Sarah Palin Sexism Watch: Evangelical leader: Palin can serve family and country

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Evangelical leader: Palin can serve family and country

An evangelical leader tries to answer Sally Quinn and explain why he, and other Christian leaders, believe Sarah Palin can serve both family and country. This strikes me as a compassionate piece, lacking the nasty tone of the other columns raising the Mommy Question.

I agree with him that most women (at least the ones I know) consider marriage and motherhood to be a primary life fulfillment, and I agree with him that this does not preclude those women from also having a calling for a career. I agree with him that questions about how Sarah will balance career and family should remain in a private sphere, and I have no problem with him saying he'd raise them to her as her minister. That's a far different question from such motherhood/career balancing concerns becoming a major public debate about the qualifications of the female candidate for VP in the presidential election. I would assume that a minister would raise such balancing concerns with a male politician as well. I am sure that fathers on the campaign trail also struggle to balance their political duties with their family ones, as they also have special roles within the family structure.

I also agree with him that many women are not prepared to choose the sacrifices that a political life entails; then, again, neither are most men. I, of course, as a female, am bothered on some levels by the Biblical comment about "servant leadership" and submission, and by the fact that women can not be pastors, but I don't disagree with the intepretation of it by this minister, which says, after all, that men and women are equal but that they have complementary, and different, roles within the home. They do. Fathers and mothers are not exactly the same. They bring different things into children's lives. I am sure that Todd and Sarah Palin will continue to be a good father and mother in their children's lives, and how they balance it is frankly none of my business.

I find it interesting how this theologian carefully separates the religious sphere from the public, political one. Perhaps the feminist newspaper columnists are the ones doing the opposite - assuming that religious doctrine should, in fact, MUST, govern Palin's entrance into the public sphere alone. Yet the evangelicals are themselves not making that case.

But if Sally Quinn has a problem with what she sees as evangelical hypocrisy on the Palin question, she and her brethren should be writing columns accusing evangelicals of hypocrisy that do not then go to the next step of assuming a position even more rigid than theirs - that Palin herself should not run for VP with all those kids and that she's somehow a bad mother if she does so.

I've never seen a single quote from Sarah Palin criticizing working mothers or saying a woman's place is solely in the home. Her life history indicates the opposite.

In other words, Quinn and her friends in the media might consider that they sound far more rigid on this question than the evangelical minister linked above - and than Sarah Palin. I am sure all evangelicals don't think alike, though.

Who knew? Sally Quinn is more opposed to working mothers than an evangelical minister. Strange times.

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What is sexism?

All criticisms of Sarah Palin are not sexist. It would be sexist to expect that she would receive no criticism, or that she SHOULD receive no criticism, because she is a woman. I admit that some of the criticism of Palin may really be the result of ideological bias, or simply sloppy reporting, not sexism. Some of the questions are fair game in isolation (yes, of course, it's fair to talk about Palin's experience in general; it's that she's held to a higher standard than males in the race that's the issue).

The Palin piling on is a complex cultural stew. In some cases, I suspect ideological and gender bias are working together. A reader has challenged me to define what I consider to be sexism. Broadly, I would define sexism in the political sphere as the following: When the woman is held to a higher and different standard than a similarly situated male, especially but not limited to issues that have no relevance to the race and that tend to diminish the woman's professional accomplishments by playing into gender stereotypes.

Specifically, here is a list of what I consider to be sexist behavior:

Coverage of a female politician that fixates on her physical appearance, pro or con. I admit that male politicians sometimes face this (Obama walking shirtless out of the Hawaiian surf got a lot of attention, and there was a lot of attention about John Edwards' shiny hair). And I think that some women have mixed feelings about this. After all, who doesn't want to be considered good looking? But, for many women, when they are in a professional setting, and supposedly professional media commentators place the focus back on their physical appearance, as a positive or a negative, it feels diminishing of their professional accomplishments. This works both ways, of course. Hillary Clinton has been viciously attacked by some on the right for supposedly not being good looking. That, too, is sexist, especially since unattractive male politicians are generally not held to this standard. If you think about it, good-looking male politicians also find their appearance the topic of discussion in many cases, but that's not true of unattractive male politicians. It's true in both cases for women. Simply put, appearance is not relevant to competence, so why are we talking about Palin's hair and looks?
Sexual-related comments about a female politician.
Blatant belittling of one's intelligence without evidence and in a manner not accorded to male opponents (i.e. saying the woman is stupid, needs a teleprompter, needs a lot of coaching, etc.)
Implying that the woman must not really believe her positions or must be under the intellectual sway of a more powerful male. (This happens in racism too. Consider how opponents argue that Clarence Thomas is a tool of intellectual white men like Antonin Scalia).
Double standards relating to motherhood; i.e., the female politician is asked questions about motherhood that her male counterparts aren't asked about fatherhood. (Why doesn't Palin stay home to take care of the kids? Hillary, why don't you want to stay home to bake cookies and hold teas?) The reverse is also true. It's also wrong for people to demean females who CHOOSE to stay home and raise their families. I personally believe that whether a woman chooses to be a housewife, a career woman, or, like Palin, a mixture of both, is her personal decision and debate about it really isn't relevant in a presidential election.
Slurs that are typically used to demean women but aren't applied to similarly aggressive men; i.e. when attributes that would be praised in a man are reduced to a negative in the woman (b-tch, nag, etc.). The Martha Stewart phenomenon. The tough woman is a b-tch, but the overly emotional woman is too weak to lead (women can't win sometimes!)
The woman is held to higher standards for intelligence/professional qualifications than a male opponent. (Palin is utterly unqualified, but Obama is then not?)
Diminishing of traditional female roles as being silly (the PTA, chortle, chortle, chortle. She was a housewife once, how pathetic, etc.). I don't know about you, but right now I am thinking about the woman, a housewife, who ran my child's Catholic Bible school this summer, and she was quite a force to be reckoned with. I'd love to pit her against Putin.
Emphasis on female roles traditionally seen as silly when discussing an accomplished, professional woman (she was a beauty queen 24 years ago!!!!!!)
Assuming incompetence. (she's a woman, so she won't be a strong leader, etc.)
The woman becomes defined by a single gender-related issue in a manner that males do not (consider how the abortion question is defining Palin, but doesn't define Obama or even McCain.)
Issues that aren't used against male opponents are magnified out of proportion against the woman. (Bristol-mania. I admit this one might be ideological bias more than sexism, but I do think it's caught up in Palin's cultural role as a "mother")
Invasion of the personal sphere and personalization/lifestyle focus of/on the candidate. In other words, covering the woman through the gauze of personality and lifestyle issues, rather than professional accomplishment. (Why are we talking about Palin's prenatal care and amniotic fluid again? It's creepy. Do we talk about Biden's sperm count? I admit that's a really creepy thought, and I do admit that Palin invited some of this by talking about her breastfeeding to People magazine. But still.)

Sarah Palin Sexism Watch

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Evangelical leader: Palin can serve family and country

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