Sarah Palin’s Free-Market Feminism

[Joanne98]

The media lovefest with Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin seems to be finally coming to an end. Thank the God she so frighteningly worships. This Sunday’s New York Times and Washington Post both have articles critiquing her Bush-administration style of governing: appoint your friends to positions for which they are overpaid and underqualified and fire those who disagree with you.

But before we dive into the specifics, I want to take a moment to reflect on one issue that relates directly to our concerns here at Fussbucket. And that is Sarah Palin, the parent.

This article in The New Republic, which was written by my friend Kate Marsh, describes the situation very well. “Central to the narrative that the McCain campaign is selling about Palin is that, in addition to being the reformist governor of Alaska, she’s a supermom too,” Marsh writes. “It’s a distinctly Republican view of feminism: If you can’t do it all, you’re just not working hard enough. And if you want more societal or governmental support, Palin’s ideology has a word for that: whining.”

Stories like the one of Palin giving birth and showing up for work the next day portray a woman who is determined to have it all, as if she’s doing it all by herself. But, as Marsh points out, Palin has a husband with a flexible work schedule, a lot of money, and other family members who live nearby who can pitch in to help take care of her kids while she’s running the state. Most working mothers in this country don’t have nearly the resources that Palin has.

Palin’s parenting story is not about sacrifice or even struggle for balance but about blithely doing it all. This vision of parenting is not only unrealistic – it devalues the job…Once the difficulty and sacrifice of the job have been elided, the basis for policy solutions is seriously undermined.

Not surprisingly Palin offers scant support of policies, such as affordable childcare or increased enrollment for children in publicly-funded health care programs, that would improve the lives of most working women. The reality, as Marsh describes it, is that 70 percent of mothers with children under the age of 18 work. But affordable childcare remains largely unavailable, especially for single mothers, and with rising gas and food prices across the nation, this is an issue that a progressive female candidate - one that is billing herself as a supermom no less - should be championing.

There is, however, an upside to Palin’s presence, an important reminder to working moms: Feminism is not just about having the opportunity to do it all. It’s also about having the support to do as much as you can. This is why, in the end, feminism needs to be tied to not just an identity, but to an ideology that encourages support. Sarah Palin’s fails that mission on almost every count, diminishing the trade-offs and sacrifices that haunt working moms.

Yes, she’s pro-life, anti stem-cell research, and pro-gun: all positions Democratic mothers tend to disagree with. Marsh also aptly reminds us that Sarah Palin is no friend of working parents’ concerns either.

http://fussbucketblog.com/2008/09/14/sarah-palins-free-market-feminism/

[BlooInBloo]

1. Whatever she may be, she ain't a feminist of ANY kind.

The blogger and those who quote him or her approving diminish the word.