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PDS Watch: Why "elite" women hate Sarah Palin
Ann Marlowe, Forbes.comMost women I've talked with about Palin--all certified members of either the media elite or the just plain elite--take her nomination personally. Their animus isn't explained just by her politics; none of them hate Condoleezza Rice, though they disagree with most everything she's done. Nor, for that matter, do they even dislike John McCain. Typically they "respect" McCain but find him too old or too erratic or simply It's as though Palin were an average girl from their boarding school class--or, frankly, from the public school down the road--who unexpectedly won a big prize. "Why not me?" is the subtext, and it's one I've never heard from men talking about male politicians. . . . My friends who hate Palin are all more articulate and better educated than she is, better traveled, probably smarter, definitely more fun to talk with. But can they field dress a moose? Can they? Huh? They can't? Bunch'a useless pansies! Bet they never even seen a moose--an' Rocky & Bullwinkle doesn't count! But the reasons they can't stand Palin are all wrong. It's not so much that Palin isn't one of our own--an Ivy League type, or an Eastern preppie, or a self-made intellectual like Rice. It's not for the fake feminist reasons that "she's against freedom of choice" or "she didn't tell her daughter about birth control." (Though there is an element of hatred for her fertility, and the fact that it hasn't impeded her rise.) It's not because Palin only got a passport a few years ago and doesn't speak any foreign languages. No, it's because Palin makes us look like the slackers we mainly are. We've had our bit of success, but we've also spent a lot of time smelling the roses. We've gone back to school to get another degree, volunteered in poor countries, devoted ourselves to a sport or a hobby. We've not had kids, or if we have, we've had one or two, and we've had nannies paid for by our work or our husbands or our inherited money. We not only have had passports for decades, we've put serious mileage on them. We've lived overseas or spent months wandering around Africa or India, we understand foreign people and places in ways Palin never will--and yet it's she who could become vice president, not one of us. It's not hard to see why. The boyfriend of one of my freshman roommates at Harvard is now governor of Massachusetts--a man no less and no more qualified than many of my classmates. Why him and not us? As with Palin, it comes down to wanting it badly enough and being singleminded. It means spending a lot of time in deadly dull meetings talking about school bond issues or where to put a new off-ramp. It means spending a lot of time in small towns where no one you know has a country place or ever will. And except at the higher reaches, politics doesn't offer much in the way of glamour or fame. . . . My father was in local politics, and quite successful at it. Retail politics takes a certain talent for empathy, a lack of stage fright, and a considerable self-confidence--but mostly it means you have to be willing to show up at meetings and pancake breakfasts and spaghetti dinners and "Night at the Races" nights and candidate forums night in and night out, even in off years when you're not on the ballot--and have every syllable you utter be subject to media and public scrutiny--and still manage to smile at the 465th person you meet that night. You have to really want to do it, and be willing to do it even when the polls are running against you. I have enormous respect for anyone who runs for office--even the ones I'd crawl over broken glass to vote against--because I know how much work it is. People who become writers and intellectuals and artists tend not to want power that badly or pursue it that obsessively, which is what makes us interesting and fun--and makes few of us household names. Success at the Palin level in politics or business takes a level of blinkered self-confidence that comes mainly to (a very few) men. A lot of the people with this quality are annoying to be around. Even the ones that aren't annoying can be . . . I dunno . . . a bit intimidating, maybe? Maybe they aren't very happy with themselves. Actually, the best ones enjoy campaigning. Dad certainly did. But it's not a surprise that a vice presidential nominee should be one of them. The lesson of Sarah Palin for privileged women is to try harder. And that may be the toughest one to hear. Posted by: Mike 2008-10-07 |
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