It’s a shame when a 21st century American woman of my generation attracts worldwide publicity, attention and political clout that it is someone like Sarah Palin. We girls came to age during the wave of feminism, suffered the backlash, bit our tongues and ate crow and endured a half century of underrepresentation only to be insulted by an incompetent, vapid sociopath. Just shoot me.
I’ve been reading around cyberspace about Sarah Palin’s “women problem” – a gender gap yawning wider now than in 1984 when it became a national issue during Reagan’s second election when Geraldine Ferraro was introduced as our first woman Vice Presidential nominee. The Republican party has never ably closed the gap, but with its enthusiastic endorsement of Palin as their female icon, the animosity most women feel toward any candidate with an “R” after his or her name is only going to get worse.
So, why do most women dislike Sarah Palin? It’s absolutely not, as men have accused, because we are jealous of her good looks and charm. I think Sarah is far prettier than the hideous and despicable Ann Coulter, but at least Ann can articulate her (hateful) opinions and string a comprehensible sentence together. No, we dislike Sarah because she embodies the absolute worst stereotypes of every working mother, incompetent female manager, and promoted underachiever we have met in our struggle to succeed.
Sarah is touted as a good mom, yet she abandoned her children to be raised by the village long ago when she ran for mayor of Wasilla. This may have been for the best, since she seems to be still a teenager herself, emotionally; nevertheless, she’s hardly the model of motherhood. She is praised for her morality, yet she has demonstrated the ultimate immorality: blaming others for her mistakes and failures, never mind her pathological dishonesty. She is glamorized as a hunter and athlete, yet according to people close to her she does not shoot and her “sport” of choice is mid-distance jogging. She’s paraded around as “everywoman” yet represents no woman I know. She has more money, more domestic help, more undeserved accolades, more vindictiveness, more personal drama, and more cosmetic enhancements than any woman I know from any middle-class neighborhood.
I don’t begrudge Sarah her wealth or her ability to flash her impressive gams, but I do question the wisdom of the Republican party (and the American media) in casting her as a role model for my daughters. She’s not a role model for my daughters. She’s everything I don’t want my daughters to be: shallow, uninformed, narcissistic, spiteful, dishonest, intellectually challenged, lazy, vain, culturally bereft, misogynist, jingoistic, fundamentalist, chauvinistic, spiritually vacuous, incurious, ignorant, inarticulate, and immature.
Despite her descent to innocuous domesticity as First Lady, Michelle Obama is a far likelier role model for American girls than Sarah Palin could ever hope to be.
Nice essay, Retzilian.
I was reading on a feminist blog earlier that she is the type of woman that other women learn early on in life not to trust, and once you get past the superficial stuff, other women see her for what she is. And while I do think men are more easily bedazzled by her good looks (think Rich “Starbursts” Lowry), we eventually catch on. It just takes us longer.
For the crowd who do love her, I believe it is a combo of good looks and the inability to say anything meaningful. She is like that co-worker that says, “Hot enough for ya?” or “This is weather only a duck could love.” You immediately know who she is, her depth, her politics. She doesn’t make you feel stupid, and she will never tell you you are wrong.
Regards,
Tengrain
Thanks for stopping by, TG. I think she doesn’t make men feel stupid, she never tells them they’re wrong (to their faces), but only at first. She makes a good first impression, like all socially skilled narcissists do. It’s when you get to know her better that you start seeing through her.
For me, she was immediately recognizable for what she is – a fraud. But, I have unfortunately vast experience with the personality type. And with this book she has self-sabotaged in spectacular fashion.
Cheers to you and thanks for all you do!
O/T but always relevant around here, a new Spouse murrrder theater in a familiar location – Palos Verdes. Another cliffside “horrible accident.”
P.S. Dear Morons (or is that Morans): Don’t use your cell phone after a murder.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_13853838?nclick_check=1
Like the new layout!
Sarah Palin is everything I’ve already tried NOT to be.