What Sarah Palin means for feminists (really)

A few years ago, feminist scholar bell hooks spoke at my alma mater. In the afternoon, several hours before her public speech, hooks did a more casual Q&A with students. Inevitably, the issue came up – isn’t it shameful that our country has never had a female president, and shouldn’t putting a vagina in the White House be the top priority of every good feminist?

To paraphrase hooks’ response: Um, no, not really. She mentioned a few women that she personally would actively work against, should they ever run, including Secretary of State Condi Rice. hooks’ point was this: the assumption that any woman is inherently better for human rights than any man is grossly sexist.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that little exchange lately, as I’ve been watching the commentary from many right wing TV analysts and bloggers following Sen. McCain’s selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. The consensus seems to be that Palin’s nomination has rocked American feminists. The Washington Post reiterated it today. She supports a ticket that’s profoundly in opposition to our political goals, but…She’s a woman! Must…have…woman…president…My little woman-brain’s circuits are overloaded!

Except that…um, no, not really. Most feminists over the age of 12 managed to work past the reductive “vagina=GOOD” logic quite some time ago. But that didn’t stop the pundits from setting up straw (wo)men left and right, asking how feminists who push for the advancement of women could possibly not support a woman candidate. (I’ve already answered that question. Not supporting fair pay legislation and casting rape as a second-class crime might have a little something to do with it...)

We’ve heard a lot of talk about how Palin’s candidacy has forced progressives to challenge certain assumptions. But I don’t think there’s been enough said about how her very existence forces conservatives to re-evaluate their own dogma.

What if I told you that there was a family where the wife/mom had a high-powered, demanding job, and she wasn’t depicted as a ball-busting shrew? What if I told you that her husband managed to be both a super-masculine athlete with a blue-collar job and a loving father engaged in the raising of his children? What if I told you that this decent, apparently deeply religious family wasn’t immune to things like domestic abuse or premarital sex?

It’s interesting to me that conservatives in this country have, for at least a generation now, been holding up this Eisenhower-era “Donna Reed” fantasy of what the world should be like, only to now line up behind a woman whose family shatters most of those stereotypes. (One hopes that her politics will catch up…) It’s the same with McCain – adulterer, divorcee – and yet he somehow miraculously manages to be a person and a leader with integrity.

Understand that none of this will stop the Limbaughs of the world from spewing their BS about “family values” – as if they had any themselves – but it means they’ve been defanged. It’s a small sign to me that the wind is shifting. They'll never be able to spout that "a woman's place is in the home" crap ever again, at least not with a straight face.

I wouldn’t expect the aforementioned pundits to know this, but feminists are actually pretty comfortable with the Palins as people. (Again, politics are a whole ‘nother thing.) They seem like they’re a tight, loving family, who embody the long-held feminist position that in a post-patriarchal society families will have the freedom to do whatever’s best for them. (I think bell hooks wrote a book about it…) If someone here feels threatened by the Palins and what they represent, I can assure you – it isn’t the feminists.