Presidential Politics

As I sit in my living room with Sex Equality on my back, hoping to finally make a dent in the approximately 1700 pages in the book for no other reason then I want to, I found myself distracted by someone's gchat status indicator. It's a link to an article in Radar, a website I've never heard about until now. It's a spoof article claiming that Hustler Magazine created a porno with Sarah Palin, ironically enough connected to the page is another article criticizing Paglia for writing in Salon that Palin is a muscular feminist, well more specifically thrashing second and third wave feminism for letting Sarah Palin be some sort of representative of feminism. Anyway reading these two articles, having been watching the presidential and vice presidential debates and reading various articles has prompted me to finally blog about my thoughts on much of this.


Palin as a "Feminist"
Feminism/Feminist what do these words mean? If you're on the right, it means when you advocate against sexism, against violence against women, for equal pay, for health care, for education, etc., you're a feminazi. The word "feminist" and "feminism" are dirty words. That is until the right woman comes a long and fights hard against the ability for women to be full-fledged members of our society. One of the best examples is Phyllis Schaffley. She traveled all around the U.S. fighting to make sure the constitution would not be amended to state clearly once and for all that men and women are equal under the law. The Right could rally around her and what a symbol she was for women's empowerment. Be strong, so long as you perpetuate women's inferiority. You can have a place as long as you make sure that the ceiling is not only glass but that you add some bars to protect against intruders.
Thus, it is not surprising that Sarah Palin, a woman who seems all too excited to participate in the patriarchy, is being called by some as a muscular feminist, adoringly by the right. The dirty little word becomes a mantle, a badge against criticism, particularly any criticism about her stance on women's issues. The mantra typically goes with some argument about how women cannot criticize her, because if we do, we're somehow anti-feminists, or because women are vicious bitches who attack each other.

It's not like it's the right that sings this mantra. That would be too simple and imply that the only people invested in the patriarchy is the right. If that were the case, then the odds that we would still make 75% of the male dollar (and that's the high side, when you account for race, it goes down). Who knows what the world would be like if women and men were truly equal. If the Radar articles and the discussion of McCain's wife being hot, or Palin being hot is any indication, one of the biggest fears is that the sexual availability of woman will decrease. The reality is that women like sex just as much as men. It's completely possible that the sex industry will still exist, hopefully it will be more respectful, but I have no idea if that is the reason why patriarchy exists. What I do know is that the sexual availability of women is one of the cornerstones of patriarchy.