Questions for a Superhuman MomThe complicated business of judging Sarah Palin.
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008, at 5:44 PM ET
Sarah Palin calls herself a "hockey mom" and "as pro-life as any candidate can be"—but not, as far as we know, a feminist. And why would she? Feminist has long been a dirty word for conservatives, and so it's not their label for her, even though it describes Sarah Palin to a T in so many ways: the working mother/ crusader/ political activist. Margaret Thatcher didn't use the "f" word either.
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StumbleUponSo what does it mean to be a conservative feminist, Sarah Palin-style?
It means doing it all—on steroids. Lois Romano of the Washington Post tells us today that when Palin got to the Alaska governor's mansion, she fired the chef so she could do her own cooking. She has five kids spanning 18 years but has had no full-time babysitter. She went back to work as governor when baby Trig was 3 days old. She commutes every day from Anchorage to Wasilla, which looks to be about 90 miles round trip. She nurses Trig during meetings. She shuttles from Blackberry to breast pump in the middle of the night. She flew to Texas when she was eight months pregnant, gave a big keynote speech, felt her amniotic fluid leaking, and then flew back home to have the baby—without getting her doctor's permission first.
And these are the snippets of the burgeoning Palin legend that dominated the conversations we had over the weekend, at baby showers and backyard barbecues, as they may have yours. Privately, the women we encountered sat in judgment of Palin. Some were outraged that the mother of a special-needs baby accepted the vice presidential nomination. Others were affronted at that outrage. Like it or not, in whispers and sometimes shouts, this is what women do when they talk to each other: We worry over our own choices and their effect on our families; compare ourselves to other women; and then approve, or shrug, or condemn.
Some of the questions we heard and asked in talking to friends and colleagues about Palin were echoed in today's New York Times story on mothers and Palin: Should she have made absolutely sure her birth control was effective, given the odds of a birth defect for a mother of her age? Was it reckless to fly after her water broke, especially without getting her doctor's sign-off? What's her husband's role in all of this—apparently he's on leave from his job now, but how did they swing it when he did work, and what does he think of being a stay-at-home dad, if that's really what he's doing?
OK, so who are we to judge the reproductive choices of Sarah Palin or those of her children? How dare anyone presume to opine about her work/life balance? Is that question itself the correct feminist response—along with another query: Would men ever be judged so harshly?
Publicly, that's why the judges themselves are being judged. On Jezebel they are angry at female opprobrium. Elsewhere, working women are berated for passing judgment on another working woman. Barack Obama has already said that drawing conclusions about Palin because of her daughter Bristol's pregnancy is out of bounds. We agree. Any feminist who takes the position that 17 is old enough to abort a baby cannot also take the position that the 17-year-old's mother is somehow responsible for her pregnancy.
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Notes from the Fray Editor
Some great comments and arguments here, and (comparatively speaking) not too mired in party politics. Brownapril's post, "the complicated business of NOT judging Sarah Palin", is here, and there's a long discussion of the care of special needs children here (with a taster below). Should we judge? "Hell yes" says sfifeadams, and explains why here. Xaedalus had this to say "I think [Palin] will put to rest once and for all the idea that we are a misogynistic nation. Rather, she will show that the people who hate Hillary, just plain hate Hillary and not the XX."
Comments from the Fray
Based on the comments from some Alaskans on other threads, it's sounds like [Palin] coped with it in Alaska by re-locating the capitol from Juneau. That won't be an option. OTOH, if she is limits her role to a "you die, I fly" vice presidency, she could handle a lot between funerals. There is no way she would be able to do a veep role like Cheney, or Gore, which means that this will cause the a diminution of office (which could be a good idea given where it's gone recently) but do we want the first female veep remembered for making that job a "mommy track" position?
--elementary teacher
(To reply, click here)
No Juno in Juneau: Why does nobody seem to get the point that for an adolescent mistake 17-year-old Bristol Palin is about to pay with her youth in what looks suspiciously like a shotgun marriage to make an honest woman of her?
—voiceover
(To reply, click here)
I'd get fired if I breastfed in meetings, in front of my colleagues. They would call it disruptive. She's getting accommodations most of us don't. She doesn't have to have babysitters if she can care for the baby at work. Most of us do NOT have that option.
She was a stay at home mother for the young childhood of the others. That's not exactly unusual. How is that "doing it all"? Most of us call it sequencing--stay at home when they are small, then go back to work. Seems like her balance problem is coming at her, not behind her. I want to see her take care of a 16 month old while at work. Trust me, in approximately 4 months, she'll have a sitter or daycare if her husband can't do it. If he can, how is she different from men with stay at home wives? Again, how is she this supermom this article tries to portray?
--Domini
(To reply, click here)
First, I think all need to be very, very careful in leveling the "bad mother" charge at Governor Palin. While it's pretty infuriating to see the right rally around a working mother of five when it's one of their own, after years of criticizing others for making similar choices, this is a no-win argument. The internal workings of a family are always unknowable to those on the outside. We simply don't have enough information to make any judgments. More important, critics of Palin's choices are vulnerable to a charge of hypocrisy that weakens their legitimate criticisms and feeds the right's sense of grievance about the media.
On the other hand, I just heard that the father of Bristol Palin's baby will be at the Republican Convention tomorrow night for Sarah Palin's speech. Isn't this inconsistent with the family's pleas for privacy? It seems to me that the Palins can't simultaneously demand privacy and put the young unly-weds on display. And it would not surprise me if the Republican delegates give them a standing ovation.
--Spenmore
(To reply, click here)
(9/3)