It's not April; so, the announcement of Sarah Palin as the GOP's Vice Presidential nominee cannot be taken as a joke.
No, it was done in all seriousness as a calculated effort by the RNC to stunt the momentum from and take the spotlight off Obama/Biden and the incredible feeling of real hope and its probability of crashing the gates of power, and getting Washington to work for all its citizens not those in the top one percent.
And, you know what? It succeeded. Spectacularly. Not just in the mainstream media where it was a fait accompli, but in places like DailyKos, where it became the number-one topic of conversation on Friday following the announcement.
The Freepers and their ilk must be laughing hysterically. No, not over the non-stop Sarah Palin diaries; those were a side-benefit. What they're rubbing their hands in glee over -- what has been handed them on a silver platter in print for anyone for a Google search to see -- is the outright misogyny and sexism double-standard that some on the left are applying to a woman candidate. And oh, how they're going to exploit it.
I posted these elsewhere, but they're worth repeating:
Since Palin's announcement some dKos members have been positively salivating over the possibility of:
- nude photos turning up of her during her time as a beauty contest runner-up
- that the [obviously Photoshopped] picture of her
dressed like a slut and wearing fuck-me heels in attire that would not seem appropriate for a Christian woman should be running 24-7 on all media news services
- that her eldest daughter might possibly be the mother of Palin's fifth child
- that her personal choice to handle her body/pregnancy in whatever way she deems appropriate brings her judgement into question
Taking each of these points, let's analyze them:
The hope that nude photos turn up of her during her time as a beauty contest runner-up.
Forgetting that we all do things in our youth that we'll likely regret later in life, few men, and probably even fewer women (unless they come from an already politically connected family), anticipate in their late teens or early twenties that they will one day be campaigning for the second-most powerful position in the USA.
On the one hand, boys and men have their manhood, social status and success graded upon the girls/women they ogle, date, marry and divorce. On the other hand, to be deemed acceptable, girls and women are expected to conform to an outmoded Victorian standard of behaviour. (Yeah, I hear the feminists doing a spit-take right about now.)
If Palin feels comfortable enough with her body to have had nude photos taken that is entirely her own decision. If Palin was drugged or coerced/pressured into such a situation, that brings up a situation that still stands in our society: men's power over women, and the shame that women must endure because of society's double-standards.
As the side that celebrates the rights and strengths of women, is either scenario cause for celebration? The former puts the big lie to our respecting women's choices. If it's the latter scenario and is motivated by our desire to literally and figuratively expose Palin, that puts a lie to our claim that such an incident is not the fault of the woman and she should not be further humiliated for it.
The [obviously Photoshopped] picture of her dressed like a slut and wearing fuck-me heels in attire that would not seem appropriate for a Christian woman should be running 24-7 on all media news services
Few questioned from where the photo might have originated; never mind the fact that it was clearly (and poorly Photoshopped). It was clear that the only thing that mattered to some posters was that the outfit was slutty and the shoes were fuck-me-heels. Certainly not the proper apparel for any Christian woman.
If you want to be laughed at by nearly every moderate Christian woman (and probably a few fanatical Christian women), try telling them what they should be wearing. Now, try telling them what they should be wearing in the privacy of their own homes. And you can probably extend that reaction to include women of Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other religious backgrounds.
Throughout the primary, some were fuming about the press's incessant harping on Hillary Rodham Clinton's "power pantsuits". What did HRC's attire have to do with her ability to govern? And why are women's personalities -- mother, executive, housewife -- still being judged by the clothing they choose to wear?
The allegations and call-out from the barest of photographic evidence that Sarah Palin's eldest daughter might possibly be the mother of Palin's fifth child.
I can't even bring myself to link to yesterday's diary that would make a Daily Globe reporter ill. From the barest speculation -- two web-published photos (the one with Palin wearing slightly baggy clothes, and the family photo with the one daughter with the tummy bulge, which may or may not have been Photoshopped), and that the daughter had not been in school for several months because of mono -- an unknown blogger attempts to crucify (and believe me, the right will spin it that way) a political rival and destroy the reputation of a minor child.
Let's first get into the minor thing (as opposed to the minor child): the clothes Bristol Palin was wearing in that photograph. Has the diarist and some of his/her commenters seen what's being sold in Hot Topic and/or Abercrombie & Fitch lately? Has the diarist been in a shopping mall or to the movies? You'll see plenty of female teenagers of various shapes and sizes wearing those same skintight shirts, and many of them have that same tummy bulge. Unless you're built like an anorexic Twiggy, those shirts aren't complimentary to the figures of the average American teenage girl, but they're worn because they're "in style". And God help the teenage girl who isn't a fashionista.
As for the minor child. Forgetting the fact that her medical records are private, the Democratic platform stands for protecting the reproductive privacy of all females -- including minors. It's what we base our call for access to sex-education, contraception, abortion, and pre- and neo-natal care. Laws have been written to protect girls and women who drop off their newborn at healthcare facilities, police stations, foundling hospitals from charges of abandonment. They are encouraged and supported in those decisions by the promise of anonymity.
And some Democrats want to deny Bristol Palin those same rights -- her right to privacy; her right to her own body; her right to her reproductive choices and their consequences -- because her mother is a fundamentalist Christian, a Republican and the Vice Presidential nominee. Are you fuckin' nuts? Can you even smell the hypocrisy? Do you realize how this is going to play in Peoria? In Podunk? In Bumfuck, Alaska? Forget her sexual choices, a girl's reputation can be destroyed by rumour, innuendo or even who she dates. Do you think any teenager coming of voting age is going to trust the Democratic party to protect her sexual privacy in such an investigation is allowed to pass? Hell, at least they know where they stand with the Republicans.
As far as the possibility of the raising of a child of a close relative (unmarried daughter, sister or cousin) as your own, it's not something new. It's been going on in good Catholic, Jewish, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, et al families for generations. There will be a lot of families -- especially from older generations -- who will be up in arms over such a witch hunt.
And that some Democrats even dared to use the word "blackmail" over this alleged scenario. My God, that was the reason for refusing military clearance or military service to the GLBT. The hypocrisy -- and dangerous stupidity -- it burns!
Sarah Palin's personal choice in how she handles her body/pregnancy brings into question her judgement.
I don't know about some other posters, but I had always believed that a woman is capable of making her own choices concerning her body, whether those choices disagree with what other mothers do, conventional wisdom and/or medical evaluation. And I had always believed that the Democratic party respected that right.
Today, based on Clytemnestra's diary, we are assured that Sarah Palin's political judgement must be called into question because she exercised the rights to her own body's health that the Democratic platform assures her she has.
While many mothers talked of their own experiences with their water breaking, how their doctors urged them into hospital, and how such a situation may be dangerous to the health of the mother and baby, what was overlooked was Ms. Palin's right to her own decision about her own body.
In a very snarky/sarcastic response to that diary, I posted:
And as long as we're trying to spin facts out of manure, why not just say:
- That Ms. Palin was acting on her faith -- that God would protect her and her unborn baby -- in making her decision to return to Alaska while amniotic fluid was leaking.
- Or better yet, Palin knew she would give birth to a Down's Syndrome infant, by not acting immediately by going to a hospital, she put the baby's viability in God's hands.
- Or for the CT theorists, the Barracuda didn't want to give birth to a defective child, and was unable to get an abortion (public figure, pro-lifer). By not taking immediate action when the amniotic fluid was leaking, she hoped the little monster would die, so she wouldn't have to deal with it.
While I doubt any of the above scenarios are true, they all take into account the one thing that the Democratic platform is supposed to guarantee for a woman: her right to take responsibility for her own body's health choices.
And puh-leeze spare me the lectures about how she was jeopardizing her health and that of the baby's. No one would deny that an overweight male or female politco also has the potential of jeopardizing their own health, yet we're not using that particular standard to question their political judgement.
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If Palin has never publicly condemned a woman for posing nude, if she has never publicly passed judgement on another woman's attire as a representation of morality, if she is being true to her faith (not sent someone secretly for an abortion, not blaming the "sinner" for the "sin", and not damning an innocent baby for being the product of "sin"), any indiscretions as a beauty queen, her choice of wardrobe and what goes on within her own family remain her own business. As for her children, they should remain off-limits.
And please spare me that connection between Palin and the Assembly of God church. Whatever beliefs Palin takes from her Pentacostal church -- and she appears to have accepted a hell of a lot -- she is not her church; she is not her pastor. (Opening up that argument will only lend credence to the right rehashing Obama and Rev. Wright.)
With so many other questions concerning Palin's unfittness for high office (let alone low office), for members of dKos to focus on the sexist ones does a disservice to progressive politics, and plays directly into the hands of Republicans, who'll do anything to avoid discussing how empty their platform is.