Well, it could be anyone — Ferraro? Hillary? — but my bet is on Camille Paglia, who persists in being that irritating piece of corn caught in the molars of the progressive vagina dentata:
Perhaps Palin seemed perfectly normal to me because she resembles so many women I grew up around in the snow belt of upstate New York. For example, there were the robust and hearty farm women of Oxford, a charming village where my father taught high school when I was a child. We first lived in an apartment on the top floor of a farmhouse on a working dairy farm. Our landlady, who was as physically imposing as her husband, was another version of the Italian immigrant women of my grandmother’s generation  agrarian powerhouses who could do anything and whose trumpetlike voices could pierce stone walls.
Here’s one episode. My father and his visiting brother, a dapper barber by trade, were standing outside having a smoke when a great noise came from the nearby barn. A calf had escaped. Our landlady yelled, “Stop her!†as the calf came careening at full speed toward my father and uncle, who both instinctively stepped back as the calf galloped through the mud between them. Irate, our landlady trudged past them to the upper pasture, cornered the calf, and carried that massive animal back to the barn in her arms. As she walked by my father and uncle, she exclaimed in amused disgust, “Men!â€Â
Now that’s the Sarah Palin brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism  a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be. Sarah Palin, if her reputation survives the punishing next two months, may be breaking down those barriers. Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership.
Notes Darleen over at the Pub:
Sarah Palin is an afront to contemporary feminism, the “closed club†Paglia refers to. And that “club†is a wholely-owned subsidiary of the American Left. The Left cannot let Palin win, either as VP or as a viable future politician on the national stage. That is why the lies and smears are so eagerly invented and passed around.
Interestingly, that “passed around link” goes to a comment by our old pal SEK, who has evidently taken his act to venues less familiar with his debating style. SEK’s uncritical dissemination of the latest Palin smear is, fortunately, quickly countered — but it should really come as no surprise that it was first pushed by a self-proclaimed progressive feminist, whose eagerness to run down Governor Palin (and by extension, the brand of feminism she represents) in service to a candidate whose opinions of ordinary women should at best leave any self-respecting feminist… uneasy, is a testament to just how much establishment feminism has turned from support and empowerment of women to support and empowerment of progressive politics.
It ain’t quite “bros before hos,” but it sure does smack of “pals before gals.”
****
update: Dan weighs in briefly, as well.
Very cool. Camille Paglia is one of my favorite cultural critics, and I’ve been waiting for you to post something remotely related so that I could put up the link to this essay in the comments. I’m delighted that you made the Paglia essay itself the subject of a post. I highly recommend that people read the whole thing. It is four pages, and she spends the last two really taking the Democrats and mainstream feminism to the woodshed over Palin. She gives Gloria Steinem a special Bronx cheer, too. Good stuff.
Nisji, if you are still around you should reads this essay. She takes a position on abortion very similar to Jeff’s.
Wow. Paglia is using the term “establishment feminism.” Cool.
I wonder if “feminists” will take a step back after the election and wonder “What the hell where we thinking?”
That was a good article. Most feminist- I’m honestly just too tired to deal with their bullshit arguments. It’s like debating religion with an atheist.
I must now go and poke out my mind’s eye.
We’re learning that Baracky is kind of a dick that gets all crybaby when people call him on his shit. But it’s an embarrassing spectacle he’s making of himself, cause black guys already have a lot of perceptions about misogyny to contend with, and Baracky’s just making it worse. Baracky needs a timeout I think.
BTW, Jeff, I’m really enjoying your “retirement”.
wink wink nudge nudge
Hakuna metata!
I wonder if “feminists†will take a step back after the election and wonder “What the hell where we thinking?â€Â
as Paglia notes:
.
So no. They won’t .
shoot, this what I wanted italicized
“– leading to feminists’ McCarthyite tactics in pitting Anita Hill with her flimsy charges against conservative Clarence Thomas (admittedly not the most qualified candidate possible) during his nomination hearings for the Supreme Court. Similarly, Bill Clinton’s support for abortion rights gave him a free pass among leading feminists for his serial exploitation of women  an abusive pattern that would scream misogyny to any neutral observer”
Wow. Baby steps. This is one.
Hi Jeff. It looks like that post was by ari not SEK unless I am reading it wrong. ari seems like a congenial person generally except for the dissemination of the lies part, but I only know him a little.
LEAVE SAINT SARAH ALOOOONEEE!!1!
oh. I read more carefully. Sorry. Was on phone. I think ari hornswoggled SEK is all with his rape lies. They blog together so SEK probably trusts him. But he shouldn’t because ari writes things that are not true so he can smear Sarah Palin and make people like Baracky again.
Comment by happyfeet on 9/10 @ 11:44 am
RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAACCCCCCIIIIISSSSSTTTT!!!1!1!!one!!eleven1!!1!
I don’t see how this helps Michelle Obama’s kids.
She’s a fuckin’ moose pagan! Drunk on rattle snake versions of God’s chosen Alaskans.
Immolate the beast!
“Hornswoggled?”
Perhaps somebody’s been reading Celine?
Sure, thor, all the while Biden is running his no-faith healing show, asking men in wheel-chairs to stand up and take a bow?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRV5Y1JCGRI
On the contrary, I think you should hit her with everything you’ve got. You don’t mind if I watch what happens, do you?
Hey,Pablo — is Obama still hanging out in New Pennsylvania and rooting for the Nitally Lions?
FEMINISM MEANS WOMEN DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS!!1! SARAH/TERRI ’08!!
Nah, Dread, he’s off to campaign for the electoral votes of states 51-57.
Just as an aside: it’s interesting that when feminism is invoked — of any stripe — that the women who are held up as examples are physically strong specimens, no-nonsense, better men than men.
Which is fine. But should not feminism also embrace femininity? What of the women who are not physically strong, who couldn’t field-dress a caribou to save their lives, but who have cultivated grace and dignity and feminine elegance. Or the über-mothers who take in scads of foster and/or adopted kids, whose quiet nurturing doesn’t make good TV but makes a huge difference to otherwise unloved kids?
Soon to join the ranks of Tammy Bruce as an “anti-feminist,” or feminist apostate?
Paglia has been an apostate for decades. She’s one of the most intellectually honest people on the Left, BTW, so I’m not at all surprised by her response.
Oh, and here’s Ramirez, on the money, as usual.
Actually, I can see Hillary Clinton as President Palin’s Secretary of State. And Gerry Ferraro in the Adlai Stevenson role. (And Camille Paglia could do the Donna Brazile thing at the inaguration.)
You make a very good point, dicentra. One would think NOW could greatly expand its appeal by holding up, say, an Audrey Hepburn as a model of female empowerment. I mean, she was Holly Golightly AND the face of UNICEF.
(Not to mention smokin’ hawt ’til the day she died.)
Speaking of feminism and identity politics: Where, oh where is Michelle Obama these days? We’ve heard nary a peep from her since the convention.
“But should not feminism also embrace femininity?”
Absolutely.
But can we also ask that feminists, by the same token, stop trying to engineer the masculinity out of boys by portraying perfectly sound character traits like competitiveness, assertiveness and self-reliance as socially poisonous?
But can we also ask that feminists … stop trying to engineer the masculinity out of boys …?
They’re too busy trying to inculcate masculinity in women.
“They’re too busy trying to inculcate masculinity in women.â€Â
Which quite often results in resentful, passive-aggressive harpies. A model for us all.
Speaking, no doubt, for the establishment feminists, SC Democratic chair recently said that Sarah Palin’s “primary qualification [for the VP slot] seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”
Link here: http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/SC_Dem_chair_Palin_primary_qualification_is_she_hasnt_had_an_abortion_.html?showall
Stay classy, Dems!
They banned me at SEK’s group site and now my feelings are hurt. I’m so glad that I’m not banned here. I have a renewed appreciation, really. Thank you.
Of course they banned you, Happy. Free speech for me and not for thee and all.
She should be burned at the stake.
“Comment by thor on 9/10 @ 12:16 pm #
“Hornswoggled?â€Â
Perhaps somebody’s been reading Celine?”
No, but you’ve been listening to Celine Dion.
Yes. He’s a professor too, the guy that banned me. That’s sort of creepy. But really I don’t have any business going to other blogs. This one is plenty I think.
What was up with all the stuff over there about “threats,” HF? I went through the thread twice and didn’t see anything that I’d characterize as a threat of any sort – or are Eric and Ari the type that regard dissenting opinions as a threat?
That’s what hurt my feelings, really. I didn’t threaten anything except that stupid argument they were making about how Governor Palin is a rape-profiteer. And now no one is commenting there at all cause this eric person has them all cowed I think.
I can’t imagine happyfeet issuing threats. That glove don’t fit.
Although I’m an eeeeeeeevil Rethuglican racist and sexist, I’ve always believed that the kernel of true feminism lies in the personal freedom and individuality we all have under the US constitution.
Where it definitely does not lie is in ideological lockstep to any one political outlook, party, or single issue!
How good is it to have Camille Paglia shaken her finger at the establishment feminists?
Suh-weeeeeeeeet
all the while Biden is running his no-faith healing show, asking men in wheel-chairs to stand up and take a bow?
You know, in any other election that one would be in heavy rotation on the gaffe Hit Parade.
This time it’s not even gonna make the Top 40.
By the way, I ♥ Camille Paglia.
There are plenty of things that I disagree with her about, but (as dicentra said) she’s intellectually honest.
After the pantywaists over at Edge of the American West hyperventilated their way into a banning over imaginary and illusory “threats,” one of them followed up with an interpretation of the Wasilla story that…..well, you’ll just have to read it to believe it. Let’s just say that SE-there are no communists or communist sympathizers in the Democratic Party-K is in good company there.
Happyfeed, time spent at that other website is time you’re not spending here, and that’s just wrong. And yes, Camille is terriffic, except when she’s indulging her Madonna fixation.
Thanks, RR. It’s a moot point anyway cause they won’t let me play anymore. I are too threatening.
Dear God. Please tell me I did not just type Happyfeed. It’s 5pm here in LA. Time to hit the bottle.
I noticed perpetual supertroll timb was right there to sop it all up.
What a wanker.
urm, serr8d, our timmy was a Burns, I think.
No, maggie katzen, I tracked this one directly to source. He’s been trolling me, leaving tracks. I told him to stop using Karl’s e-mail address, but no, he kept playing games.
I’d say I’m 98% positive, given the IP records. Tracked back to IU, Perdue University, Indianapolis. timb. Unless of course he’s lying about his name, which is entirely possible. Lying liars and the lies they tell.
“not good. period.”
That’s some spot-on analysis, from a paying student.
he may be a student there? he’s mentioned being in law school.