Quotes of the day

“In democratic systems, politics often throws up women like Sarah Palin. They look and sound very different from the men around them — Palin seems to have taken a conscious decision to wear skirts, unlike Hillary Clinton and her jokey ‘sisterhood of the travelling pantsuit’ — but their agenda is even more anti-feminist than their male peers…

That is what makes right-wing women so dangerous to other women. They have perfected the trick of stamping a feminine image on male power and selling it as something new, when what they are in reality the most fervent upholders of the status quo or even determined — as Palin is over reproductive rights — to turn the clock back.”

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“But central to Palin’s red-state appeal is her earthy embrace of motherhood. She differs from mainstream feminists in that her sexuality and fecundity are not in tension with her achievement and power. If anything, they rise out of them. Instead of holding her back, her five children embody her energy, competence, authority, and optimism…

Still, whatever the appeal of red-state feminism, it should bring no comfort to anyone in favor of a more mature political culture. Red staters share with their blue-state counterparts a tendency to sentimentalize and trivialize politics. They heighten the salience of Lifetime Television–style personal stories and gossip. They reduce candidates to personalities, lifestyles, and gonads. Some blue staters got behind Clinton because she was a woman; red staters want to vote for Palin because she’s a mom. Both positions are misguided. Multitasking your kids’ homework and dinner is nothing like weighing contradictory advice from your advisors for a decision that will change world history, and estrogen levels do not correlate with experience, judgment, and wisdom. In the long run, the blurring of celebrity and politics hurts everyone, women and men.”

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