Ever since her nomination in August, Feminists have been losing their minds about Palin.

Her pro life and other conservative positions has frankly driven them nuts.  Chief of the PDS abusers have been the feminists.

One of the first I saw was Sarah Seltzer¹:

 When I saw that John McCain had picked Sarah Palin as his running mate this morning, I was on the elliptical trainer, and my rage propelled me to the most furious workout I’ve had in a while.

It’s always exciting to see women enter the political fray at higher levels. But a lot of feminists out there, are appalled by the cynicism and condescension inherent in this choice. It’s as though the McCain camp believes our irrational she-hormones will lead us, like sheep, to pull the lever for any candidate who looks like us–even if she has a strong record, as Palin does, of standing against women’s interests.

Of course there is a complete lack of basis for that last statement, but ignore that for the moment.

I found this small round up of hysteria by Jonah Goldberg at NRO²:

Feminist author Cintra Wilson writes in Salon (a house organ of the angry left) that the notion of Palin as vice president is “akin to ideological brain rape.” Presumably just before the nurse upped the dosage on her medication, Wilson continued, “Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa have me and my friends retching into our handbags. She’s such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it’s easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism.”

…

On Tuesday, Salon ran one article calling Palin a dominatrix (“a whip-wielding mistress”) and another labeling her a sexually repressed fundamentalist no different from the Muslim fanatics and terrorists of Hamas. Make up your minds, folks. Is she a seductress or a sex-a-phobe?

…

Gloria Steinem, the grand mufti of feminism, issued a fatwa anathematizing Palin. A National Organization for Women spokeswoman proclaimed Palin more of a man than a woman. Wendy Doniger, a feminist academic at the University of Chicago, writes of Palin in Newsweek: “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.”

Phyllis Schlafly offers this opinion which confirms the belief that Palin has exposed feminism as a fraud³:

The nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president is a big step forward for women, but a long backward step for the movement we have been taught to call feminism.

That is obvious from the anguish, indeed the fury, of feminist commentators. They are so intemperate in their criticism that they are incoherent. Men who are clueless about feminism naively think all women should be cheering. Sarah Palin is a woman who has done it all; she has a successful and even more promising career, five children and a supportive husband.

She crashed through the ultimate layer of the feminist fiction -the “glass ceiling” - and she joined those very few women destined to be known only by their first names. What more could any woman want?

The denunciations of Sarah can’t be only because she appears to be a conservative Republican, and the feminists want only liberal Democrats to win. In this era of independent voters and respect for a maverick, surely the milk of bipartisanship should soften feminist angst about Sarah.

But, no. Feminist anger against Sarah has exposed the fact that feminism is not about women’s success and achievement. If it were, feminists would have been bragging for years about self-made women who are truly remarkable achievers, such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, or Sen. Elizabeth Dole, or even Margaret Thatcher. Feminists never boast about these women because feminism’s basic doctrine is victimology.

Indeed.  Like the race baiters who are opposed to ending racism, the feminists she is referring to depend on the perception of inequality to ensure their continued victim hood.

Feminism preaches that women can never succeed because they are the sorry victims of an oppressive patriarchy. No matter how smart or accomplished a woman may be, she’s told that success and happiness are beyond her grasp because institutional sexism and discrimination hold her down.

Notice the similarity with the race baiters.  They claim racism is institutional as well.

On other ironic comment from Phyllis:

The feminist tirades against Sarah are mostly so tiresome, but one line of their complaints is really funny. After 40 years of telling wives and mothers to get out of the home (which Betty Friedan called “a comfortable concentration camp”), put their children in day care (tax-funded, of course) and join the workforce, these same feminists now tell Sarah to stay home with her children.

This feminist, who claims a physical reaction to the news of Palin’s nomination, carefully makes the case that Palin is not a feminist⁴:

I  woke up yesterday and by the time I was awake for 11 minutes I felt like I had been punched in the gut several times after reading on several conservative blogs how Sarah Palin, McCain’s VP pick, is such a great feminist role model. After doing some research on this woman whom I’ve never even heard of before it became abundantly clear–Not only is Sarah Palin not a feminist, she is as anti-woman as Bush and McCain combined. That is the reason why McCain picked her; not because she is a woman and he wanted to be underhanded (which he totally did,) but because she’s a Republican, conservative man who just happens to be in a woman’s body.

Ah, another denial she is a real woman.  Her criteria?

Feminism means to stand up for human rights; it means to stand up for equality and the freedoms and liberties of people and Sarah Palin is disgustingly right wing, anti-choice and has no record of representing women’s interests; though her record in general is quite minuscule.

She continues with a long list of complaints about Palin, most of which are false rumours, and of which only a few have the slightest connection to feminism.

But in her inaccurate diatribe, she exposes the truth of the real core of feminism:  Abortion.

In nearly every complaint about Palin, abortion is generally the top issue.

I continue to find it amazing that liberals are so paranoid about abortion.  But clearly they are and they admit it is a core issue⁵:

You would think the prospect of a woman in the White House as US vice-president - and a working mother to boot - would be welcomed by feminists. Not one bit.

The excoriation of the Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin, since John McCain unveiled her as his surprise running mate last week just goes to show that establishment feminists are only champions of women who subscribe to a narrow set of left-wing positions. They despise conservative women more than any man, and civil wars are always the most vicious.

Which is why the largest American feminist group, the National Organisation for Women, wasted no time issuing a statement saying it did not endorse Palin because she was not the “right woman” and did not speak “for” women.

Palin is not “for” women because she is pro-life, the organisation said. Old-school feminists have long seen abortion on demand as an article of faith, even though half of all foetuses are female and the views on abortion among women are mixed, with opposition to late-term abortions growing.

Palin calls herself a feminist. As a member of the “Feminists for Life of America” pro-life group, she’s just the wrong type. “I believe in the strength and the power of women, and the potential of every human life,” she says.

As such she is clearly anathema to the modern feminists.  They apparently cannot handle any disagreement, or straying from the establish platform.

Finally, this reader comment by Kathleen Banaszak at USA Today suggests something much more monumental (and fundamental)⁶:

Palin marks return to classic feminism

What perfect timing: We just celebrated the 88th anniversary of women winning the right to vote and along comes Sarah Palin, cutting right through 40 years of feminist orthodoxy in two weeks. No wonder some feminists hate her (”Feminist template obliterated,” The Forum, Thursday).

Palin recaptures the historic position and collective sentiment of early women’s rights campaigners such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the very first woman presidential candidate, Victoria Woodhull, who uniformly opposed abortion. Alice Paul, author of the original 1923 Equal Rights Amendment, denounced the abortion-rights position of later ERA advocates, calling abortion “the ultimate exploitation of women.”

One thing is clear in this election cycle: American women are most definitely not an unthinking, monolithic herd that can be manipulated by the likes of NARAL Pro-Choice America and the National Organization for Women. Groups such as Feminists for Life are far more representative of mainstream contemporary American women. The historical record is clear: Classic feminism is pro-woman and pro-life.

I find this very encouraging, and I think she has touched on the truth.  Feminism, like all ideologies has gone through growth and change.  The liberals have driven it in the direction of perpetual victim hood in exchange for abortion, while on the other side, they have maintained a closer tie to the actual roots of feminism.

Which modern liberal feminists might understand if they actually paid attention to the women they claim to represent. 

Like so much of the liberal ideology, it is run by the elite that ignore the regular people.

Trackposted to Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Mark My Words, , Rosemary’s Thoughts, third world county, A Blog For All, Woman Honor Thyself, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, DragonLady’s World, Shadowscope, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, WingLeSS, NN&V, CORSARI D’ITALIA, Democrat=Socialist, and Stageleft, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-seltzer/a-feminist-appalled-by-pa_b_122489.html [back]
2. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjE4ZTcxZjQ5YjBiYzFlMGJlMzk5YjNjOTkyZWQyMTg= [back]
3. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/20/IN5U13026F.DTL [back]
4. http://menstrualpoetry.com/sarah-palin-feminist [back]
5. http://www.smh.com.au/news/miranda-devine/feminists-roll-out-guns-against-palin/2008/09/03/1220121326172.html [back]
6. http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/09/palin-marks-ret.html [back]

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