Sarah Palin: Patriarchy’s Happy Little Sister

Originally posted at http://jmwinck.wordpress.com

For a moment I couldn’t believe that I had to take this seriously. John McCain chooses a woman as his vice presidential nominee. It didn’t take long to realize what was at stake. Roe v. Wade: gone. Exceptions for those who were raped or victims of incest: gone. More attacks against birth control. What it means to be a woman, reconceptualized in that narrow, traditional frame. She can have five kids. She snagged a man who accepts her success. She is a governor. What are other women whining about? 

I want to see the nanny in that wonderful family picture. If Palin is “a woman’s candidate,” I want her to explain what poor women should do when they get pregnant and still want to go to school, or become governor. I want her to address class and race when it comes to growing your family and building your career. If she doesn’t, I will have to believe that she has a simple answer. Don’t be poor. Be rich like I am.

Or, be the partner of someone who faces no discrimination based on class, skin color, gender, or sexuality. Have children with this person, only after marriage. And when you want to do something that fulfills you, hire someone to take care of your home and your kids. It’s that simple to Palin. 

Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate is more than frustrating. It’s confusing, irritating, condescending, disrespectful. She is against the feminist concept of considering all women, their partners and their families, yet calls herself a feminist. On one hand, she would gladly deny women the health care, education, and reproductive rights they are owed. On the other, when she talks about progress for women, she herself is suddenly breaking some glass ceiling, or satisfying that feminist desire to see women in respected positions. I am sensing an alteration of feminism where Senator Clinton’s campaign left off: the installation of women in a limited number of power positions.

The popularity of this definition of feminism was and is misleading. Feminism is also the means through which we will win universal health care, reproductive justice, economic security. It is an enthusiastic encouragement, if not a bridge, to other fights against injustice. Limited to white women who want social equality with their male counterparts, this feminism fails terribly. Until the desires of the privileged stop trumping the real needs of everyone else, feminism will continue to be hijacked by anti-feminist women who love the benefits of being patriarchy’s little sister