Post-Backlash Feminism
by Kellie Bean (McFarland & Co., 2007)
Blog Entries
My Fair Lady: Why Palin's Shopping Spree Matters
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The RNC reportedly has spent this much on clothing and make-up for Sarah Palin in a mere two months. Wow. I mean, what was wrong with her own wardrobe? (Now I think of it, is there something terribly wrong with mine?) On an income that outstrips 98% of Americans, one would think Palin could afford to purchase a nice suit or two in celebration of her nomination. Surely, she had a few things tucked away for important events. But this campaign, which claims to speak to small-town Americans and embrace small-town values, would not truck a small-town wardrobe.
Think about it: $150,000 on clothes at a time when so many of us are struggling not just to make ends meet, but to stay in our homes, put food on the table and manage shrinking household budgets. At a time when families with children constitute the fastest growing segment of the homeless population, John McCain indulges in a glaring, imperious display of wealth.
There are so many things to say. We can see the elitism from space. And the sexism? The stereotype of the younger mistress being showered with expensive gifts comes distressingly to mind. Palin was made over before our eyes, as heavier and lighter make-up, up- and down-do's were tested weekly on national television. Does she now appeal to Mr. McCain's taste? Does he have a thing for 3/4-length sleeves? The Bible Spice look? His campaign cast Palin in the presumptuous "My Fair Lady" narrative it kicked off at the Republican National Convention: a rich and powerful older man invites a younger attractive woman to hitch a ride to the White House. The plot, of course, serves the man's greater goals of claiming an identification with women and small-town values. Not incidentally, the storyline also offers a winking confirmation of the older man's intact virility. But first: about those clothes.
This latest revelation signifies beyond mere gossip; it is not just about fashion. The excess of the expense, the overkill of the make-over expose a disturbing aspect of the relationship between Sarah Palin and John McCain. She's "the girl"; he's lord of the manor. Avuncular and condescending, McCain says he's "proud" of Palin and that she's his political "soul mate." Can we imagine McCain making similar statements about Joe Lieberman? Even forming such thoughts about a male running mate?
Palin?s seen this movie too, and gamely allows her benefactor--oops, I mean runningmate--to bankroll a shopping spree of spectacular proportions. She dutifully reinvents herself as he and his political machine see fit. And this matters. The McCain campaign has seen fit to reinvent Palin as the pretty young thing, the political helpmate/charity case. That she embraces this role says a lot about her opinion of herself and other women.
As blatant incompetence renders Palin increasingly ridiculous, late-night jokesters grow increasingly bold, and I find myself feeling sorry for her. It can?t be easy being her some days.
But I worry more about how she treats women, how she would treat them if she were in the White House. She may be willing to play the role of VP with benefits, and that?s her business. But her politics are all of our business, and as my grandmother always said, ?People do what they believe in.? Sarah Palin believes in the role she?s playing, and clearly sees this as the appropriate role for all women. Disturbingly, she also believes in John McCain, his money, his misogyny and, saddest of all, his increasingly obvious opinion of her.
"No one is pro-abortion"
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I have been making this same, simple, human, perfectly obvious point in my classes for years. No one is "pro-abortion"; indeed, the phrase itself is a lie, a distraction meant to suggest that anyone who does not vehemently oppose abortion in all cases must be perfectly comfortable with the procedure. It has been my experience that this is simply not the case.
Now, I do not presume to speak for Mr. Obama, but let me explain what I mean when I say, "No one is pro-abortion." As Obama pointed out last night, in all cases abortion is "a tragic situation." It's painful, expensive, hard to get, and often emotionally scarring. Ending a pregnancy is no small thing for anyone. If a woman is brought to this decision, be assured she is facing a host of other difficulties in her life. She's ill, she's in poverty, she's being beaten, her other children are not safe. In rare cases, termination is protocal to save the infant certain, painful death if the pregnancy is brought to term.
Abortion is unavailable in 84% of counties in the U.S., so first a woman must locate a medical facility, take time off work, gather together the money, probably arrange for babysitting, travel some distance, endure the procedure, recover and somehow return to her life afterward. Too often these things must be done in secret, since too many families and friends share McCain's distain for women facing times like these.
I am aggressively pro-choice, but in no way pro-abortion. My wish is that women never had to face a decision like this, that birth control were affordable, universally covered by insurance companies, and we lived in a country that truly attended to every child no matter in what neighborhood it was born or to whom. We do not live in such a place.
Unlike men, women are ideologically, politically and quite literally trapped in bodies that can reproduce. Men do not face the possibility of unwanted pregnancy, the medical risks, financial drain, the social complications and emotional toll. When Obama says "No one is pro-abortion," he acknowledges these things; he respects women and their privacy.
The Prettiest Girl in the Room
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The masturbatory celebrations of ossified, conservative men at FoxNews not withstanding, most of us are engaged this election season by the issues. We?re terrified by the possibility of a depression and struggling to pay mortgages, keep kids in college, put food on the table.
If we need any more evidence that mainstream media does not represent the mainstream, look at Time Magazine's Belinda Luscombe this week. She argues that women are "weapons-grade haters" and once we "get our hate on" there is no stopping us in our efforts to destroy any woman in our sights. Our targets? The pretty ones. We "hate" Sarah Palin because she is attractive. Let's be clear: Luscombe argues in all seriousness, in one of the most respected news magazines in the country, that women are petty, small and have "self-esteem issues" that drive them to dislike this candidate because she's pretty.
I know, right? Just, sheesh: take it in. The depraved misogyny, the misplaced anger, the projection. It's been my experience that grown women left such silliness behind sometime around high school--right about the time we acquired jobs and responsibilities. Which brings me to the content and tone of Palin's campaign strategy. Her own petty, dull-witted and hateful ideology may trigger similar responses in some of the women around her; perhaps the ugly turn she and McCain have taken lately has drawn out the worst of their supporters. (Witness recent calls for Obama's assassination at McCain rallies.)
Camille Paglia argues in Salon that "not since Madonna" have we seen a woman on the public scene embrace "pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism" so fully. Talk about projection. Palin embraces nothing resembling feminism and Paglia knows this. If she wants to wax fondly (breathe heavily) over Palin like the guys at FoxNews, that's cool; but she shouldn?t insult her reader?s intelligence pretending this argument is about anything but her own attraction to Palin/Bible Spice.
Sarah Palin would deny abortions to victims of rape and incest, has charged rape victims for their ER rape kits, cow-tows to John McCain like a dutiful daughter to an aging patriarch, parades her special needs infant like a trophy to herself, and flirts her way through the Vice-Presidential debate. Feminism, my ass.
She is a walking stereotype, an abomination: all dressed up and hollowed out, a pin-up, or blow-up doll (pick your metaphor of female submission) upon which men and women alike project their ugliest fantasies of women. We read about Senator Clinton's pantsuits, thick ankles and crows feet for eighteen months; now we're enduring a similarly sexist and ridiculous thread about Governor Palin. The difference is Palin invites this ugliness with her nasty politics, her own anti-woman policies, and her self-righteous banality--and then turns the critique against other women. I am not here, therefore, to defend her against sexist commentary or media attacks.
I am here to remind us that we are not her, that women deserve better (are better) than to be compared unfavorably to an updated version of a Stepford wife. Indeed, the cognitive dissonance of calling this woman a feminist, of claiming thinking women envy her beauty threatens to short my circuits, to send smoke puffing out of the back of my head.
What we get/What they deserve
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The bailout didn't fly. OK. I get that. I read MichaelMoore.com and am deeply suspicious of anything the government offers to do on behalf of the citizenry. Realize I should be and feel increasingly entitled to be. While the rest of us slog by, the bailout will save the already rich from the true consequences of their greed and risk-taking.
I had a horse in this race, for sure: in the mortgage debacle, I lost $40,000--the totality of my children's college fund--in the sale of my once-valuable home. Now, like so many others, I scrimp month to month, sending tuition checks in time for bank deposits and just before cable bills clear.
I find myself angry with the neighbor who still displays her "W is for women" bumber sticker and the colleague who thinks Palin has "spunk." When Bush was appointed the first time, I thought things couldn't get worse. When he 'won' the second time, I was truly disappointed in my country. Bush was, for one thing, an illegitimate leader; and for a few others, not very bright, imperious and dangerously impervious to new information.Do people really vote for the guy they want to have a beer with? Really? Will they vote for McCain-Palin for similar reasons?
My impulse is to say they get what they deserve, have gotten the obscene war, the rotting economy, the repressive culture they deserve. But others of us got those things, too, and we simply do not deserve them. I didn't deserve to lose my most valuable asset, my life savings, essentially, simply because so many voted (without thinking) for the guy who was least qualified but most familiar.
I don't want familiar. I want bloody smart. I do not want a leader like me; s/he better be a hell of a lot better than me at most things. We aren't talking about running a lemonade stand; this is the most complex job in the world. Period. People's lives and livelihoods depend upon how well the job is done.
Those who endorse the McCain-Palin ticket will get what they deserve--and so will the rest of us. For me, that is the sad, horrifying truth of this election.
It's mid-life...welcome to the party
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My eldest left for college this fall. Both kids are nearly grown, and suddenly my own ambitions take up more and more of my time. Occupy more and more of my brain. It's time to get serious about all those contributions I intended to make to the world, the difference I hoped to make to women's politics, and the good work I owe myself.
I map my life by decades. Twenties: two kids, Ph.D.; Thirties: job in academe, raise kids; Forties: write, put activist impulses to work. So here I sit mid-forties, first book published and feeling good. I?m actually excited about what I might do next.
For women, the challenges of mid-life include a host of changes that are deeply personal and press against our sense of who we are and how we function in the world. On the one hand, I am no longer needed as a hands-on mom at this point (the kids can cook, drive, tie their own shoes); I am now a source of emotional support: two parts therapist, one part life coach. At this point in our lives, my kids need me to listen, to advise (and know when not to advise), to share their emotional lives?while also appearing to trust they can do it all on their own. On the other hand, my mother is getting older, a bit frailer, and, as is so often the case for women, I am the caretaker in our family. So, while my kids drift gently from me, my mother moves closer, and I feel an obligation to keep her safe, to look out for her needs, emotional and physical. As I escort my children into the next phase of their lives, I also hold my mother's hand through the next chapter of hers, listening to news of the grandkids she lives near (and dotes on), and crying with her when another friend grows ill or dies.
Last fall my mother had surgery for cancer. She came home in terrible pain and needed 24-hour care. I spent six days away from work and three hours from my kids, caring for my mother, watching her suffer and heal and trying to keep things together at home long-distance. When I wasn't tending to Mom's needs, I was on the phone listening to my kids detail their days at school, and easing anxieties about what was happening at Gramma's house. I was also calling friends to cover classes, worrying over student emails, frustrated that I?d left my grading at home and fretful about the inevitable fallout at work when I returned. I lost ten pounds, went home exhausted and spent much of this time feeling completely alone. The more folks around me needed me, the more alone I felt.
This is women's work at mid-life. Difficult, frustrating, not a little scary, generally invisible to the larger culture and, frustratingly, to those closest to us. We work (at least) one job outside the home and a number of other fulltime jobs after that: we run households, manage budgets, may or may not have children, tend aging parents and all the chores I?ve forgotten here.
At mid-life I?ve learned to appreciate like-minded companions. I may be made of tough stuff, but can?t do it all alone?used to think I had to?and realize no one should have to. I find myself more and more at ease with seeking validation, understanding or just an ear from other women.
In this space I invite others who look for similar things to join me.
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