Sarah and the Triple-Standard for GOP Women
Posted by: Angela F. F. Davis | 11/11/2008 6:44 AM
I've long been fascinated by the nature of the inside track for women of the conservative party. The GOP has always been considered to be dominated by white collared men, and we've reached a stalemate.
Sarah has arrived and women got a triple standard that was used against us immediately.
There is a microcosm of GOP folks, some within the McCain campaign and some not, who would clearly ruin Sarah Palin's future in order to further their personal agenda. The Johari Window, which is a cognitive psychological model used to reveal how people move and communicate in life, describes both a hidden self and a public self. The problem we are running into in the GOP is that you've got folks who are more concerned about their own hidden self-serving agenda than what is best for the greater good of the party. This is diametrically contrary to the purpose of government, public service and doing the right thing. They need to be rooted out of the party and placed into campaign exile.
Sarah is a wife and a mother, and she chooses to exercise her ability to run both a state and a family. Let's be clear here, if it were Todd Palin governing the state of Alaska, family vs. career would not be an issue.
Gender discrimination is a mentality or mindset that is part of the surviving dead wood in the GOP and needs to be surgically removed. In terms of moral values and this double standard existing for women, if we are to move ahead and allow more of middle America to relate to us, we must do a thorough job of eliminating the gender discrimination within the GOP by tackling it head on then moving into the Nation's liberal media outlets and continuing the fight there. We lost this race because Republicans failed to provide a solid new image, and displayed no strong brand or issues platform; we've got to establish new leadership and re-organize. The Sarah Palin's of the party must take the lead and move this party into the Twenty-First Century and reconstruct our GOP strategy, a strong and consistent message, and emerge winning races and re-instituting the necessary balance to our democracy. Our core values live on, however, we need a new face to the leadership that will attract and increase the numbers of our supporters that go to the polls. We also need to create and put in place nationally a winning strategy for running campaigns. Republicans need to understand the urgency to collaborate nationally and build an organization to win races. There is no substitute for the hard work needed to reach these goals.
Let's move on to the external political environment, beyond the confines of the GOP headquarters into the newsrooms and studios of the liberal media, where they went after Sarah making disgusting attacks on her special needs baby, what she was wearing to start. That was really scraping the bottom of the barrel to create headlines. Did anybody care or even know what designer clothing Biden was sporting at his convention? Who was doing his makeup? His hair situation? Because Sarah is a woman, with a family, and credentialed, the media went into blitz mode, attacking her. There are facets of our society which not only condoned but encouraged these attacks, in fact they glamourized the attacks, spinning a clothing matter into a shopping spree, and that she kept clothing bought for her which was entirely false. The report that there is an RNC lawyer up in Wasilla now poking through her closet is completely false. How convenient that we've finally got a reporter up in Alaska interviewing Sarah Palin and finally declaring all those accusations to be false, exactly 8 days post election.
The long-time so-called feminists in this nation are liberals, and they were nowhere to be found when it came to defending Sarah. They allowed their own, their sister to be chewed up and spat out by the media because they themselves, are the darlings of the liberal media. So not only do the Sarah Palin's of the nation have to work harder and demonstrate achievement, but they have to face their combative "own", so to speak. Lesson learned for 2012: the majority of democratic women will not defend another sister if she is a conservative. Their support stops at the door when they find out what your party affiliation is. Message to conservative sisters: we won't stand for this nonsense again, and we are getting organized to defend Sarah Palin and her colleagues in 2012.
Bill Clinton came to the presidential race as the Democratic candidate of choice, and he'd been a governor. Sarah Palin came to the presidential race as the Republican candidate of choice and she is a governor.
To attack Sarah Palin on her credentials is disgusting. Some would argue that if we have to call a winner in that fight the media succeeded with the mix of targeted interviews and the pre-scripted agenda under which she went into those interviews. Sarah was kept well insulated then fed to the vultures under limited access. Simply put she was rolled out unfairly to the world. Because of the triple standard I've pointed to, and liberal bias, she was doomed from Labor Day onward!
Women voters in this nation with conservative leanings and conservative roots are angry. It's the new wave of feminism. We are a group of women who were proud of the VP nomination of Sarah Palin. We remain proud to have her represent us. She symbolizes everything that is modern-day mother earth to us. Our hope is that she stays in the political mix and comes back looking for our support four years from now.
We conservative women have strong family principles, and our children, husbands, and homes are our islands. We believe in service to country, we have professional careers, and we are educated and competent. We successfully move through our lives with priorities, multi-tasking, and giving 101% to everything we do.
Yes, it has been a double standard for quite some time because we work much harder than the average person taking on all the responsibilities in this life that we do. But again, this election was allowed to launch a triple standard is despicable.
So let's confront it and get it out there. Women in the GOP understand, that we are held to this triple standard: we not only need to be great mothers and wives, we need to be solidly credentialed AND prove that we can be more effective in conservative politics than the men.
Boys, open the doors and act proud or get out of the way, we have no tolerance for the wimp-like behavior of recent so-called GOP "good old boys". We are here, we have arrived and we're coming back with Sarah in 2012. If you keep attacking Sarah, we will systematically note who is doing it, put it out there, and remove you from the political war room forever.
Great article - now follow through with focussed action.
jim
No doubt there are men in our party who apply such a double standard. But I think (hope?) that there are many more who admire Sarah because of all that she has accomplished. Come to think of it though, is there something latent there? Why does it feel good to admire Sarah Palin's ability to balance family and work when few people would say the same about Todd Palin...or Mitt Romney... or...? By admiring Palin, are we implicitly saying it's more difficult for a woman to accomplish that balance? Or do we simply not expect or admire it as much coming from a man?
As to the feminists/media/liberals who won't defend one of their own, we all have to see them for what they are: partisan hacks who aren't really feminists. Political agenda means more to them than feminist solidarity. Just look at the treatment of Bubba's accusers.
How about Anita Hill? That brings up a whole other parallel: race. How popular is Condi Rice among liberals? How easy is it for an African American to be attacked by his own people if he's too conservative? Again, political agenda over group solidarity.
I for one welcome the fire and enthusiasm you express. White male that I am, I admire Sarah Palin for what she's accomplished - whatever that says about me. I can only hope that your level of enthusiasm is shared by enough people in 2012 to turn things around.
No doubt there are men in our party who apply such a double standard. But I think (hope?) that there are many more who admire Sarah because of all that she has accomplished. Come to think of it though, is there something latent there? Why does it feel good to admire Sarah Palin's ability to balance family and work when few people would say the same about Todd Palin...or Mitt Romney... or...? By admiring Palin, are we implicitly saying it's more difficult for a woman to accomplish that balance? Or do we simply not expect or admire it as much coming from a man?
As to the feminists/media/liberals who won't defend one of their own, we all have to see them for what they are: partisan hacks who aren't really feminists. Political agenda means more to them than feminist solidarity. Just look at the treatment of Bubba's accusers.
How about Anita Hill? That brings up a whole other parallel: race. How popular is Condi Rice among liberals? How easy is it for an African American to be attacked by his own people if he's too conservative? Again, political agenda over group solidarity.
I for one welcome the fire and enthusiasm you express. White male that I am, I admire Sarah Palin for what she's accomplished - whatever that says about me. I can only hope that your level of enthusiasm is shared by enough people in 2012 to turn things around.
I see the MSM as the single biggest impediment to Conservative women in US politics. Certainly a Palin-type would be highly effective, in the Thatcher-Meir mold. But Condi Rice got no break from the MSM, and she is both a woman AND a minority--supposedly, the MSM's two 'favorite' groups.
Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, gets back to the MSM and the obvious and subtle impact they have on every aspect of American life and the impressions people get.
Remember, the entire 'infighting' scenario between Palin and the McCain staffers was gleefully magnified and over-reported by the anti-Republican MSM. The reciprocal situation would never have happened.
Angela,
Amen!
What exactly has Sarah Palin accomplished?
She seems to be window dressing pandering to the religious whack jobs & the limited members of this party that wake up in the middle of the night fearing that a Democrat is going to steal their guns and abort their child.
Other than that, she couldn't even speak about the entire financial crisis, had less foreign policy experience and understanding than I do. To top it off, do you really fear Obama taking over the Oval office as much as if McCain had a coronary & she became thrust in to the job?
There were over 17 governors with more experience, over 75 mayors with more experience in cities with major urban centers and global presences. Heck CEOs of major companies...Carly not to mention.
I guess the new question would be, "Name one state she carried for the Republican Party?"