"Mama grizzlies": The triumph of feminism

What Tuesday’s results demonstrated, convincingly, is that America is now a country where social conservatives are as comfortable as liberals with the idea of women in high office. More strikingly, they’re comfortable voting for working mothers — for women publicly juggling careers and family obligations in ways that would have been unthinkable for the generations of female leaders, from Elizabeth I’s Virgin Queen down to Margaret Thatcher’s Iron Lady, who were expected to unsex themselves before being entrusted with the responsibilities of state…

In this environment, it isn’t a surprise that women in the public square now disagree about everything from abortion to health care to foreign policy. If anything, it’s a sign that feminism may be returning to its fractious, ideologically unpredictable roots. (As Kerry Howley noted recently, reviewing a history of late-Victorian female radicals, there was no such thing as a “typical” early feminist: “She might well support free love but think condoms a tool of the sex-mad patriarchy; she might want to socialize housework or smash the state.”)

So however much heartburn Palin’s “mama grizzlies” give to those who associate feminism with the policies and prejudices of American liberalism, circa 1973, they should recognize their emergence for what it is: not a setback for the women’s movement, but a happy consequence of its victories.