…that unlike their customary portrayal in imported US TV shows, American women don’t only come in a few flavours. From what we see on our screens the average American woman is either a scary, psychopathic ballbreaker, a neurotic fundy, a crack whore, a botoxed glamourpuss or a scarily efficient soccer mom. Palin seems surprisingly normal when fitted into this limited range of prototypes.
But of course that’s not the truth; American women are as diverse in their politics and opinions as those in any other nation. Many ordinary women are seriously pissed off at Sarah Palin’s nomination and are saying loudly and very clearly, notably Cintra Wilson in Salon,who’s written something that just makes me want to cheer:
[…]
I did not think that women being downgraded to second-class, three-holed chattel would be a pressing concern in my lifetime. I thought it was like polio, or witch burning — an inhumane error that had already been corrected. But after eight years of Republican hegemony, and now the potential ascendance of this sheep in ewe’s clothing, I am so mortally offended I feel like it is really time for women to be angry, hardcore and disgusted again. Not just with old white Christian patriarchs and their hopelessly calcified, religiously condoned misogyny, but also with the self-abnegating, submissive female Uncle Tommies whose ambitions and eagerness to please the powerful males of their tribe are so desperate that they would sell out their sovereignty over their own bodies. And yours too.
[…]
Sarah Palin, in this light, makes so little sense that she makes perfect sense. She speciously represents a new power paradigm of the Nice Mommy: the opposite of Hillary (the Mean Mommy), the opposite of Oprah (black, and therefore foreign), the opposite of Martha Stewart (another Mean Mommy). In her support for women on women’s issues, she has done everything but volunteer for her own circumcision. She tacitly promises a roll backward into old-fashioned sexual roles — like Old Testament-style old. Her morality is fixed, predictable and inflexible. There are those who will find comfort in the fact that they will know exactly what can be expected from Palin: Free will subordinated to obedience of an airtight, evangelical interpretation of the demands of God, country and Republican men.
[…]
Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa have me and my friends retching into our handbags. She’s such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it’s easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism.
Yes, do read the whole thing. “Offended…angry hardcore and disgusted” – yup, that pretty much sums up what I feel about the nomination too, and I’m not even voting. I can only imagine the simmering anger that thinking American women must be feeling at this insult to their intelligence.
Note:
Scrolling through the comments I see the concern trolls are out in force: indeed Salon’s editors have elevated three of the most concern trollish of the comments to their star letter spots. Typical do-nothing liberal hedge-bettery and ass-covering.
