A new spin on the Virgin/Whore complex
I get that Sarah Palin is enough to send most liberals screaming from the room. Of the approximately 131 million votes cast in the 2008 election, her ticket only lost by ten million. That’s enough to make any Democrat-or MSM journalist-bite their fingernails to the quick. Party leaders are obviously looking for ways to attack her and weaken her base so she doesn’t threaten the White House in 2012.
But why do the attacks have to focus on her children and her mothering style?
Letterman’s jokes about Palin’s 14 year old daughter getting knocked up by Rodriguez were way out of line. But even worse is the continued defense of those remarks. The Huffington Post has accused Palin of creating a tempest in a teapot. Donny Deutsch, speaking on MSNBC, said it was obvious that Letterman was referring to Palin’s 18 year old daughter-as if that were any better-despite the fact that it was her 14 year old daughter who was with her at the baseball game (Deutsch of course went on to call Mika Brezezinski a super hot vixen to her face, leaving her speechless on the set. Is someone paying him to be an asshole?).
Deutsch also defended the Letterman remarks by claiming that Palin started it all by bringing her children onto the stage with her at the RNC. Never mind that all politicians do this. Never mind that Obama was lauded for it. Palin started the ball rolling, he says, which I guess is another way of saying she asked for it.
I only wish we got half of what we asked for as women.
This is latest front in the ongoing struggle for equality: the Bad Mother offensive. It’s a new and more insidious version of the whole virgin/whore complex that has kept this country in its thrall since the Puritans landed and Hester was handed her A. Motherhood has been positively beatified in the past decade. It’s the career of choice for many Gen X’ers and a fabulous excuse if you don’t want to work. Actually, not working when you’re a mother is very much encouraged these days. Just look at how Michelle Obama has been lauded for her choice to forgo her brilliant career and focus on fashion and gardening and her girls-despite the fact that first ladies like Cherie Blair continued to work and even give birth while their husbands held office. Hillary Clinton was excoriated for not staying home to bake cookies when she was first lady-and asked to iron a shirt when she was running for President. Sarah Palin was damned for taking an infant on the road and handed the bad mother of the year award when her 17 year old became pregnant.
As motherhood has evolved into a career, the standards for being a good mother have increased exponentially. It is no longer enough to give birth to a child, occasionally wash his or her face, feed them cheerios and get them to school most days on time. No. Motherhood is so much more than that. This has given rise to incessant attacks on so-called bad mothers-Kate, Octo-mom, Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears-any woman who steps outside of a 1950’s personification of blissful motherhood. For the record, I’m not hearing the bad-dad attacks on Jon, Brad or Kevin, among others. The mere fact that they change a diaper elevates them to the dad pantheon.
Ladies, we’re moving backwards.
When Geraldine Ferraro ran for VP in 1984, no one went after her kids. Her husband, yes. But she wasn’t criticized for her parenting skills. Sandra Day O’Connor wasn’t questioned about her daycare provider. Sally Ride wasn’t asked why she wasn’t having children instead of going into space. Pat Schroeder, when asked how she intended to manage her career as a Representative and Mother shot back, “I have a brain and a uterus and I use both.
On TV, Cagney and Lacy, Mrs. Keating and Mrs. Huxtable ruled the airwaves. They were all working mothers. Today, Real Housewives and Desperate Housewives and Bridezillas rule the airwaves.
No comment.
This focus on forcing women to be madonnas is as bad as reducing them to sexual objects. Both ideals undercut women’s ability to function as integrated human beings. The “bad mommy” meme and the sexual trollope theme place all of the responsibility and guilt for other people’s behavior squarely on women’s shoulders, keeping them so busy beating their breasts in the confessional that they never have time to make it to the conference room.
No wonder women are opting out.
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Nora, well-argued and thoughtful post, especially regarding expectations of dads.
When it comes to Palin, though, I only partly agree. Yes, Letterman’s joke was crass and stupid, but it is true that Palin has brandished this unwed mother like some sort of gold medal. The kid was even on the cover of People, in cap and gown and holding her baby!
In the same way that actors simultaneously fight to be famous while whining about lack of privacy, many politicians put their kids forward when it is convenient for them, only to cry foul when attention is paid. I’m not sure Bristol is getting any more flack than Chelsea Clinton did at a much younger age.
Susan–Letterman’s comments were clearly about the 14 year old daughter who was at the Yankee game, not the 18 year old. And while I agree the older daughter has made much of her position as a single mother, it still doesn’t mean it’s okay to make snarky sexual comments about a young woman.
It’s just not okay to sexually denigrate women, whether they’re Dems or Reps.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t know if this falls fully into the “denigration of women” category, since so many other things are at play, including A-Rod. There are also times when women, as well as men, set themselves up as targets.
Susan–yes, he mentioned A-Rod. But the slight was on the young girl.
In response to another comment. See in context »If The Feminine Politique can’t muster up political analysis more meaningful than an impassioned defense of this decade’s Dan Quayle, I hope sexism makes a big comeback.
Wow, you totally missed the point. I wasn’t defending Sarah Palin, I was pointing out that women are now being attacked for mothering skills (in addition to their sexuality).
And that regardless of who you are, sexual comments about a 14 year old girl are out of line.
In response to another comment. See in context »Men are attacked for their sexuality all the time, Bill Clinton was impeached for it. A “feminist” defense of Sarah Palin is absurd, the only bias it shows it your own. The only person exploiting this the 14 y/o Palin child is her mother and father. And yes I know, I don’t get it.
In response to another comment. See in context »Clinton was impeached for lying, not his sexuality.
I listened to a report on NPR last night about a federal judge in Texas who was convicted for years of sexual improprieties..and then listened to lawyers and others defend him by saying he’d gone thru a rough time when his wife was ill with cancer.
Anita Hill was nailed to a cross when she came forward. Hillary Clinton was–let’s be honest–the object of a lot of sexual comments during her campaign. It’s not only rampant, it’s increased recently–and defending Letterman for making nasty comments about an 8th grade girl is just the latest chapter.
And regarding your quotes around feminist and Palin–Camille Paglia has written extensively about the point that Palin does in fact embody everything feminists have worked for. She just happens to be conservative. While I don’t agree with her, I still admire what she has acoomplished, no “” needed.
In response to another comment. See in context »No one said Hillary wasn’t subjected to sexist behavior during the campaign. Was it the reason lost, nope.
In response to another comment. See in context »“Palin does in fact embody everything feminists have worked for.”
No, what Palin has done has is to exploit the efforts and long fought battles of real feminist and repaid them by spitting in their faces.
In response to another comment. See in context »This is interesting – I didn’t see this row as a knock on Palin’s mothering skills but I did see Letterman’s comments as a a dangerous tacit endorsement of child abuse. I usually defend the right to joke about pretty much everything and think we can all be far too pc on most issues. But not this one. No one can ever defend any suggestion that it is funny to say, even obliquely, that an older man having sex with a 14 year old is in anyway acceptable. And Letterman’s “joke” did exactly that. It was the worst, sexist, locker-room humor. We should stop pretending he meant Bristol – and even if he did, it’s still not ok.
You are spot on.
Apropos of the mothering attacks, there’s an interesting take on this over at Forbes Women by Kiri Blakely.
NB
In response to another comment. See in context »To some extent I have to agree with all of you — whether Letterman was referring to the 14 yo or the 18 yo (I believe it was the latter; laziness on his part not to have known which child was with the Palins) — it was a slip into the ugly sexism of the past. We are living in a culture that has somehow forgotten what it is to live and work and cooperate in a civil way, and the agreement between the sexes seems to be suffering as well. Let’s not continue to fracture our society. Let’s find a way to point out to each other that what David Letterman did was insensitive and lazy, and then let it be. Meantime, I would hope that Gov Palin would please not start a national crisis over this …