Sarah Palin's Brand of "Feminism" More Popular With Men Than Women

[kpete]

Sarah Palin's Brand of "Feminism" More Popular With Men Than Women
Palin peddles a shallow narcissism dressed in 'empowering' feminist language.
November 26, 2010 |



Listen up, all you champions of women's rights, Sarah Palin has a message for you. All that stuff about equal pay, controlling your own body, putting an end to domestic violence and rape: that's a whole lotta tired old hooey. There's a new feminism afoot, a feminism that's moved beyond the issues of economic justice and your right not to be beaten and violated, and it's all about Sarah.

In her new book, America By Heart, Palin takes aim at the feminists who blazed the trail to political agency that Palin now walks, accusing Hillary Clinton of "bra-burning militancy" and Gloria Steinem and second-wave feminists of obsession with domestic violence and rape.

Perhaps that's why, overall, Palin appears to be more popular with men than with women. A recent CNN poll found that while, in a hypothetical 2012 match-up against President Barack Obama, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee threatens to siphon off Obama's former constituency of independent women voters, a contest against Palin does not. Among women, the CNN poll found, Obama led Huckabee only by 2 percent, according to The Hill, while he trounced Palin by 15 percent. Other polls reported by The Hill confirm the trend by women away from Palin.

You see, Sarah Palin is all about Grrrl Power. Or maybe just her power. "The new feminism," she writes, "is telling women they are capable and strong." And, apparently, "capable and strong" women don't get raped. Perhaps that's why in Sarah Palin's Wasilla, during her term as mayor, women alleging rape were made to pay for their own rape kits.

more:
http://www.alternet.org/news/148976/sarah_palin%27s_brand_of_%22feminism%22_more_popular_with_men_than_women/

[elleng]

1. Right, because it ain't feminism,

its sociopathy. (Is that a word?)

[2Design]

2. I hate when they use those words in a sentence with her - she is NOT

nor has ever been a feminist - all BS

[rurallib]

3. Sarah Palin is to women what Colonel Sanders is to chickens.

[asjr]

4. If the media would just

lay off Sarah (no pun intended) she might retreat to an unknown location and we would not have to hear about her.

[polichick]

5. Psycho Sarah is just another good "Christian" woman who thinks it's...

...the natural order of things for men to treat women like second-class sex objects - she's actually flattered by it.

:puke:

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Palin is the Uber Anti-Feminist

She uses her looks to appeal to the lowest, the crassest instincts of men. She capitalizes on her lack of intellect and curiosity as an appealing feminine trait. She is not merely competitive against her gender (read, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama), but rather hot-wired to leave them behind in her smoke. She uses her children and husband as props. And she is a fascade of leadership as she speaks the written words of others and will enforce policies that others draft.

Feminists may not be perfect but they are accountable for their words and deeds which are genuine.

[msongs]

7. Palin women put out - no wonder men like them lol nt

[nolabear]

8. As I posted earlier, I truly believe she has a deep hatred for other female people.

I think she believes herself to be a bodice-ripper heroine who's special in every way, can out boy the boys and be the universal object of lust, and for whom other girls (I use the adolescent terms here on purpose) only exist as stepping stones--her daughters, other female candidates, anyone on whose back she can climb. If a woman is a challenge within her "realm" she'll go after her with all the narcissistic rage she can muster, and that girl can muster some.

As my hard-working, family-supporting, grandchild-raising, great steamer ship of a woman grandmother would have said, "That girl has her ass so far up around her shoulders she has to walk on her hands."

[Mojambo]

9. We really need to start pumping Palin up for 2012 instead of tearing her down.

I*'d MUCH run against her than Huckabee.

[provis99]

12. Sarah Palin might win the Presidency.

[Mojambo]

14. I find that extraordinarily unlikely

Almost anyone else they run has a significantly better chance.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. There's a reason that the conservative women prominent in the media are all

MILFs or others who are superficially attractive in a show bizzy way.

The right-wing establishment understands its constituents. They know that less-informed conservative men vote with their guts (and other organs located farther down on their bodies), so they put forth "babes" as candidates and front women, knowing that the average knuckle dragger will confuse his sexual fantasies with his political attitudes.

The right wing poo-bahs know this, but they think it works the same for women, even intelligent women.

In 1988, they even announced that they were running Dan Quayle alongside Poppy Bush, because they thought his "Robert Redford" looks would attract women voters. Well, there's a huge difference between Redford and Quayle: Redford is intelligent, and you can tell that Quayle is stupid just by looking at him. Yes, Bush Sr. won, but more due to Dukakis' inept campaigning than to any of the alleged charms of Dan Quayle.

Later, in the 1990s, after John Kitzhaber won the Oregon governorship over Denny Smith, who made Dan Quayle look like a rocket scientist, I overheard two Republican men in a coffee shop grumbling that Kitzhaber had won only because he was handsome and therefore charmed women voters. Well, he is one good-looking fellow, but I leaned over to these guys and said, "Excuse me, but I voted for his brains, not his face."

But getting back to my original point, there's a reason that the R establishment chose Sarah Palin as a running mate for McCain, as opposed to someone like Kay Bailey Hutchinson, whose politics I disagree with but who at least has national experience and doesn't sound like an idiot. They knew that an older woman candidate would never bring out the red meat knuckle dragger vote.

Palin had an added advantage. I once had the privilege of hearing Studs Terkel in person. During the Q&A, someone asked him why Reagan was so popular. Terkel's answer: "Because he made it OK to be stupid. Stupid people recognized him as one of their own."

I'm sure that principle is at work with Sarah Palin, too.

[applegrove]

11. Men mostly like Palin because of her looks. They don't care what comes outta her mouth.

It is that sexy librarian thing...even though she's apparently never touched a book except to sign a few.

[SkyDaddy7]

13. I'm sorry but there is ONE reason & ONE reason only...

that more men like Sarah Palin than women...I doubt I have to go in to detail. Women do not want in her pants so they have a much easier time seeing STUPID than do men.