*Feminist smackdown continues*

September 6, 2008 *Feminist smackdown continues*

One. More. Time.

FEMINISTS are arguing for Sarah Palin to be taken seriously as a candidate. We’re busy discussing her politics, the issues, what she stands for – the mainstream media is discussing her possible extra marital affairs, her daughter’s pregnancy, her pregnancy, can a ‘Mom’ work in the Whitehouse, and…VPILF:

Sydney Morning Herald Screenshot today?

The writing chopped off that should be seen running across the bottom of the picture:

Cocktail of Cleavage and Authority – Sarah Palin is having a remarkable effect on the conservative male

The pic leads to an Annabel Crab article, whom normally I love, but occasionally get shitted by – for the laughs she will dilute or skate right over the top of the issues that are the basis of the article.

Today we got a run down of men’s infatuation with Palin and Thatcher, including a “rough translation” of a Silvio Berlusconi quote that Thatcher was a ‘nice piece of pussy’. We get:

It’s something more; a compelling cocktail – authority plus maternalism, with a hint of cleavage.

Matron’s back.

And she’s hot.

And she’s armed.

Call it the dominatrix effect; it’s the same element that used to turn grown men into fawning, wobbling supplicants before the former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

She makes the quick point that Clinton was never discussed in these terms* (that’s right, and it deserves more than the one small paragraph it got – perhaps a look at the implications of this bullshit misogyny) – before attention turned to the *FAIL* by feminists to ‘deal elegantly with Palin’. Jeez, sorry we’re not being elegant, we’re busy discussing her stance on the *issues*.

So anyway, what’s Crab’s *evidence* of this humongous *Failure of the Feminists*?? Oh yeah. That the National Organisation for Women won’t back her play – that’s right the National Organisation for Women is busy fighting for women’s rights and choices. They aren’t going to back an anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-sex-ed candidate just because she’s got tits. In Crabbe’s books it’s a FAIL!!!! FAIL N.O.W, FAIL ALL FEMINISTS EVERYWHERE ON THE BACK OF JUST ONE QUOTE!!! FAAAAAAAIIIIIIIILLLL!!!

She sees this *failure* to back Palin/a woman,any woman, as a diminishment of the National Organisation for Women. I see it as standing for the rights of women to make choices, that’s right, the rights of the women whom Palin’s government would like to deny their choices, AND for the rights of Sarah Palin. We’re not denying her her *right* to stand for office, we’re excercising our right to say “She is NOT a friend of women’s rights to choose when/how they reproduce, whom they love – we wish her success and gainful employment, but we do NOT endorse her as a political candidate”.

The National Organisation for Women should NOT be backing a candidate simply because she ís a woman. Or because she is a mother. Or because she is a hot mother/woman. Or because she is a hot and able to shoot mother/woman.   

I expected better from Crab. Not ‘because she is a woman’ because Miranda Devine is a woman (and by the way I would still fight for Devine’s rights to choose her lifestyle, to not be subject to harrasment) but because she can write well, and because she has the facts at her disposal – why did she not mention the explosion of feminist blog posts keeping an eye on the sexism of the media’s treatment of Palin, why did she not acknowledge WHY N.O.W would not endorse an anti-choice, anti-rights-for-same-sex-partners, anti sex-ed candidate?

*It’s true that for all the sex scandal surrounding Clinton, we’d never run a headline about his intoxicating “Cocktail of COCK and Charm”. 

Tags: Annabelle Crabbe, feminism, feminists 'fail' again, gender, National Organisation for Women, politicians reduced to pussy, Sarah Palin, sex, Thathcer/Palin comparisons

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