"People seem to like Palin because she’s a 1950s woman who also happens to have a job"

“She’s trying to say, ‘I’m just a soccer mom that happened to fall into this!’” said Carolyn Strom, a 31-year-old graduate student who lives in the West Village. “But she doesn’t give that off. She seems very calculated. She’s a very smart person—she’s not someone who said, ‘I’m happy to be the PTA person.’”

In contrast, said Ms. Strom, New York women “don’t act like they got somewhere just by chance. I don’t know if women identify with her so much. I don’t feel like there’s a strong woman out there running on the ticket. She’s very much the pretty first-grade teacher—maternal but strong. With Hillary Clinton, we know her past. This woman, she’s the mysterious, pretty young woman. I don’t know why people haven’t said she’s a ball buster. They call Palin a spitfire, but they call Hillary a ball buster. Hillary never mentioned the PTA or being a soccer mom! She was a new definition of womanhood and leadership. People seem to like Palin because she’s a 1950s woman who also happens to have a job. It’s like, ‘I don’t know, it’s just happening to me!’ It’s not that Palin seems meek—it’s that she fits a more comfortable idea of womanhood. Just to be a Miss Alaska—what does that say about women? It’s perfect for these men. She’s not a threat to men, even though she’s a ‘spitfire.’ Hillary is somehow more threatening.”