That lovely blog that started the maelstrom against Taylor Swift decided to go interview women waiting in line for the Palin book signing in Fairfax, Va. and incorporate the cover article on feminism in Newsmax this month. The author, Amanda Hess, forgot to mention that the Newsmax article was written by S.E. Cupp, a young female conservative. Since young, female conservatives don’t exist in feminist-land and are only the creation of old, white men in the GOP, she had to  snidely attack the women waiting in line:

In “newer feminism,” every woman’s choices are valued—no matter what those choices mean for other women. Schlessinger isn’t an enforcer of rigid gender roles; she’s a facilitator of women’s choices. Palin’s opposition to abortion rights and comprehensive sex education isn’t anti-feminist; it is her choice to deny reproductive choices to other women. Under this model, Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis isn’t an exploiter; he’s a liberator of women’s breasts.

Umm…no. Joe Francis is a pornographer and will be to the vast majority of conservative women. But ladies — and I sincerely hope that Amanda Hess and her colleagues find this post– let me spell it out for you. Sarah Palin is simply a marriage of conservative values with the watered-down version of feminism that you gals sold in the 90s in order to save a crippled and dying movement. Until Palin appeared, no one on the right had represented a liberated woman “making choices for herself,” successfully balancing the family and a career, and enjoying a modern marriage with her not-so-metrosexual husband. You were operating under the assumption that the Gloria Steinem vs. Phyllis Schafly dynamic still worked.

Despite my staunchly anti-feminist upbringing, I’ve gotten familiar with the f-word. I worked for a quasi-feminist organization. Well, it’s an organization determined to train little feminists, but it gave me a solid crash course in all things liberal women. After I left that job, I decided to get to the bottom of this feminist issue. I had been blogging anonymously for nearly a year but had danced around the subject. After I moved back to the DC area, I dove into reading feminist theory, history and anything from the women’s studies genre. I was determined to understand what feminism was. The only problem was that feminists were asking that too.  Sadly for them, Palin arrived on the scene before they could reach an answer.

To understand it, let’s go back to the beginning. Hopefully, this history is familiar to most of you.

Feminism got its start on the radical left. It grew directly out of the the civil rights movement. However, these weren’t the average people who wanted to see racial equality, but a complete restructuring of our country. Many of them were children of Communist Party of America members and had grown up as “red diaper babies” as Susan Brownmiller lavishes in her memoirs, In Our Own Time.

From the earliest moments, which could be traced back to Simone de Beauvoir, a radical leftist and often-abused significant other of Jean-Paul Sartre, when she penned the Second Sex in 1949 or even when Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication on the Rights of Women in 1792, the women’s rights movement was aligned with the political left. A little-known fact about Betty Friedan–when she wasn’t pining away at the “problem with no name,” she was active in Communist Party activities and had been since her student days at Smith. In fact, she joined the party in 1940.

Thus, feminism wasn’t this nice, “lets talk about our click moments and fight for equality” but a movement that desired to reshape our entire culture, society and economic systems into something that eliminated the vague “patriarchy” and the evils of capitalism. Essentially, feminism is the gender version of Marxism.

Almost immediately, the women’s liberation movement started splintering. The radical feminist wanted nothing less than a societal revolution. The liberal feminists were much more content with fighting for abortion on demand, workplace discrimination and liberating those beleaguered housewives. However, they were a rather homogeneous group of females. Anytime someone from the outside tried to join — and  outside being anyone who wasn’t white, middle class,  heterosexual,  bi-coastal, highly educated, professional and with an axe to grind against men due to daddy issues or boyfriends unwilling to commit — ultimately left. Early divisions were painstakingly  marked by African-American women and lesbians starting their own versions of the movement.

Later on when multiculturalism got popular in the 1980s, feminists embraced it because the philosophy fit them so well. It covered a multitude of sins, namely that at no point had they been able to unify all women simply by being women. No women’s movement has ever been able to do that, even suffragists who fought for the 19th Amendment were split across numerous issues. However, issues with identity politics are for another post.

Somehow, small groups of noisy women managed to make policy changes.  By infiltrating the Federal government through the EEOC, academia and the media (a large number of the early leaders were writers and journalists), they made sweeping changes through sheer willpower, litigation and scare tactics.

However, where they failed and continue to fail was winning the hearts and opinions of American women.

When the Equal Rights Agenda failed after the beginning of the Reagan Revolution, feminists were at a loss. Much soul-searching went on. Numerous books were written, including Andrea Dworkin’s Right-Wing Women, which asserted that conservative women were under the thumbs of their men, had no minds of their own and as slaves to their Bibles and kitchens, would advocate against anything Phyliss Schafly described as “anti-family.”

They never stopped to think that conservative women actually believed that they were already equal, relished being mothers and caretakers and were quite happy with the capitalistic system that made America great. The women’s movement never even contemplated that a large voting bloc of women were more concerned liberty and the individual than tolerance and the collective.

Conservative women were lamented and dismissed, not to be contemplated again until the rise of Sarah Palin. Maybe if they had been a bit more intellectually honest and circumspect, today’s problems wouldn’t be going on.

Nevertheless, the feminists shifted agendas and went to work on issues relating to higher education and did some good things with domestic violence and rape issues. However, by the late 80s, the movement had lost steam. Feminist debates were dragged into mommywars, the myth of the Supermom and the wailing of single women with ticking biological clocks.

They didn’t realize that a new generation of women had grown up without gender discrimination and really didn’t identify with the second-wave grand dames. Instead, they had grown up with MTV and decided to somehow merge feminism with raunch culture.

This third-wave that sprung up in the 90s had a lot of public fights with the old school, namely over sexual liberation. Since they wanted to appeal to young women, they watered down the message that their mothers had told them. For example, in Manifesta, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards define feminism as:

Of course the goals of feminism are carried out by every day women themselves. Maybe you aren’t sure you need feminism, or you’re not sure it needs you. You’re sexy, a wallflower, you shop at Calvin Klein, you are a stay-at-home mom, a big Hollywood producer, a beautiful bride all in white, an ex-wife raising three kids, or you shave, pluck, and wax. In reality, feminism wants you to be whoever you are-but with a political consciousness. And, vice versa: You want to be a feminist because you want to be exactly who you are.

The 3rd wavers consisted of sexually liberated women, riot grrls and women who loved to create ‘zines. All political movements– no matter the issue– always lose nuances in the media, and the media was rather silly with third wave women. Images such as the Spice Girls, Ally McBeal and “girl power” came to capture what feminism meant to modern women. The watershed momement of the third wave was the Clarence Thomas hearings that catapulted sexual harassment to the front page. However, when a liberal Democrat with a penchant for oral sex in the Oval Office took over, feminists completely sold out and lost their remaining strand of credibility with Gloria Steinem famously declaring “it was consensual!”

Between the late 90s and now, not much happened. Compared to terrorism, feminism just wasn’t that important. Then John McCain picked La Palin, and the head-spinning started.

You see ladies, what the feminism movement missed was that a lot had changed in conservative politics. Conservative women weren’t doormats, we just never had anyone that espoused our values with the “picture” of feminism before. As Leslie Sanchez notes, women will only vote for candidates who share their own views. The concept that women will vote for another women simply due to shared chromosomes is ridiculous. If Geraldine Ferraro had been conservative in the 80s, we would have supported her. The nice thing about basing your values on invididuality, merit and talent is that you don’t have to promote superficial labels.

For us, Palin was the real deal. By 2008, most women worked outside the home and led very similar lives to the Governor. Again, they were very different from the still white, middle class, highly educated, bi-coastal feminists. When you combine the fact that many of us grew up with thirdd-wave “you go girl!” feminism, it made sense that Palin ushered in a era of conservative or libertarian-leaning feminism.

Is it really that hard to understand that the American women rejected your politics in the 1980s, so you massaged the message in the 90s and now have to live with the consequences? Had the movement not changed its views so much, not many of you would exist, but you’d have some credibility left.

I realize that speculating about the next election is Washington’s favorite pastime, which is quickly followed by gossiping and complaining about Metro, but I’m sick of it.

The 2012 election is approximately 1,070 days away. Anything, literally anything can happen. There’s also a mid-term election coming up next year that could be a game changer. Sure, it’s likely that the GOP will pick up seats but it’s unknown if that will hurt or help our chances in 2012. There’s also a war going on in Afghanistan, a terrible economy, record government spending and a massive health care bill that could alter our society completely.

No one, and I repeat, no one knows what will happen in three years.

Think back to 2005. Did anyone think that John McCain and Barack Obama would become their parties’ nominees in 2008? If you did, please contact me. I’d like you to help me purchase stock and possibly pick out numbers to the next Powerball.

Unless you have the ability to predict the future, I’m absolutely sick of hearing guessing games about who will run in 2012. Let’s focus on next November first. There’s a lot of work ahead of us.

US News and World Report finally published the first review of her book from the faith perspective. If anyone else has written on her faith, I’ve missed it.

Though most of the talk surrounding the release of Going Rogue revolves around how it affects Palin’s standing as a political figure, including her chances of winning the White House, should she choose to run, the book is as much poised to heighten Palin’s profile as a Christian leader. “It’s a mistake to frame all this in the context of her potential candidacy,” Mark DeMoss, one of the country’s top Christian media specialists, says of Going Rogue. “She wants to tell her story and the story of her personal faith journey.” At a time when politically conservative evangelicals lack a national figurehead, Palin’s ability to connect with them could also deepen her appeal to a key part of the Republican base. “Christian audiences could respond to this like they did when George W. Bush talked about his faith,” says John Green, a religion and politics expert at the University of Akron. “This community takes faith very seriously and likes people who talk about their faith journey.”

For the record, I am a Christian and started my relationship with Christ when I was four.* Hence, as a person who shares the same faith, my views of the book come from this perspective. Anytime a well-known figure writes about his or her faith, the media tries to find an angle behind it. A person can’t write about a relationship with God because it’s a crucial part of his or her existence but because he or she is trying to court a demographic or change public opinion.

When it comes to Palin, I get the impression she’s just writing about her journey with God.

To those who have not experienced a personal encounter with God, this is absolutely impossible to understand. Faith requires, well faith. It can’t be understood unless you believe and have experienced it yourself. It simply can’t be analyzed. If you are a Christian, your relationship with God is the single most important thing in your life. Everything else revolves around it. Your decisions, your actions, your thoughts — everything stems from your faith. If you are a Believer, it is impossible to write your memoirs without including your personal relationship with Christ. It’s more important than oxygen to our existence.

Hence, it is ridiculous to analyze Palin’s faith as an attempt to become an Evangelical leader, assume the mantle of James Dobson or get the Christian vote.

US News also covers how Palin’s faith affected her actions and political views:

Until now, that part of Palin’s story has been mostly implied. As John McCain’s vice presidential running mate last year, she generally avoided talk of her faith and its influence on her politics. But word of her decision to carry her pregnancy to term despite knowing her son Trig would be born with Down syndrome was an inspiration to antiabortion activists, mostly Roman Catholics and evangelicals. News that Palin’s unwed teen daughter Bristol was pregnant and would give birth had a similar effect. “[The Palins] should be commended once again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values,” Focus on the Family’s James Dobson said at the time, “but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances.”

I’ve seen a number of people attack Palin for writing that her first response to discovering she was pregnant was how easy it was to get an abortion. Why? She believes it’s wrong, but it’s still human nature to consider the easiest way out when faced with a dilemma. The “Christian” course of action is to realize that those actions are wrong and choose the course of life. Christians are just as human as everyone else and make mistakes, as evidenced by Bristol.

I had always admired Palin because she was a conservative women who reflected my views. After reading Going Rogue, my respect for her grew because I recognized a fellow Christian trying to live out her faith in a very public sphere. I would like to get the perspective of a liberal Christian’s views of her book. Would you respect Palin more as a fellow Believer or do politics still cloud opinion?

*I always hesitate to write about issues relating to faith. Once you expose yourself as a Believer, you get attacked anytime you deviate from the stereotype of what is “acceptable” as a Christian from both Christians and non-Christians. You also get written off as an uneducated nutjob or hick (i.e. Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock) . Frankly, writing about your faith is a hot mess, and I try to avoid it. However, it is impossible to write about Palin’s faith without responding as a fellow Christian.

It appears, he is also not as transparent with his digital media prowess as the administration claimed:

Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter. I noticed that young people — they’re very busy with all these electronics. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone.

Is this a major deal? Kind of. When you run your campaign on the premise that you’re the most amazing thing to happen to the Internet since Al Gore, you open yourself to criticism in the future, especially when your campaign was lauded for being an early adopter of the technology in question.

Sarah Granger at TechPresident opines:

Meanwhile, I expect we’ll see more hoopla about Barack Obama not using Twitter, even though his campaign never asserted that he did himself. So far about half of the follow-up tweets on the #obamacn hashtag are RT’s about the admission and the other half is people responding that they never thought he was tweeting. Are 50% of Twitter users really that surprised?

Yep, actually Sarah we are surprised. For a number of reasons.

First, remember all of the media attention about Obama refusing to give up his BlackBerry and the NSA having to build a super-deluxe-ultimately-secure version of software? That kind of negates Obama’s comment about thumbs and makes you question if he fully understand exactly what Twitter is. If you are addicted to a BlackBerry, how do you not have the skills to tweet? Same device and skill set. It’s also possible to use Twitter on a computer. Tweetdeck anyone?

Secondly, as James Richardson at RedState recalls, the Obama team released an add attacking McCain for not using technology. While the McCain camp deserved to be flogged for their lack of enagaging the interwebs, John McCain actually tweets every day. As Top of the Ticket points out, he has nearly 1.6 million followers. RedState notes:

President Obama’s admission of his unfamiliarity of the internet tool de jour would have been an altogether innocuous acknowledgment that the President is, well, old, were it not for the dogged efforts of his campaign apparatus in portraying the young then-Senator Obama as hip and tech savvy opposite the old and inaccessible Senator John McCain.

Had the campaign not made such a big deal out of this, Obama’s statements would not be news. After all, I would prefer a president to do actual work (like decide on an Afghanistan policy) rather than tweeting the awesomeness of his lunch or deets from the last basketball game. In the end, it is ironic that John McCain is the more techno-saavy person here. I’m hardly surprised. This is just further proof of the dog-and-pony show that makes up the entire administration. How many times have there been claims that Obama had the talent and ability to handle something, and then we discovered otherwise?

This does touch on an emerging social media issue. How transparent should you be with tweets?

Some politicans take to Twitter. In addition to McCain, TweetCongress tracts what our Congressmen and Sentators are capturing in 140 characters or less. However, I’ve had numerous strategists and Hill staffers tell me that very few members actually tweet for themselves. In one case that surprised me, the scheduler sends out tweets for the member based on the schedule for the day.

Since most Congressional members use Twitter as a mini-press release vehicle, this isn’t a big deal. However, when tweets are about events in your home district, and your scheduler back in DC is sending them, that’s a transparency issue. As social media becomes more standard, I hope that elected and wannabe-electeds opt for more honesty. I find tweets from a staffer just as interesting as the candidate/member. It’s not a bad thing to attribute who’s tweeting. As someone who is addicted to Twitter and has tweeted professionally for a couple of jobs, be transparent. It’s appreciated.