For those of us who are old enough to remember, the presidential election of 1984 was historical. Presidential candidate Walter Mondale nominated New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his vice presidential running mate. America’s feminists and the media were aflutter with praise for the woman that would be a heartbeat away from the most powerful position in the world.
“It is time we had a woman vice president, or president.”
Gloria Steinem, during a heated debate on the Phil Donahue show
“No one asks anymore if women can raise the money, if women can take the heat, if women have the stamina for the toughest political campaigns in this country. Geraldine Ferraro did them all.”
Judy Goldsmith, President of NOW
“What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen…. Why shouldn’t a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?”
New York Times Editorial
The year is 2008 and once again a presidential candidate has nominated a woman to be his vice presidential running mate. Remember that 1970s Helen Reddy, feminist-type commercial for Enjoli perfume? The woman sings “I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan and never, never, never let you forget you’re a man, ’cause I’m a woman!” Nobody is better at living the feminist dream than Governor Palin. She’s broken into the good-old-boys network of political leaders. She can hunt and dress a moose with the best of them and she has a big family. The Anchorage Daily News reports Palin, when Mayor seven years ago, gave birth to daughter, Piper, on a Monday and returned to the office a day later! That beats the bacon and frying pan routine.
Now she’s on the cusp of making history by possibly being elected the first woman vice president. She has it all! You’d think the political elevation of Sarah Palin would have sent modern-day feminists into euphoria.
But my how times have changed! Logically, the above quotes regarding the first female VP candidate should be applied to any future female candidate. But the response from today’s feminists and media couldn’t be more different in its reaction and sentiment toward Sarah Palin, compared to the hero’s welcome it gave Geraldine Ferraro.
Gloria Steinem said Governor Palin’s nomination was the “wrong woman, wrong message.” She further added that Sarah Palin shares nothing in common with Hillary Clinton but a chromosome. Ouch!
It gets meaner. For years liberal activists have railed against conservative, i.e. pro-life, talk radio as “hate speech.” But today’s feminists have expressly declared a hatred for America’s new would-be bearer of the political sledge hammer aimed at the glass ceiling.
Feminist author of Salon, Cintra Wilson, likened Governor Palin’s appointment by John McCain “akin to ideological brain rape.” Wilson called her “a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty.”
Two other Salon authors took diametrically opposing viewpoints. One said Sarah Palin was “a whip-wielding mistress”, while another labeled her a sexually oppressed fundamentalist similar to a radical Muslim terrorist. She can’t possibly be both.
A spokesperson for NOW, a radical, pro-abortion group, said she was more of a man than a woman. I’ve never seen Governor Palin in person, but I can assure you she appears all-woman to me. Even the President of Pakistan got into political hot water by observing out loud Mrs. Palin’s obvious feminine qualities.
Another feminist, Wendy Doniger from the University of Chicago, wrote in Newsweek: “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.” What are these feminists failing to see that is so abundantly obvious to the rest of America?
Feminist writer Heather Mallick called governor Palin’s look that of a “toned-down version of [a] porn actress.” The lack of civility is stunning!
The feminist hatred of Sarah Palin transcends gender. They hate her because she’s not living up to their definition of empowering women. Governor Palin believes in choosing life for her unborn children and grandchildren and this threatens the holy grail of feminism, which is abortion-on-demand with no apologies. And, apparently in the process, she’s keeping her man happy because he’s always smiling. This too probably gets their goat.
Win or lose, Sarah Palin has shown that true feminists can achieve extraordinary accomplishments as a woman in a man’s world. What the hard-line feminists can’t accept is that she did it on her own terms without them and their radical agenda.
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