“The Day Sarah Palin Kneecapped Feminism”

by Little Miss Attila on March 9, 2011

Meaning, of course, socialist and anti-male feminism rather than the more universal variety:

Before 39-million viewers, Palin was the first public figure to openly and successfully ridicule the hitherto untouchable Barack Obama. She also was the first American woman to campaign for high office by paying homage, but no ideological dues, to the Sisterhood. This Alaskan small-town huntin’, fishin’ God-fearin,’ abortion-hatin’ mom of five showed that a woman can break through any glass ceiling she wants without the imprimatur of the feminist politburo.

Feminists watching Palin’s stunning performance knew a stake was being driven through their movement’s heart.

This was a provocative read for me, and there were a few places in which I almost feel it went too far–or, perhaps, it hit too close to the bone for a recovering lefty like me. Obviously, I’ll have to read it one more time.

You read it once, and let me know what you think. I’ll also be monitoring the good Dr. Helen‘s blog to see if she has a take on it as well. (And of course I expect Stacy to run some sort of oversimplified fiddle-faddle wherein he pins the feminist tail on the Democrat donkey-con, or some such.)

h/t: Insty.

UPDATE: Stacy never disappoints. Once again, he ignores the plain sexism of everyday life in the 1950s and 1960s, decides that the midcentury “second wave” reforms weren’t necessary, determines all on his own that Betty Friedan and the feminist movement from that time were one and the same*, draws faulty conclusions from his own faulty premise, ignores the first suffragist feminist wave as well as the third and fourth waves, and–presto!–gives the word “feminist” the meaning he would like it to have.

It’s an astounding little blind spot he has there; it may be his most persistent one, too.

* Former Playboy bunny–and Ms. magazine founder–Gloria Steinem couldn’t be reached for comment

UPDATE 2: And now Stacy has weighed in again, responding specifically to my remark about Gloria Steinem as if I had put her forward as the “true” leader of the feminist movement (or “women’s lib,” as we used to call it back then, which Stacy points out). No, Stacy: I was trying to remind you that even if Freidan’s book provided the spark, the fire was inevitable. Women were not going to continue making coffee for every social movement of the day, whether it was the civil rights marchers or the war protesters, and never even notice how they were treated, for no reason other than that they were women.

And Stacy’s got more social history, which is always fascinating yet still beside the point. Alongside the socialists, the radicals, those “feminists” who wanted to subvert everything about the old order, there were always plenty of women who wanted to subvert only enough to transform the old order into a more humane variety of middle-class morality. And I contend that they constituted the “silent majority” of feminists.

Stacy sticks with his slight-of-hand of ignoring the suffragists, of course–because that is the only way his argument has a prayer of holding up. Those who endured awful things to gain us the right to vote and hold office did so to give us a measure of egalitarianism: they were “feminists.” They predate the feminists of the 1960s and 1970s. And they were succeeded by those of more recent decades.

The fact that you wil find plenty of socialists in some feminist circles doesn’t mean you can throw out the baby with the bathwater and condemn all feminists.

Unless you really, really think that women shouldn’t be voting, or that they should not be working at all outside the home. In that case, Stacy, you ought to order your wife to quit her job and stay away from the ballot box.

UPDATE: The current thread on this is here.

{ 16 trackbacks }

Feminism: Wrong From the Start : The Other McCain
March 9, 2011 at 9:57 pm
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The Feminist Omerta : The Other McCain
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‘Stacy’s Insult Against Governor Palin’? : The Other McCain
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In which I respond to a skirmish going on elsewhere by way of linking to my archives, quietly, without offering anything new, and without ostensibly taking sides.
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{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }

richard mcenroe March 9, 2011 at 10:32 pm

On the other hand, I remember Helen Gurley Brown playing a sexpot in fumetti comedies in Harvey Kurtzman’s “Help!” back in the day, so nothing was ever quite as cut and dried as we might wish to recall it…

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Cassandra March 10, 2011 at 4:54 am

… and–presto!–gives the word “feminist” the meaning he would like it to have.

You nailed it right there, Attila.

I can’t think of a single political movement – not conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism, feminism, the men’s rights movement – that has displayed the kind of intellectual uniformity Stacy posits.

Stacy quotes John Adam’s famous maxim: “Facts are stubborn things”. Allow me to riposte with a quote from a letter written to John Adams in March of 1776 by his wife, Abigail:

I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

Does anyone hear an echo of the Declaration of Independence? Because I do.

Nevermind all that. Betty Friedan was a filthy, stinking Commie traitor and therefore, there was never any need for women to have a voice in their own government :p

*rolling eyes*

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Cassandra March 10, 2011 at 5:23 am

Hold your horses – Stacy was right!!! Apparently, facts *are* stubborn things!

If you’re willing to ignore a decade of National Women’s Rights Conventions in the mid-1800s, the National Woman Suffrage Association, the American Woman Suffrage Association, the National Women’s Trade Union League, the National Women’s Party, and the Equal Rights Amendment (written in 1932 by Alice Paul) along with the century-long timeline of 1st wave feminism (without which women would not be allowed to vote or hold public office) you *could* possibly claim that there was no feminist movement until Betty Friedan came along to haunt the dreams of manly men everywhere.

Of course the facts don’t even begin tosupport that assertion, but with a wave of the keyboard, facts can be wished away. Let’s not forget the important thing — Betty Friedan was a man-hating Commie traitor! And poor Sarah Palin doesn’t know what she’s talking about :p

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alwaysfiredup March 10, 2011 at 10:00 am

Miss you, cass. 🙂

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Cassandra March 10, 2011 at 1:33 pm

Back atcha 🙂

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Beth Donovan March 10, 2011 at 2:25 pm

Here, in Kansas, we have a proud history of individualist feminism. Stemming from the abolitionist movement in the 1830s, women spoke out and worked for not just an end to slavery, but for women’s rights as well. And not a one of them was a socialist or advocated for any kind of socialism at all.

Not only that, but many of the early feminists were very proud to be mothers, seeing it as an important calling, unlike a lot of the 50s and 60s feminists.

I think Sarah Palin has a wonderfully strong voice for this more historically accurate view of feminism.

Also, I do believe the article in question is wrong about Sarah’ being the first voice to “openly and successfully ridicule the hitherto untouchable Barack Obama”. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and many other conservative talk show hosts very successfully questioned the abilities of Barack Obama many months before Sarah Palin hit the national stage.

As far as “the other mccain”, ummm. Out here in the hinterlands, we only have medium speed internet access. I have to be pretty picky as to my reading choices on the web – and I just don’t spend time reading Stacy.

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Beth Donovan March 10, 2011 at 3:40 pm

Richard, Helen Gurley Brown is not the feminist you seem to think she is. She was more for ‘free love”. She was author of Sex and the Single Girl and the editor in Chief of Cosmo – hardly a feminist occupation.

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Cassandra March 10, 2011 at 6:24 pm

I don’t have a problem with Stacy. I sometimes disagree with him, but he’s written things I thought were dead on accurate too.

In this case, he appears to be telling us that Sarah Palin is too dumb to know whether she’s a feminist or not. I happen to think Palin is in a better position to know what she thinks than Stacy is. Telling another person what they do or do not believe is patronizing.

Furthermore, Stacy doesn’t get to define feminism for feminists. Yes, he’s preaching to the choir because there are few things in life conservative bloggers love more than bashing feminists. Except for Sarah Palin – she presents a bit of a problem … so much so that it appears great lengths must be gone to to arbitrarily redefine a broad based movement spanning over 150 years. That this can only be accomplished by deliberately ignoring an entire century’s worth of concerted political activism only adds to the fun.

There are many kinds of feminists. Christina Hoff Summers identified two main branches – equity feminism (which numbers among its adherents women like Wendy McElroy, who likes porn, opposes gender based preferences and sexual harassment laws, and supports free market capitalism) and gender feminism (which is essentially what Stacy is talking about when he goes on one of his OMGFEMINISTSARERAPINGMYBRAINANDSTEALINGMYCORNFLAKES feminist rants). Equity feminists believe that men and women are different, support women staying home with their kids if that’s what they want, and mostly want the law to treat women equally in matters where our biological differences don’t justify disparate treatment.

I’d put Palin squarely in the equity feminist camp.

Gender feminists want to abolish gender roles entirely and eliminate all discrimination (unless of course it gives women an edge, in which case they’re all for it!). That’s somewhat unfair because I think gender feminists are nutbags, but it’s not far from the truth. Inconveniently for Stacy, Betty Friedan wrote an entire book criticizing the wackier excesses of the gender feminists. Another inconvenient fact.

She split with NOW in the 70s over their man-hating whackjobbery. Unfortunately, by that time Friedan had climbed too far out onto the Great Tree Limb of Life for me to take her seriously.

*sigh*

Facts matter, and I wouldn’t know any of this except I was forced to take a Women’s Studies class in order to get my Bachelor of Science in a technical field that had nothing to do with Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan, or Naomi Wolf.

That was 3 months of my life that I will never get back. As for me, I don’t have time to hate anyone (unless of course they get between me and the liquor cabinet).

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Roxeanne de Luca March 10, 2011 at 6:29 pm

The fact that you wil find plenty of socialists in some feminist circles doesn’t mean you can throw out the baby with the bathwater and condemn all feminists.

Unless you really, really think that women shouldn’t be voting, or that they should not be working at all outside the home. In that case, Stacy, you ought to order your wife to quit her job and stay away from the ballot box.

Agreed.

A lot of left-brained, educated women are infuriated by Stacy’s line of reasoning – we know ourselves to be equal to men (Stacy’s line about equality implying interchangeability aside, because they really are not the same thing at all), and don’t see why the laws and our society should not reflect that.

The disservice to the conservative movement is two-fold: first, it turns women away from it (and we do know that young, unmarried women win elections for Democrats); second, it ignores the fact that the progressive movement is like a virus that infects many hosts. Feminism is not the first, nor will it be the last, movement that the progressives have attempted to hijack. Why on earth we would not fight for feminism, rather than letting the progressives take it, is beyond me.

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Roxeanne de Luca March 10, 2011 at 6:36 pm

On a related note, one of the great fallacies of the anti-feminist right is that women’s suffrage caused the increase in the size of government. The logic goes something like this: when the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920, the federal government was small. It then grew by leaps and bounds during the Great Depression and continued to grow on an unsustainable course for the next eighty years. As a whole, women vote for Democrats and leftists more than men do, and those groups expand the size of government.

From a historical perspective, it’s dead wrong: the Sixteenth Amendment (allowing for the federal government to tax individuals, not states) and the Seventeenth Amendment (allowing for direct election of Senators) did far more to directly expand the federal government’s size and reach than giving women the vote ever could have. Anyone who can count knows that those two Amendments predated women’s suffrage. Also, the Supreme Court had its own role, and last I checked, the first woman on there was Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981, and decisions such as Wickhard predated that by a good forty to fifty years.

(Interestingly, these people all fail to note that the states which gave women the vote early on – such as Wyoming – are strongholds of small-government, independently-living conservatives.)

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Cassandra March 10, 2011 at 6:57 pm

one of the great fallacies of the anti-feminist right is that women’s suffrage caused the increase in the size of government. The logic goes something like this: when the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920, the federal government was small. It theen grew by leaps and bounds during the Great Depression and continued to grow on an unsustainable course for the next eighty years. As a whole, women vote for Democrats and leftists more than men do, and those groups expand the size of government.

Roxanne you ignorant slut!!! 🙂 If you were a smart, smart man instead of an uppity woman, you’d understand that correlation proves causation :p

A while back I did some research into how women ruined the universe with their pesky votes. Guess what I found out:

How would the last 38 years of presidential elections have turned out if only men had been allowed to vote? As it turns out, virtually the same as they did with more women voting than men. An all male electorate would have changed the results of only ONE election in the past 4 decades

Neat little graphic in the post – it’s worth checking out.

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ponce March 10, 2011 at 7:56 pm

Post hoc ergo propter hoc?

“An all male electorate would have changed the results of only ONE election in the past 4 decades”

That’s not true, Bill Clinton and Obama both would have lost if only men voted.

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Roxeanne de Luca March 10, 2011 at 8:07 pm

<3 the graphic. Now, Cassandra, you could have also gone state-by-state to figure out if the differences would have changed the result in the Electoral College (i.e. produced a 2000-like result in a different year). Maybe I'll do that. 🙂

I know it's useless to argue with Ponce, but I can't help but point out that 49% of men voted for Obama nd 48% of women did. Right here!

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ponce March 10, 2011 at 8:30 pm

You ware right sand I am wrong, Roxanne.

I was looking a polls, not data…

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Roxeanne de Luca March 10, 2011 at 8:12 pm

Of course, this all assumes that the ends justify the means (i.e. it’s worth denying basic civil rights to 51% of the population so you can get the result you want), and it’s also assuming that the Neanderthal-type attitude about women and conservatism isn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not that I think that conservatives ought to pander to women, but showing how the philosophy is consistent with the values of smart, educated, ambitious women is good. Showing how it’s better for women than liberalism is good – and keeping the paternalism out of it. Yelling about how The Womyn are killing this country is guaranteed to help the Democrats.

On a side note, it’s fascinating to see how minor differences between the sexes in elections create this madness (married women tend to vote exactly like men; unmarried women are the liberal ones), but no one ever says, “93% of blacks voted for Obama, and about 80% of them are pro-welfare, pro-handouts, pro-big-government liberals; let’s repeal the Fifteenth Amendment!” Yet the same argument about women crops up…..

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Darleen Click March 10, 2011 at 8:27 pm

Cass, I feel for you for having to take a “Womyn’s Studies Class”, one those squishy syllabi in search of relevancy. I glad I ducked it.

If I may inject that while Stacy has command of some of the history of the Women’s Lib movement of the 60s and 70s, he is really playing a bit of Calvin ball where it concerns the broader movement of women’s suffrage.

Women’s Lib was never about equal opportunity for females; hence it was/is so readily mockable – whether it be unshaven, hippie bra-burners or Amanda Marcotte.

Sarah Palin is easily a feminist because she makes “Gender Feminists” or Left-feminists live up to their own press. They are (ostensibly) for women having a choice of career/family/ideology? Then stop dissing the choices of Stay-at-home-moms, hunters, pro-life, capitalist, religious women. Left-feminists want to own the debate on their terms, Stacy should avoid agreeing with them.

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Cassandra March 10, 2011 at 8:28 pm

That’s not true, Bill Clinton and Obama both would have lost if only men voted.

*sigh*

ponce, don’t make me school you in how to read the graphic I linked to. If only men had voted, and 48% of men voted Rethug in 2008 but 49% voted Dem, then Obama STILL wins… by 1%.

The test is whether more men voted in a manner that would have flipped the election. The only time that happened was in 1996 (Clinton’s 2nd – not first – term) when 49% of men voted Republican and 48% voted for Clinton.

In other words, they were pretty much evenly split. Not exactly a landslide of conservatism, was it?

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ponce March 10, 2011 at 8:32 pm

Hehe,

I was wrong. I bow to your superior math skillz. I will admit being wrong if any else wants to point it out 🙂

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Little Miss Attila March 10, 2011 at 8:39 pm

This IS a special day.

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SVT March 11, 2011 at 6:27 pm

You assume, without evidence, that the candidates would have been the same.

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Darleen Click March 10, 2011 at 8:31 pm

unmarried women are the liberal ones

That’s if you define “liberal” in its modern usage — as fungible with leftism. Then it makes sense because leftism is where the most important relationship an individual can have is NOT with one’s spouse, or children, or family, or church but with the State.

Contemporary “feminism” (aka Gender Feminism) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Left.

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Cassandra March 10, 2011 at 8:40 pm

Not that I think that conservatives ought to pander to women, but showing how the philosophy is consistent with the values of smart, educated, ambitious women is good. Showing how it’s better for women than liberalism is good – and keeping the paternalism out of it. Yelling about how The Womyn are killing this country is guaranteed to help the Democrats.

I’m pretty sure that’s the same advice Larry Elder gave the GOP with respect to blacks. Maybe some day they’ll wise up :p

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Cassandra March 10, 2011 at 8:41 pm

Thank you, ponce 🙂

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Mike March 11, 2011 at 7:01 am

‘Scuse me for having a “Man’s” opinion on this issue, but I think the modern feminist movement was a bunch of hooey, claptrap…well…out right bullsh!t. I’m glad women have the vote and they have , or are supposed to have equal rights in the workplace. But, as pertains to domestic issues, women have always had the upper hand.

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Little Miss Attila March 11, 2011 at 7:03 am

Sure. If by “having the upper hand,” you mean “expected to do all the work.”

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Mike March 11, 2011 at 7:27 am

I have a different perspective. When I was growing up, I watched as my Dad helped Mom with the housework as well as doing all the “Man” stuff outside. Both of my parents worked. And as me and my brothers grew older, we started emulating him in sharing household chores. We had to wash dishes, vacuum the rugs, do the laundry. And I do believe if we had had sisters, it wouldn’t have made any difference, we’d have just had another person to share the chores with. Equality reigned in our household, even before the vaunted feminist movement. I’m even older than Mr. McCain. 😉

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Mike March 11, 2011 at 7:31 am

As an aside, I’ve belatedly added you to my ever expanding blogroll.

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Cassandra March 11, 2011 at 7:37 am

Mike, your Dad sounds like a real gem.

My father changed diapers and got up with me at night back in the 1950s. And my Mom went above and beyond to help him in his career many times. They pretty much conformed to the traditional gender roles (he went to work, she stayed home with the kids) but my father left us in no doubt of how much he loved and respected Mom. And she returned the favor.

But our family was far from the norm when I was growing up. The plural of anecdotes (yours and mine) is not data :p

What a lot of us (even women like me who’ve had little use for institutional feminism over the years) are objecting two is two things:

1. Rewriting history.
2. Redefining a broad based movement with many (sometimes conflicting) objectives in a way that distorts it beyond all recognition.

You (or I) can disagree with feminists and still be fair and accurate. Ignoring huge swaths of history is neither. Where a good part of the feminist movement went wrong was when some feminists decided to demonize men and treat them like the enemy. Parts (not all, but parts) of the men’s rights movement today are making that same mistake.

Any political movement has extremists, and they tend to hog the microphone and suck all of the air out of the room. But just b/c they’re louder doesn’t mean the more reasonable elements ceased to exist. You just can’t hear them for all the screeching.

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ltw March 11, 2011 at 9:37 am

My opinion (not a premise): Each woman or man can write (talk) about feminism, however they define it.

Atilla: “Equity feminists believe that men and women are different, …mostly want the law to treat women equally in matters where our biological differences don’t justify disparate treatment.”

McCain: Insofar as men and women are different, they are not equal.

http://theothermccain.com/2010/05/03/national-offend-a-feminist-week-day-2-equal-but-not-identical/

Both McCain and Atilla should continue writing…

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Dixie Normous March 11, 2011 at 12:04 pm

I always find it interesting when folks who want to support a certain line of thinking discount everything that is said that does not comply with “their” thought process. It seems to me that Stacy has some points that are valid but you don’t want to admit it because it would require you to rethink your position.

We’ve seen this over and over with many folks on both the right and left. Funny how little things change with time.

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Little Miss Attila March 11, 2011 at 12:17 pm

You’re going to have to clarify that. At no point have I said that Stacy doesn’t “have points” on this issue.

I’m simply not going to allow him to re-write 150 years of social and political history because he wants to change the English language enough to declare a single word out-of-bounds for any speaker who considers himself/herself to be “conservative” on any level.

This is a stealth purge, and I’m not going to be purged. I’m sticking around, thank you very much.

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Cassandra March 11, 2011 at 12:24 pm

Actually, I haven’t seen anyone here argue that Stacy didn’t make any good points. If I’m wrong, I’ll be happy to admit that (provided, of course, that you provide something more than an unsupported assertion to that effect).

Several people did take issue with some of the things he said and provided factual evidence to back up their arguments.

I always find it interesting when folks who want to support a certain line of thinking rewrite history to make it fit “their” thought process.

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guinsPen March 11, 2011 at 7:14 pm

Headline – Barbara Kay: The day Sarah Palin kneecapped feminism

Text – “Feminists watching Palin’s stunning performance knew a stake was being driven through their movement’s heart.”

Punchline – “And these Mama Grizzlies happen to like babies a lot. The born ones and the unborn ones too.”

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guinsPen March 11, 2011 at 7:33 pm

– Random Ombudsman: The day Sarah Palin gutted feminism

– “Feminists watching Palin’s stunning performance knew they were being plucked and dressed.”

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