, it's like the NCAAP sponsoring a lynching. Who would agree with that?
UPDATE: Echidne of the Snakes, who is no Sarah Palin fan, notes the misogyny of the left, as well.
|