The Left-Wing Feminist Assault on Sarah Palin – It’s Not Pretty!

I was talking politics with my neighbor minutes ago; Dave and I are both former Democrats, now rebelling against the idea of voting for the lesser of two evils in November; heck, we’re even considering voting for Ralph Nader. “But seriously,” Dave said, “the Democratic party needs to get rid of its leadership. They pushed aside the better qualified candidate (that would be Hillary) in order to put their guy (that would be Barack) in place.”

Yep. That’s exactly what the Democratic Party did, and can you blame me for laughing when two-gun Sarah Palin spits in their collective eye, and the McCain ticket surges ahead in the polls?

Speaking of Sarah, my well-educated liberal friends who have been swooning – fainting at times - over Barack Obama since they heard his first rousing motivational “yes-we-can” speech are pleading with those of us who continue to refuse to get in line. They’re telling us that Barack, not Sarah, is the candidate who is truly for women’s rights; Sarah, they say, is no feminist.

Cathy Young addresses that issue in her article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal titled Why Feminists Hate Sarah Palin.

Young writes:

“Left-wing feminists have a hard time dealing with strong, successful conservative women in politics such as Margaret Thatcher. Sarah Palin seems to have truly unhinged more than a few, eliciting a stream of vicious, often misogynist invective.

‘“On Salon.com last week, Cintra Wilson branded her a ‘Christian Stepford Wife’ and a ‘Republican blow-up doll.’ Wendy Doniger, religion professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, added on the Washington Post blog, ‘Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.’

“You'd think that, whether or not they agree with her politics, feminists would at least applaud Mrs. Palin as a living example of one of their core principles: a woman's right to have a career and a family. Yet some feminists unabashedly suggest that her decision to seek the vice presidency makes her a bad and selfish mother. Others argue that she is bad for working mothers because she's just too good at having it all.

‘“In the Boston Globe on Friday, columnist Ellen Goodman frets that Mrs. Palin is a ‘supermom’ whose supporters ‘think a woman can have it all as long as she can do it all . . . by herself.’ In fact, Sarah Palin is doing it with the help of her husband Todd, who is currently on leave from his job as an oil worker. But Ms. Goodman's problem is that ‘she doesn't need anything from anyone outside the family. She isn't lobbying for, say, maternity leave, equal pay, or universal pre-K.’

‘“This also galls Katherine Marsh, writing in the latest issue of The New Republic. Mrs. Palin admits to having ‘an incredible support system -- a husband with flexible jobs rather than a competing career . . . and a host of nearby grandparents, aunts, and uncles.’ Yet, Ms. Marsh charges, she does not endorse government policies to help less-advantaged working mothers -- for instance, by promoting day-care centers.

‘“Mrs. Palin's marriage actually makes her a terrific role model. One of the best choices a woman can make if she wants a career and a family is to pick a partner who will be able to take on equal or primary responsibility for child-rearing. Our culture still harbors a lingering perception that such men are less than manly -- and who better to smash that stereotype than ‘First Dude’ Todd Palin?

‘“Nevertheless, when Sarah Palin offered a tribute to her husband in her Republican National Convention speech, New York Times columnist Judith Warner read this as a message that she is ‘subordinate to a great man.’ Perhaps the message was a brilliant reversal of the old saw that behind every man is a great woman: Here, the great woman is out in front and the great man provides the support. Isn't that real feminism?”’

Read more.