said that Sarah Palin is not a feminist nor is she a friend to feminists and women. I think it is a lot more complicated than that.
Disclaimer: I am a feminist. My interpretation of feminism is equality for all. Somewhere along the way people have co-opted the word and turned it into something dirty. I dislike that and find it hateful. The same way the word liberal has everyone running to hide. When did that happen? Was I napping again?
Right leaning media (What you may ask? When did the media lean right? Has the earth tipped on its axis yet again?) has portrayed the comments of a few to stand in for the whole movement of feminism.... like we are some monolithic group. While Sarah Palin is a woman and stands to break the big glass ceiling in government, she is not the woman that we thought would do it. There are feminists who find her appalling, but we should disagree with her for her politics- and not her gender. But I also find the spin of the right wing (Jonah Goldberg, et.al.) portray these comments in a way that it sounds as if women are going to throw themselves off the tops of buildings and the quoted as "enraged lefties."
I would like to think that feminism is a big tent sort of thing that allows for disagreement and differences. This is a concept that has disappeared in the political arena in the last 20 years or so. Platforms are written in a way to differentiate the parties so if the Democrats say Potahtoe, then the Republicans need to say Potaytoe. While I admit that I am not keen on Sarah Palin's politics (among other things), she would be a huge step forward for the feminist movement- allowing other women to run for higher offices. As I always say- women have just as much of a right to be idiots as men.
So where does that leave us? Are we feminists narrow minded bigots for not embracing Sarah Palin's meteoric rise to the top of the political heap? I think there are certainly some narrow minded feminists crashing their way towards a Feminist Valhalla. I also think there are a bunch of feminists who take Sarah Palin's trajectory in stride- as if we always belonged here. She is redefining what a woman in politics looks like. She is letting them know what it means to run like a girl-and she is leaving a lot of guys in the dust.
