The emergence of conservative women is invigorating on the right and baffling to the left. A.C. Kleinheider’s piece in the Nashville City Paper would be funny if it didn’t capture the begrudging puzzlement of the larger media as to why the conservative movement suddenly looks so female:

Beyond a steady rightward shift and an increasingly reactionary rhetoric, conservative leadership is taking on another characteristic — it’s becoming more female. Both nationally and in Tennessee, the most beloved and vocal conservative leaders these days seem to be women.

Memo to Kleinheider: conservative women have always been here.  His comments confuse me. Does he not closely follow Tennessee and national politics? The existence of women on the right is hardly new:

Women need to be embraced as leaders — but not out of fear or necessity. It should happen the right way, or else the Right will merely be seen as a bunch of weak-willed reactionary little boys sending their women out to do their fighting for them.

Michele Bachmann was elected before Sarah Palin. Marsha Blackburn’s been involved in Tennessee politics for a long time now. Robin Smith was chairwoman of the TN GOP before Palin was on the scene. In order to have so many women running in 2010 means that women have been working up the ranks of the party and active in their communities for many years. It takes a long time to build up the name recognition, fundraisers and social capital to run for office. I’m surprised that he failed noticed that.

In fact, Republicans and conservatives have seen many of the “first” women across a number of categories. Labels and identity politics are just not as important to us. Just because the media suddenly noticed that women were in the conservative movement, doesn’t mean that we weren’t always there. Most of my political viewpoints come directly from my mother, who became a staunch conservative in the early 80s.  We’ve always been here. Now we’re getting the recognition that we deserve.

Palin is the catalyst not the movement.

Ironically, we owe it to the feminists and liberals in Congress for galvanizing all of the suddenly-visible conservative women that are shocking! Kleinheider.

This movement didn’t start with Sarah Palin nor will it end with her. Palin was the catalyst and should be analyzed, but the media, liberals and bloggers need to look at the bigger picture. Conservative women have always been in the movement, but Sarah Palin was the first woman to resonate with us. Prior to Palin, I always admired Elizabeth Dole. However, she was a DC insider with an Ivy League education. I could admire her (and the struggles she faced at Yale) but couldn’t identify with her. When Palin arrived, we had someone who reflected us.

Had the media and feminists said, “Great. The conservative movement is finally acting on what we’ve been preaching for 30 years,” I doubt that conservative women would now be so vocal. It was the the angry reaction of the feminist movement and the media that attacked Palin,  her family and her education. Suddenly liberals questioned if a woman could work and raise a large family. Her state education was ridiculed and her middle class existence was mocked. Those were the strengths that Palin represented. She was conservative and lived a very different lifestyle from the career politicians and bi-coastal elites, who are constantly telling us how to live.

By mocking Palin and what she represented, the media and feminists were collectively slapping the faces of every conservative woman in the country. This outrage is what motivated the  conservative women’s movement to come together, and what I’ve been writing about for over a year now.

This anger motivated countless numbers of bloggers. My friend, Tabitha Hale,  started her blog directly because of Palin. It led Teri Christoph to start Smart Girl Politics. It motivated a number of women who are now running for office.

Palin wasn’t the only factor though. Conservative women, just like conservative men, are angry at the government and our free-spending Congress. Women are just as involved as men in the Tea Party. The policies and activities of the Bush Administration and now the liberals in power are motivating men and women alike to stand up. Perhaps it’s a combination of our “traditional values” and anger that have caused women to be visible.

My dad told me this week, “I’m just as conservative as your mom, but I don’t have time to go to Tea Parties.” Ironically, the traditional values and roles that conservatives have long defended are what free women up to be active in the Tea Party movement. If Congressman Blackburn noticed that Tea Parties are largely female, it’s because there are more housewives on the right. My mom has always been a conservative activist because she had the time. If women control most of the purchasing power in this country, is it surprising that we’re actively protesting the wasteful actions of our government? Tea Parties are a reflection of the masses of Americans waking up to what Congress is doing, not a sudden pink-wash of the right.

Kleinheider, and others like him, should try to do a little research.  Again, this movement didn’t start with Sarah Palin nor will it end with her. My advice to reporters and academics would be to widen your angle beyond Palin, Bachmann and Blackburn. Palin was the catalyst and deserves to be analyze.  It is shortsighted to say that the conservative movement suddenly turned pink. You’re just now noticing us.

Much of the fault lies with academics. As Ronnee Schreiber notes in her book, Righting Feminism, hardly any academic study has been conducted on conservative women…ever. There was a small amount of research done after the failure of the ERA, but they assauged their failure by concluding conservative women are no different than conservative men. Since the 1980s, they’ve assumed that conservative women view politics indentically to men. Since we’re barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, we vote as our husbands and fathers do. They fail to see that conservative women are independently conservative because that’s the political movement they agree with. Since liberal feminists created the field of gender studies and created cushy jobs for themselves, it makes sense that they wouldn’t research areas that could potentially harm the movement and their sources of income.

To be concluded in Part 2.

The subject of conservative women emerging in America keeps appearing over and over again in the news. It’s fascinating to watch other women get involved in politics, and it’s fascinating to observe  the media collectively explode in frustration.

I keep seeing examples of women who were inspired to enter the political debate because of Sarah Palin. Tabitha Hale and Smart Girl Politics are two well-known examples. Remember that young girl who MSNBC attacked? She’s a 17-year-old blogger who was inspired by Palin. Conservative Girl With a Voice is another example. Smart Girl Nation also profiles Patricia Sullivan who was inspired by Palin to run for congress in Florida.

Why? What is it about Sarah Palin that which resounds with so many women on the right and infuriates people on the left beyond comprehension? What has motivated women on the right to suddenly mobilize? Is Palin the link?

This is one of those trends/phenomenon that is ripe for study by academics. Has there ever been a situation when a survey wrote itself so easily? Focus group participants would be fighting to get in.  Oh wait. That can’t happen. It’s up to bloggers and those on the right to explain this one.

This is an issue with a number of levels that should be explained in much further detail. The Palin Phenomenon is a complex topic that crosses many issues — feminism, gender roles, identity politics, faith,  GOP establishment, working mothers, elites vs. provencials, sexism in politics and the media and Beltway politics vs. grassroots — the list could continue. There’s no shortage of commentary. There’s a terrible shortage of understanding and study.

The role of women on the right has intrigued me for years. Unlike many of the examples above, I’ve been mesmerized by politics since the first grade. Growing up as a conservative female has been an interesting adventure. I never quite felt at home anywhere. I knew that I didn’t fit in with liberal feminists. I was too religious and pro-life for that. Plus, I liked men and had no problem with traditional gender roles. I also didn’t feel completely at home within Republican politics. I knew that we should rise above the shallowness of identity politics, but where were the conservative women like me? A political movement should not be built on labels and stereotypes, but it would be nice to see someone who I could identify with occasionally appear. Was I alone? Did other women agree with conservatives but not feel included?

Then I ended up taking a job with an organization that had adopted many feminist beliefs in their mission, and I didn’t know what had hit me. I toyed with the concept of “conservative feminism” for a while. I’m not the only one. A number of other blogs and organizations support that niche. At CPAC last year, I decided to take a more active role. I had just seen Palin burst on the scene. My suspicions were confirmed that other women like me were out there. I ended up stopping by the Eagle Forum booth and purchasing Phyllis Schafly’s Feminist Fantasies. It was a good starting point, but it didn’t answer all of my questions. What did feminism actually teach that was so offensive? That led me down another rabbit hole that I”m currently exploring, particularly over at Fourth Wave Woman. Even among educated women working in politics, not many people know what feminism actually advocates and how successful it’s been at infiltrating our society.

Somehow Palin seems to be the catalyst behind this. Is this a short-lived moment or the beginnings of a fourth wave of feminism as Rachel Campus Duffy writes (H/T Republican Women of the North)? Will conservative women take a more prominenent role in conservative politics? At what point will feminists and women’s studies admit that something is going on and examine it?

Right now, there are too many opinions, too many knee-jerk reactions and a dismal lack of examination of what’s going on beyon the latest blog post or headline in the media. Palin is forcing society to answer questions that have been boiling below the surface for too long. When all the Tea Parties are over, and Obama is hopefully out of the White House, what will happen?