Anatomy of "The Vapors"

Reason editor Cathy Young explains "Why Feminists Hate Sarah Palin "in the Wall Street Journal:

Left-wing feminists have a hard time dealing with strong, successful conservative women in politics such as Margaret Thatcher. Sarah Palin seems to have truly unhinged more than a few, eliciting a stream of vicious, often misogynist invective. . .

You'd think that, whether or not they agree with her politics, feminists would at least applaud Mrs. Palin as a living example of one of their core principles: a woman's right to have a career and a family. Yet some feminists unabashedly suggest that her decision to seek the vice presidency makes her a bad and selfish mother. Others argue that she is bad for working mothers because she's just too good at having it all. . .

This also galls Katherine Marsh, writing in the latest issue of The New Republic. Mrs. Palin admits to having "an incredible support system -- a husband with flexible jobs rather than a competing career . . . and a host of nearby grandparents, aunts, and uncles." Yet, Ms. Marsh charges, she does not endorse government policies to help less-advantaged working mothers -- for instance, by promoting day-care centers. . .

Mrs. Palin's marriage actually makes her a terrific role model. One of the best choices a woman can make if she wants a career and a family is to pick a partner who will be able to take on equal or primary responsibility for child-rearing. Our culture still harbors a lingering perception that such men are less than manly -- and who better to smash that stereotype than "First Dude" Todd Palin? . . . Isn't that real feminism?

Not to Ms. Marsh, who insists that feminism must demand support for women from the government. In this worldview, advocating more federal subsidies for institutional day care is pro-woman; advocating tax breaks or regulatory reform that would help home-based care providers -- preferred by most working parents -- is not. Trying to legislate away the gender gap in earnings (which no self-respecting economist today blames primarily on discrimination) is feminist. Expanding opportunities for part-time and flexible jobs is "the Republican Party line."

Law Prof/blogger Ann Althouse thinks "hate" is too strong, but mostly concurs:

[I]n recent years, feminism has been dominated by Democratic Party devotees who act like they own feminism, as if theirs was the only feminism -- as if they could dictate that all women should vote Democratic.

Perversely, this conventional Democratic Party feminism took over after Bill Clinton made it rather obvious that within the Democratic Party, the party's interests would necessarily supervene women's interests. The feminism of the last dozen years has been a dull, uninspired argument for keeping Democratic politicians in power.

Finally, neo-neocon 's take:

The nomination of Sarah Palin has acted as a sort of plaque discloser for the display of a fulminating rage which until now I had assumed was directed by these [radical feminist] activists solely (and all too often inappropriately) towards the men they felt had oppressed, assaulted, and otherwise done them wrong. Now I observe the same sort of fury directed at other women—that is, at one rather slender self-described “pit bull with lipstick” from Alaska who happens to be running for the Vice-Presidency of the United States on the Republican ticket. . .

It’s synergistic; something about Palin’s combination of brains, charm, beauty, conservative viewpoints, and proletarian pastimes has brought out an almost unprecedented verbal viciousness in women who by all rights should be proud of her achievements as the second female Vice-Presidential nominee in history. Is this not a goal for which the woman’s movement has labored for so long? Apparently not—if she’s a conservative, and a charming and beautiful one at that.

(via RealClearPolitics)