I'm troubled by some of those criticisms, but not all.

For a "family values candidate" to be endorsed with teenage pregnancy daughter (by the same people who ripped Jamie Lynn Spears a new asshole for getting preggers, cf. Bill O'Reilly) when the political machine wouldn't touch the Obamas with a ten foot pole if they had a pregnant, unwed teenage daughter...problem. Not necessarily her problem, but, problem. Especially with her "no abortions ever" policy. It's an issue.

It is troubling that McCain has married two beauty queens and now named one as his veep candidate, but that's a McCain criticism, and not a Palin criticism.

But I honestly don't see the Palin choice as anything other than an attempt to either a.) appeal to disaffected voters who are still upset about the treatment of HRC and/or b.) to deflect criticism that the McCain campaign has showed a startling and disturbing level of sexism thus far. She's not an attractive choice any other way. For God's sake, the woman is an on the record secessionist, a book-banner, and has less experience than anyone else in the potential list.

I don't see how this is anything other than a very clumsy attempt at pandering, because if she was a man she simply would not have gotten the nomination. Period. She was mayor of a town with 9,000 residents and has scant experience as governor in a state where she's not all that popular. If "pretty woman to deflect criticism" isn't the reason, I can't imagine what it would be - she doesn't bring any other political capital to the table, has no national political experience, and is problematic in so many ways, I just can't see it.

If that makes me a bad feminist, or my criticisms of Palin as a choice somehow invalid, well, I hate that, but part of being a feminist is speaking your truth. And that's my truth.

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governor in a state where she's not all that popular.

Doesn't she have an 80% approval rating?

She was pushed at McCain by the evangelical Christians who love(d) her. Obviously they did not vet her well.

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I could be wrong about what people think about her in general, because I had not seen her approval rating. My buddy in Alaska indicated to me that she's the King Log to the last gov's King Stork, but that's anecdata times two.

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Palin was chosen to appeal to wavering women voters who are "too stupid/bitter/bitchy to know better than just to vote for the candidate with the vagina.

So I see your point here (that people automatically assume she's being set up as a pseudo-Hillary), but I'm really struggling to think of any other reason why Palin was chosen over other possibilities, like Pawlenty. She's young (younger than Obama!) and has only been governor for two years, prior to which she was mayor of a tiny town in nowhere, Alaska. Well, there goes the "experience" argument McCain's been tossing at Obama. Furthermore, she's had little experience with foreign policy or economics, which McCain's candidacy needs. So why did McCain pick her? Name me a reason other than an appeal to disgruntled Hillary supporters.

Now, had McCain picked a female running mate who'd been in political office for much longer, and had a background in foreign policy/economics/whatever that made her politically equivalent to other (male) VP options, and people were arguing that this VP candidate was an appeal to Hillary followers, that I would see as misogynistic and worrisome. Not so with Palin.

As to your first two points, they're based on the misogynistic viewpoints of the religious right - I really doubt any liberal who brings them up is going to be arguing for anything but hypocrisy. Do you think liberals would kick up this much fuss if Chelsea Clinton had an out-of-wedlock child in her teens?

Long story short, Palin's an untried and unknowledgeable hypocrite; at that point, does her sex even matter?

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Chelsea Clinton's parents did not advocate for abstinence only education. That makes the pregnancy relevant to me. The fact that she is using her oldest son going to Iraq and her youngest son's Down's syndrome as political fodder, opens the door to using her daughter that way too.

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...Yeah, the hypocrisy issue was my point.

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You know, I consider myself a feminist, and for a while I went back and forth on the whole working mother issue -- My instinct was that "She should not be running for office when she has a small child who needs her care." And then I felt awful for feeling that way, because it's true that we'd never fault a man for running for public office under those circumstances. Heck, I applaud Joe Biden for choosing to serve as Senator after he was elected, despite the fact that he was suddenly alone in caring for his two sons.

But I've decided that really, I don't want to stop blaming Sarah Palin for putting her career above her family in this way. I think it's an irresponsible decision for her to make, and I stand by that. Instead of relaxing the standards to which we hold women, I think we should start holding men to the same standard.

Other than that, I have to say that I haven't heard people making the criticisms you've listed. I mean, certainly they've come up as points of discussion, and if the fact that they've come up at all is what bothers you then I suppose I can't disagree. But I don't feel like I've heard anyone seriously argue that the fact that Palin is physically attractive (and indeed, a beauty queen) makes her less eligible for the vice presidency. Most of the discussion I've heard of the vagina issue basically pokes fun at the idea that women could possibly be considered to be that stupid (of course, this may be an artifact of the people I know and the sources from which I get my news...)

For what it's worth, I think that the reasons why many people were against Hillary (she sounds shrill, she looks old) affected people's votes far more than any of these "issues" will affect Sarah Palin.

As one of my co-workers pointed out the other day, it will be interesting to see how the VP debates get spun. Because there's hardly any question that Joe Biden can wipe the floor with Sarah Palin when it comes to the issues -- but will he somehow be portrayed as misogynistic when he does so?

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hear hear!

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Seconded.

On a related note, I want to be just like Sarah Palin when I grow up. And I am guessing there are millions of girls and young women thinking exactly the same thing right now.

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Well, I know that I made the last statement. It really does seem that that is why the republicans have chose her. I'm not sure I agree it's misogyny to say that. I think it's misogyny for the Republican party to believe that women voters will vote for her because she is a woman, and I do believe that that is half the reason why she was chosen. The other half is the strong appeal to the evangelical base.

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Okay, the first two, I completely agree are a problem. I do think that she is facing serious misogyny. For example, I do think that the working-mother issue, well, isn't an issue, and I'm horrified that people are actually using "she has children to care for" as a reason why she shouldn't be VP.

I do think that the issue of her daughter is a more complicated one, simply because it was the McCain campaign who put out a press release. It wasn't people randomly prying into Palin's family life; it was the campaign which, with her full permission, put out a major press release. When the campaign puts out a press release, that brings it onto the political stage, and into the spotlight, and under the microscope. If she didn't want this to be discussed, she shouldn't have let that press release go out. And that is the main thing I hold against her in this. I think she's being a hypocrite in this, as well as in other things. And, on a related note, I object to her apparent willingness to sacrifice civil rights and right to privacy of others, while getting upset when her own privacy is invaded.

These other two, I have related and similar concerns to, though not exactly the same.

*that Palin is physically attractive (i.e., won beauty pageants to pay for her college) and may be attractive to her running mate

Whatever. I do, however, object to the professionalism of a woman who poses for a Vogue centerfold while governor of a state.

*and, most problematically to me: that Palin was chosen to appeal to wavering women voters who are "too stupid/bitter/bitchy to know better than just to vote for the candidate with the vagina."

See, I think she was. I really do. I also think, however, that this is McCain's biggest miscalculation. He underestimated Hillary Clinton as a "vagina candidate" and saw her as nothing else. I think the reason you state here is exactly why he chose Palin; I also think that the misogyny comes from the McCain campaign, not from the media or the viewers.

I think it is this part of McCain's decision that's going to hand the election to McCain; his popularity among women has dropped like a stone, because women are pissed that he's being so condescending. And rightly so, in my opinion.

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I've written my own post, partly in response to this, here.
Then I wrote about experience, after that.

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I've been feeling conflicted about my reaction to the whole working-mother thing as well. I guess what bothers me about her running for VP with a small child is not just that she's working. It's that she has a small child with special needs, who is suddenly going to be part of one of the most fishbowl-ified positions the family could possibly be in. Regardless of who is actually caring for the kids, they're going to get all sorts of media fallout that's going to interfere with having a normal family life. This after she explicitly stated that her daughter's child is going to have the full, loving support of the family. I don't see how she can give that full support to her family and act as Vice President. Because she's human. I can respect her putting her family on the back burner, but she can't have it both ways.

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I agree with your reasons for disliking Palin. And I'm embarrassed for anyone who would vote for her just because she's female (you did see the Daily Show clip about that, didn't you?).

I actually hadn't heard anyone suggest that she was chosen for her looks. If anything, I think the fact that she looks so young may work against her. Still... it's not entirely a false accusation, but then, most politicians are chosen at least in part for their appearance, so I agree that it's obnoxious to pick on it in her case just because she's a woman.

As to her having a political career on top of five children... well, I object to her having all those kids, but that's beside the point. I darn well hope her husband stays home and wears the apron-- it's about time we saw more of that!

The pregnant teenage daughter issue is a very valid point, not because of the shock value (I care more that she's 17 than that she isn't married), but because of what it says about her "abstinence only" stance. Look, if you can't even make it work at home...

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