Sarah Palin: the feminist heroine capable of ruining feminism

The US election came as a mixed blessing for feminists, reports the Daily Beast, which has carried out a survey of 1,000 American voters. It seems that while the campaign trail turned Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama into feminist icons almost overnight; the way the press treated the Republican candidate for the vice presidency proves sexism is still rife in US politics and media.

Of those surveyed, 61 per cent said they believed there was a gender bias in the media coverage but only 37 per cent felt that Palin’s performance helped pave the way for the first female President of the United States. To achieve that aim seems like it will be a tough challenge though - about 40 per cent of men said they thought a man was “more naturally suited” to the task of running the country, with equal numbers saying that they doubted a woman would be capable of the Commander-in-Chief role.

So what does this show? That there would be “considerable support for boycotts of news stations that carry sexist commentators or generally cover women unfairly,” says the Beast. While elsewhere on the site, Daphne Merkin remarks that if the “unlikeable” and “unfuckable” Hillary Clinton and her primary campaign made it ok to disregard women politicians, Sarah Palin the “breeding babe” only helped confirm to significant proportions of male voters that women are “chattering nitwits with a shaky hold on the hard facts.”

Camille Paglia, the radical feminist, has told the Times that Palin was the victim of “an atrocious and sometimes delusional level of defamation,” and suggested that the people who don’t see how intelligent Palin really is are the stupid ones. In the Telegraph however, novelist Lionel Shriver feels that Palin has actually regressed American feminism by relying so heavily on her appearance. “Rabid fans at Palin rallies were predominantly male, and unabashedly lascivious,” she recalls in a controversial piece.

Shriver also asks readers to imagine Palin spending the next four years “bingeing on deep-fried moose-bars” and questions whether she would be anywhere near as popular as a 26-stone presidential candidate in 2012. “And let’s not mince words,” says the writer. “The woman is an idiot.” Shriver is certainly doing little to advance feminism when she concludes by offering Palin her advice on staying popular en route to 2012: “Keep away from those moose bars and hit the gym.”

FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 20, 2008