Choice doesn’t justify discrimination

Last year I had the privilege of sitting in the audience of The Colbert Report. The warm up comic came  out and was doing his thing. At the time, Newsweek had come out with its magazine that had a picture of Sarah Palin on the cover—a leggy pic that Palin had taken with the magazine Runners World. Now the pic was on the cover of Newsweek with the title “How do you solve a problem like Sarah?” which was presumably about Palin’s political situation and not about her running schedule.

I was miffed about it and so was the comedian. It was sexist, he said.

But then a voice came from the audience, a young woman, said, “But she chose to take that picture.”

I think my jaw hit the floor. Here was a young woman—perhaps someone who believed in women’s rights—blaming a woman for what someone else put on the cover of their political magazine. She was blaming her because she (probably) didn’t like Palin’s politics.

One cannot use “choice” to justify sexism, racism or any other -ism. Fuck that shit.

But just when I thought that this person was an anomaly, I read Rebecca Traister’s Big Girls don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women, a play by play of the 2008 presidential election with a feminist spin (It’s a great read by the way especially if you’re interested in the concept of intersectionality in action). Traister rehashes the sexism that Hilary Clinton faced, the racism Obama faced, but when she got to the meaning of Palin’s place in the election, there was much to be desired. Palin, it seems, didn’t earn a feminist analysis.

In fact, I had to read these words regarding Palin’s diasterous Couric interview:

“She had made the choice to go on television in the first place.”

There’s that word again. Choice. I don’t know about you, but if I made the choice to run for VP in America, I wouldn’t have the choice about whether or not I wanted to appear on TV. In fact, if I was running for VP or president I wouldn’t have  a choice about many things—especially how the media or the voting public would receive me.

Traister goes on to talk about Palin’s choices—choices Traister doesn’t like which, hey, is her opinion. But she also says, “Pity for Sarah Palin seemed disrespectful of every woman who had ever been unfairly dismissed based on her gender, because Palin’s was a fair dismissal based on her willingness to take on a job for which she was not qualified.”

First of all, feminism isn’t about who gets our “pity.” Fuck that. I base my feminism around the end of sexist oppression. Pity has nothing to do with it.

Secondly, I hear a lot of studies that blame women for a lot things—women earn less because they don’t negotiate, women aren’t finding partners because they’re too picky etc. Not giving Palin the benefit of feminism because you don’t agree with her life choices isn’t what feminism is about.

And you can’t ignore Palin’s status as a woman even as she promotes sexist, homophobic and racist policies.

Because if we perpetuate sexist arguments against Palin, we perpetuate sexist arguments against ourselves—it perpetuates sexist arguments against future female politicians who supports policies we support.

If feminists are pro-choice, we need to stop using “choice” as a justification for sexism.