Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 05:42 pm
Schooling a Petulant and Willfully Ignorant Sarah Palin on Feminism
I’m tired of Sarah Palin using the word feminist to describe herself. I was over it in 2008, but now I’m really over it. In fact, it’s unacceptable and this time, it’s personal.
Dear Sarah,
I saw your tacky tweet: “Who hijacked term:”feminist”?A cackle of rads who want 2 crucify other women w/whom they disagree on a singular issue; it’s ironic (& passé)”
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Gosh, Sarah, I was just gonna ask you the same thing! Who hijacked the term feminist in 2008 and hurled it around like a weapon of mass destruction, or rather, a pre-emptive strike to defend themselves against a press corps having the nerve to ask her what she thought of the Bush Doctrine or ….God forbid….what she reads?
Who was that lady? Any idea? Let me give you a hint: she wore a lot of short skirts on stages (other women know better) with red peep-toe heels showing off her bedazzled toe-nails and she winked an awful lot – even more when she didn’t know an answer. Any takers?
This same woman criticized Hilary Clinton as a “whiner” and said Hilary was not doin’ us women any favors when she whined about the press being unfair. Yeah, if you see this woman, honey, will you let her know that she didn’t do us women any favors when she used her sex appeal as the one and only asset to make her worthy of being Dick Cheney’s patriarchal Barbie puppet? Will you let her know that I am super tired of men telling me that I look like the blond Palin and then treating me like a sex object?
Will you let her know that before she took to the national stage to set women’s rights back 100 years, these same men did NOT do that to me? Oh, and let her know that her catty accusations that liberal women are jealous of her is as ANTI-FEMINIST as you can get. Women who are feminists join together with their sisters, accepting them as they are in many shapes, sizes, colors, and degrees of external and internal success.
We don’t pit ourselves against one another based on an external thing such as perceived physical beauty, which is a tool of the patriarchy, by the way, you clown. I guess by now you’ve figured out that I’m talking about you, Sarah Palin. You. Your very use of this weapon shows you are not a feminist. It kicked you out of my tree house on day one.
Then I read your Facebook Page:
“On this anniversary of women’s suffrage, let’s take a moment to be grateful for the diversity of the debate. Women don’t walk in lockstep with each other in politics, any more than men do. We should be proud of our ability to engage in a civil discussion and healthy debate. I know I am. Unfortunately, I’ve recently come under attack for speaking up for sisters who seek to serve in public office. The sad part is that the attack comes from other sisters who happen to be on the other side of an issue that has been of great importance to American women from the time of our feminist foremothers, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, down to today. I’m speaking of the issue of life. I feel compelled to offer some advice to our sisters who like to throw stones at those of us who respectfully disagree with them on this issue (and they sometimes refuse to even countenance the fact that some of us can call ourselves feminists and disagree with those who claim the mantle of “real feminists”). First, ladies, it’s hard to take a critic seriously when they lecture you wearing a bear suit. So, it’s difficult for me to drum up much outrage at this latest ad. But, really, lying about a sister while wearing an Ewok outfit is no way to honor our foremothers on the eve of the 90th anniversary of their victory. But, that aside, I’d love to know where you got those get-ups. Halloween is just around the corner, and Piper and Trig would look adorable as little grizzly bears.”
Really, Sarah? Really? I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. You pretend to be an independent strong woman who just happens to have conservative values but the truth is you let your husband run the Governor’s office for you, per your religion. You were a puppet governor.
Your husband gets to tell you what to read. Your husband is running the show. You don’t stand for anything feminine or female except the notion that women should subjugate themselves, and we don’t need a lot of help perpetrating that one, so thanks but no thanks….if you know what I mean.
MSNBC even called him the “shadow governor” after reading your emails, so please don’t deny this.
We are not having a difference of opinion over what feminism means.
You stand for the opposite of feminism. You stand for the good old boys running the show through yet another puppet. You are just the newest form of puppet. A female W. You are too arrogant and ignorant to realize that you were being used and are still being used by them.
Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean we can’t. So we aren’t going to engage in a debate with you over what feminism means, and how you can be a feminist and think women shouldn’t have control over their bodies. You can claim the word feminist all you want, but that doesn’t make it true.
In the world of real feminine warriors, Sarah, women stand for the things and fight for things like equality and ending gender discrimination. Lily Ledbetter is still fighting for equal pay for women. In fact, she is talking to our troops about it. You know who Lily Ledbetter is, right? President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Act into being in January of 2009, making him a bigger feminist that you are. What are you doing for women, other than convincing them they shouldn’t have the right to get an abortion? And why aren’t you talking to the troops about equal rights for women, since you pretend to be so pro-troops?
Gosh, can you name one thing you have done for the troops besides use them to brand your Christian Nationalism as patriotic? See, this is exactly the same thing you’re doing with feminism honey. And you expect us girls not to notice.
What exactly are you doing for women with all of the power you’ve amassed?
And how does quitting the job you took an oath to uphold serve the cause of feminism? How exactly are you a quitting warrior? You said you quit because people picked on you, which served to reinforce the image of women as unable to play with the big boys. You lied when you said political opponents were picking on you, but even if it had been political opponents, you should have been able to handle that. You’re a grown up, right? Because, you know, sweetie, you sure don’t act like one.
You embarrass me almost every time you open your mouth. You make the skin on my arms crawl with trepidation when you try to cute your way out of an ignorant thing you’ve said. You make me cringe with horror with the way you play into stereotypes that many of us have been fighting against our entire lives.
That’s right, Sarah. You’re doing nothing but taking us back light years….and even the good old boys in the Republican Party are now starting to get sick of your Mama Grizzly routine; they’re saying you only pick these women because they’re women, which seems to be true and hence undermines those conservative women. And there are plenty of strong, conservative women whom I respect, so please spare us your attempts to say that any criticism of you is a criticism of all conservative women. It’s not. It’s just about you, honey. Trust me.
However, and here’s where you should really pay attention, a feminist won’t vote for another women just because she’s a woman. But you don’t get it yet. You’re so far in the dark ages that you still can’t see past the labels.
Sarah, you’re a mean woman who has treated other women like dirt. You demean the spirit of independence every time you use your obvious charm to wink your way out of being taken seriously. And you’ve earned my contempt for this.
You earned my contempt for it because I could do that if I wanted to….but I never wanted to. I have been trying to be taken seriously my whole life. And then you came along and pulled the rug from underneath me with your every gesture. You made it OK for men to treat women like a sex object again. You brought back the go along to get along spirit. You know exactly what I mean. In fact, you used your sex appeal at every turn. For goodness sake, you even came out in nothing but a towel to meet your new VP campaign team.
Yes. You use your sex appeal. And in doing so, you make it an expectation that women should be doing that. You make it OK for men to treat women like that. You also single handedly brought back the she can’t hack it in the big chair meme, because you refused to prepare for your interviews.
That is not what a feminist does, Sarah. A feminist from either side of the aisle would be soaking up knowledge, doing the best job she could, and realizing she was paving the way for other women, would present herself in a way that opened doors for other women to be treated as humans, not as sex objects. And a feminist would not have resorted to crying “sexism” when the press asked you what you read.
Nor, honey, would a real feminist have taken the kind of pot shots you took at Katie Couric in interviews and in your book. Frankly, your failures are your own problem and your inability to face up to them is a reflection on the weakness of your character, not the meanness of a supposedly jealous or unhappy woman.
We’re not jealous, Sarah. That’s what you are too ignorant to understand. You have to see something to know it exists, and you can’t see us. You project the smallness of your mind and heart onto all of us, and assume we all judge other women by their looks and their houses and what car they drive.
We don’t.
It’s personal, Sarah. And it’s not going to stop. You’re not a real feminist. There’s a huge difference between using feminism as a political tool to get yourself elected and being a true feminist. True feminists come in all shapes, sizes and political beliefs. But they don’t use sex as their only asset to sell themselves to the pubic. They read, they study, and they show a general competence.
The dictionary definition of feminism is “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.” In no way do you stand for that, Sarah. In no way have you ever worked toward these goals as an elected official. In no way do you use your celebrity to accomplish these goals or even raise awareness about the inequities. In fact, you often pretend they don’t exist and chide women for “whining” about them.
Your obliviousness over your own inherent anti-feminism would be funny if you weren’t so damaging.
You’re a puppet. You don’t stand for me and you never will.
Kindest Regards,
Not that Sarah
P.S. Love your reference to women like me as “cackle of rads”. And you call yourself a feminist, Sarah. A cackle is a bird, typically a hen or goose. Could you be any more 1950’s, sweetie?
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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