Monday, September 22, 2008

Gloria Jacobs and Courtney Martin on Palin's "Feminism"

This is a really interesting video (which could have potentially been made more interesting had those feminists who see Sarah Palin as one of them came on as well to actually debate the thing) about feminism, Sarah Palin, and Republicans' discovering sexism:

The Feminist Press' Gloria Jacobs and Feministing.com's Courtney Martin Discuss Sarah Palin from Brian Lehrer Live on Vimeo.
Aside from Courtney's overuse of the word "wild" (something I completely understand, as I'm someone who gets hung up on certain phrases and words as well), I think both Gloria and Courtney properly frame the issue, especially the point about how part of feminists' problem with Sarah Palin (and definitely part of my problem with her) and how she chooses to present herself is how she distances herself from her own ambition. It may make her more palatable to the American public, but it does play straight into the old gender paradigm about women and men; and that is a rather negative aspect of Palin's ascent.

2 comments:

John said...

WOW! I wonder if the creative team behind those anti-Obama, pro-Palin ads are spending a few days off their feet. I know my legs would be tired if I made so many logical leaps in 30-second intervals! You'll notice that they fell back on the old "are you calling me a liar?" trick. Apparently Sarah Palin always tells the truth and NEVER lies, or else she would be a lying liar like that grumpy, dried-up has-been Barack Obama. And could they take smaller, more questionably-contextual quotes from Hillary Clinton?

petpluto said...

"And could they take smaller, more questionably-contextual quotes from Hillary Clinton?"

I'm going to go with 'no', for that one!