Every so often, I’m reminded of the hypocrisy of the left. For example in 2007, Condoleeza Rice was attacked for not having children. One year later, feminists questioned if motherhood hampered Palin’s abilities to govern.
Palin was also attacked for using a ghost writer for Going Rogue when Hillary Clinton had one for It Takes a Village, and no one on the left complained.
Anyone else confused?
Today, I ran across an editoral by Daved McGrath attacking Palin’s use of the feminist label. While I have my own issues with that movement, try to notice the glaring hypocrisy:
As usual, she talks a different game. In her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden in the fall of 2008, she identified herself as a feminist, asserting she supports equal rights for women. She pointed to her own experience to prove women can “do it all.”
In reality, women in American have been “doing it all” long before Sarah Palin was born. As early as 1960, 40 percent of women with school-aged children were keeping a house while also working outside the home. The figure is 70 percent today.
This is interesting. According to all women’s movement lore, women did not experience liberation until 1963 when Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. In 1960, three years before publication, women were still toiling away in their suburban living rooms feeling oppressed. Hmmm…. Perhaps McGrath and the feminists need to get on the same page.
Also note that women “doing it all” is still a very intense debate. Google “Mommywars” if you want a taste. When Palin invoked those words, she showed that she’s like most other American women who are struggling to find balance in their lives.
McGrath continues:
Frontiers for rights for women, as articulated by the National Organization of Women, have extended to abortion and reproductive rights, economic justice, lesbian rights, bringing an end to sexual discrimination, promoting diversity and ending racism, stopping violence against women, immigration reform, and public health care.
Palin is anathema to nearly all these goals…
So “frontiers” for women’s rights also happen to mirror the agenda of the Democratic Party? Coincidence?
What happened to other “frontiers?” I thought “frontiers” meant achievements and recognitions of women’s progress not the current progressive platform. What about all the firsts from Republican women? Reagan appointed the first woman to the Supreme Court. Condoleeza Rice was the first female National Security Advisor. Palin was the first female governor of Alaska and the first woman on the ticket for the GOP. Jeannette Rankin, a Republican, was the first woman in Congress starting in 1917. Early Suffragists Lucy Stone and Mary Livermore were also Republicans. The Republican Party was also the first party to support the equal rights of women.
When are feminists and the larger left going to get it. You either have it one way or the other. Women were either oppressed by their suburban houses in 1960 or working. When it’s convenient, these issues are rallying cries for more laws to be passed. When conservatives and Republicans (not necessarily the same thing) are actually doing something productive, these are suddenly non-issues.
When did frontiers for women mean gay rights, multiculturalism, immigration and socialized health care? All of those are liberal issues, not just women’s issues.
Feminists just can’t get past the shock that women throughout the country view Sarah Palin as a role model. It’s fascinating to watch all of the soul searching, navel gazing, head spinning and venom-spewing. I’m frankly getting tired of writing about it. Can y’all collectively get over yourselves and stop repeatedly asking the same damn questions? 
