Well, we all noted early on how cynical and sexist McCain was to pick Palin in the first place, apparently assuming Hillary supporters would support any woman, even an anti-woman woman, just because she is a woman. Of course, he also loves her for her base appeal, but that wasn’t all of the calculus in choosing her.
One of the things I’ve been mulling over lately is how thoroughly this campaign is simply using her. And how sad that is. Does she realize? Does she care?
They want her femaleness, including her beauty and poise, but they don’t want anything else about her (well, other than her ability to give dynamite if canned speeches). As one DUer put it, ” She can play with the boys but the boys can’t play with her.”
She’s not allowed to express her own thoughts at all, and in fact after the Charles Gibson debacle, she’s not allowed in front of a camera unless it’s without a microphone. Campbell Brown spoke up about the whole matter in her own little commentary and even Alaskans are angry at how absent she’s become.
Curiously, a number of her campaign events have been cancelled, including fundraisers (wtf???), and there’s a rumor she may be yanked from the ticket. I wonder how much she knows, if that’s the case, and just how they’ll engineer a graceful exit, if true. And WHEN!!? Time’s a-wastin’. Of course, perhaps they want to wait until the last possible moment so that there’s little chance to do all this public vetting of her replacement.
The fact continues to be visible for all to see that for McCain and his campaign, Palin is the nearest version of a trophy wife you can have for a VP nominee. Garrison Keillor thnks that “Anyone with a heart has to hurt for how Mr. McCain has made a fool of her.”
Well, no, actually, Garrison. That takes it a bit too far for me. I know I certainly don’t hurt for her, and I’m not only a really compassionate person, I’m a strong feminist who routinely defends women I don’t like when they’re treated cavalierly (just as I’m defending Palin here). So I’ll stick up for her and any other rightwing traitor to my gender, but I won’t extend much sympathy to her. I won’t say she deserves what she’s getting, but I’ll say it’s also not blaming the victim to point out that were she a feminist she’d (a) not put up with this shit and (b) not have been picked to start with.
I also don’t agree with those who feel Palin is setting women’s rights back by decades. As I see it, she is one of Patriarchy’s Women and she serves as a dramatic, in your face example of how far some women have come while she and others like her haven’t, and for that reason alone perhaps how desperately most of us wouldn’t want someone like her in charge of our government or even small parts of it. IOW, I see her as a strong and effective negative reinforcement for women’s rights.
I think we can all take some comfort in that.
