Before the debate last Thursday there was a pity Sarah Palin meme beginning to spread across the land. It caught hold in me after watching Ms. Palin struggle during the Katie Couric interviews, and I saw signs of it in many of the articles I read on the web. Then I read Rebecca Traister's meme smashing article at salon.com. This paragraph in particular began to eat the meme I was hosting:
But just because I'm human, just because I can feel, just because I did say this weekend that I "almost feel sorry for her" doesn't mean, when I consider the situation rationally, that I do. Yes, as a feminist, it sucks -- hard -- to watch a woman, no matter how much I hate her politics, unable to answer questions about her running mate during a television interview. And perhaps it's because this experience pains me so much that I feel not sympathy but biting anger. At her, at John McCain, at the misogynistic political mash that has been made of what was otherwise a groundbreaking year for women in presidential politics.
After reading this article and the watching the debate last Thursday I no longer feel bad for Sarah Palin. The pity Sarah meme is gone from me; what is left, however, is the question of why I would have ever felt bad for her in the first place. Would I have felt bad for a male candidate for Vice President who did not seem to have the ability to answer simple questions during an interview?
1 comment:
I think, sadly, in fact we would not be feeling as bad for a male candidate.
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