Palin in Vanity Fair: Just Another Mean Girl
At a certain level, I have to hand it to Sarah Palin. She has managed to keep the nation's attention, and indeed drive the national conversation, in a way I never thought possible when the McCain/Palin campaign came to an end. And in terms of responding to her critics, Palin has managed to both change the conversation and apparently bat back with some stunning efficiency.
But on another level the Palin narrative is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with our national conversations surrounding female leadership. Take the recent Vanity Fair profile of Palin. What, other than some glorified gossip did we learn about Sarah Palin's vision for this country? We "learned" that she's a manipulative harpy that, despite her aura of being "regular folk" is actually cold, distant and at times unstable. Even in the most flattering of political features, male candidates personal flaws are somehow tied to professional shortcomings (Clinton's infedilities spoke to his political ambition, for exmaple) but in this piece all we get is fluff. Again.
But is that because that's all Sarah Palin can offer? Maybe. But, as a recent article in The Washington Post points out, it's all we are going to get. Our mainstream political coverage of female candidates amounts to a little more than Mean Girl gossip.
Thompson's article doesn't really break any new ground in pointing out the mainstreaming of media sexism against female candidates. Women politicians are subject to a disproportionate focus on anything other than their political platforms. Female candidates are taken less seriously to the point when ad hominen attacks on Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton's parenting pass as substantive criticism of the candidate.
Both the left and the right are guilty of playing into this kind of sexism and the result has to normalize and diminish female candidates and dumb down national discourse. What if, instead of discussing fierce fights between Palin and her husband Todd Vanity Fair had dedicated that space to taking on Palin's comments concerning Park 51? Would Palin's thoughts on current events cover the spread for Vanity Fair? And if it not shouldn't we be asking the question of why she was being presented as a viable vision of national leadership?
The results are bad for female candidates and for our nation overall. Less women in both parties seek office driving down overall representation. Women make up 51 percent of the nation's population but hold only 17 percent of the seats in Congress and 24 percent of the seats in state legislatures.
And to the extent that Sarah Palin's existence is simply a play on media sexism her latest attempts at "reclaiming" the title of feminist is particularly offensive. But let's give her the benefit of the doubt and just ask. Instead of running the fluff piece, let's make her answer substantive policy questions so we can judge for ourselves. It's what we expect of male candidates and there are enough women of substance on both the left and the right to show that it can be done.
But on another level the Palin narrative is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with our national conversations surrounding female leadership. Take the recent Vanity Fair profile of Palin. What, other than some glorified gossip did we learn about Sarah Palin's vision for this country? We "learned" that she's a manipulative harpy that, despite her aura of being "regular folk" is actually cold, distant and at times unstable. Even in the most flattering of political features, male candidates personal flaws are somehow tied to professional shortcomings (Clinton's infedilities spoke to his political ambition, for exmaple) but in this piece all we get is fluff. Again.
But is that because that's all Sarah Palin can offer? Maybe. But, as a recent article in The Washington Post points out, it's all we are going to get. Our mainstream political coverage of female candidates amounts to a little more than Mean Girl gossip.
Thompson's article doesn't really break any new ground in pointing out the mainstreaming of media sexism against female candidates. Women politicians are subject to a disproportionate focus on anything other than their political platforms. Female candidates are taken less seriously to the point when ad hominen attacks on Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton's parenting pass as substantive criticism of the candidate.
Both the left and the right are guilty of playing into this kind of sexism and the result has to normalize and diminish female candidates and dumb down national discourse. What if, instead of discussing fierce fights between Palin and her husband Todd Vanity Fair had dedicated that space to taking on Palin's comments concerning Park 51? Would Palin's thoughts on current events cover the spread for Vanity Fair? And if it not shouldn't we be asking the question of why she was being presented as a viable vision of national leadership?
The results are bad for female candidates and for our nation overall. Less women in both parties seek office driving down overall representation. Women make up 51 percent of the nation's population but hold only 17 percent of the seats in Congress and 24 percent of the seats in state legislatures.
And to the extent that Sarah Palin's existence is simply a play on media sexism her latest attempts at "reclaiming" the title of feminist is particularly offensive. But let's give her the benefit of the doubt and just ask. Instead of running the fluff piece, let's make her answer substantive policy questions so we can judge for ourselves. It's what we expect of male candidates and there are enough women of substance on both the left and the right to show that it can be done.
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