Well, almost right at any rate. Here is a remarkably insightful quote from her new book which was released yesterday. “The women’s movement used to be about honoring for women the same God-given rights that our country honored for men. It used to be about dignity and hope. It used to be about respecting women by respecting their choices—whether it is to be a nuclear engineer or a stay-at-home mom—not denigrating them when they aren’t sufficiently like men.”
She has correctly identified how second wave feminism has been portrayed in the popular consciousness, and why there is a backlash away from feminism today.
However, she is wrong in so far as she thinks that feminism writ large has ever really been about “denigrating” women's choices. Even if some women in the movement were resistant to the “stay-at-home” mom ideal, many (if not most) feminists had children themselves, loved their children, and were willing to fend off Grizzly Bears to protect those children (regardless of whether or not those Grizzlies spoke with a Minnesota accent).
Palin is ridiculous in so far as she accuses liberals of being bleeding heart soccer parents who spoil our kids, while at the same time accusing us of being cold hearted bastards who “denigrate” stay-at-home moms.
Her answer to the problem of second wave feminism is to put the “girliness” back into the newly liberated women. She does not understand that “girliness” is a bribe to keep women from true equality.
Lastly, her style of feminism is a direct result of the Pandora's box opened by the lipstick sex-positive third wave feminists who tried to liberate sex, fashion, and one night stands without reclaiming child rearing, housekeeping, and relationship building. It is a short walk from “Sex and the City” feminism to "Pit Bull in Lipstick" Feminism.
So how can feminists break free of the unfair portrait that Sarah Palin has had so much success selling to America? We must reclaim traditional women's knowledge by sharing it with men. When men realize what they are missing, society will no longer look to the likes of Palin for expertise on gender equality because they will realize how completely Sarah Palin has been lying to us all along.
3 comments:
Two things:
1) One can be a feminist stay-at-home-mom, but I think it takes more than just exercising ones choice to leave the career world. One would need to challenge the gender boundaries and assumptions that make it a choice for women, but not men, for example. Moreover, it might mean challenging the power hierarchy that tends to emerge in even the most egalitarian relationships when one spouse earns all of the money and the other spouse does work that is socially undervalued.
2) Completely absent of her critique is any question of what parts of femininity are valuable enough to hold on to, let alone open up to men. Not everything that is "feminine" has liberating potential for women (or men), just as not everything that is "masculine" is a noble goal for liberated women. The aspects of gender that hurt people or reinforce subordination can and should go.
The problem is in naming things. As soon as something is called feminism, an idea pops into everyone's mind (not the same idea, obviously) and they act on that idea rather than acting on what's right in front of them. Anytime a door is locked to anyone, that is a problem. There isn't feminism or masculinism or sexism or whatever label a person wants to stick to, a human being should be allowed to live the life he/she chooses and expect some support for that choice from the world at large. Staying home to raise a child is just that. Going to a building to do research is just that. The value is what it is. We fight each others ideas, not real life.
Jane, I agree that bickering about choices already made is both fruitless and needlessly divisive. Things are what they are. But this observation skirts the question of how we continue to make our choices and what informs them. Are we making them with eyes open or are we making them based on our programming and prejudices? Will they harm anyone?
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