Palin the Ever Lovin' Mother

sarah and trig palin

I would really like to drive a stake in the heart of the argument, repeated once again by Sarah Palin in her book, that “there’s no better training ground for politics than motherhood." At first glance, it’s oh-so unobjectionable. Sure, let’s recognize that all the planning that goes into running a household translates into marketable and professional skills. One day you mastermind a school auction with umpteen moving parts and egos, the next you shepherd through a state budget. Right, except that in Palin's hands, the demands of motherhood aren’t a form of preparation that complements other kinds, like learning about the rest of the globe before you run for vice-president. Nope, the motherhood version of the can-do ethic makes it OK to have a know-nothing ethic as well. Hell, if you've got enough mommy moxie you can celebrate your lack of intellectual know-how. And you can spit on feminism every step of the way.

In her review of Gail Collins' new book, Ariel Levy recounts that when Cindy McCain asked Palin how she'd handle joining the McCain ticket, Palin “looked me square in the eye,” Mrs. McCain recounted, “and she said, ‘You know something? I’m a mother. I can do it.’ ” Levy continues:

It used to be that conservatives thought motherhood disqualified women for full-time careers; now they’ve decided that it’s a credential for higher office. All of this raises a question: why has feminism, which managed to win so many battles—the notion of a woman with a career has become perfectly unexceptionable—remained anathema to millions of women who are the beneficiaries of its success?

Why? Because women like Palin raid feminism for all the benefits it’s given us without for one second acknowledging the debt. And this is honey for their conservative base. Which brings me to another question: Why oh why did Hillary Clinton say on TV on Sunday that Palin is a person she looks forward to sitting down and talking with? I know, I know, she was being magnanimous. And maybe she’s truly curious. But honestly, why should the Secretary of State waste her time?

Photograph of Sarah Palin by David McNew/Getty Images.

Tags: ariel levy, going rogue, Hillary Clinton, sarah palin's book

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Emily Bazelon is a founding editor of Double X, and a writer and editor at Slate.

Comments

Sexism towards Palin

By: tj | Fri, 11/20/2009 - 20:48

On the day Palin was unveiled to the world, Marsha Blackburn had this to say on MSNBC (I recorded it on my website
http://tntluoma.com/thoughts/marsha-blackburn-on-palins-experience/ because it was so bizarre)

When it comes to the experience question, if you’re going to give me the choice between a man who has run a committee in the US Senate, or a woman who has been a wife, a mother, a businesswoman, a PTA chairmen, a mayor, and a govenor, I’m going to take the experience that woman has, because of this: it is more well-rounded. She has more life-skills. Leadership is a transferable commodity, and women are experts at that. They build leadership skills through so many different areas of their life. They’re not single focused. And if you’re going to give the American people to get someone who has a wealth of leadership experiences from many different platforms in their life, and many different disciplines or give them the opportunity to have someone who has been a chairman or a ranking member of a committee in the US Senate, I think the American people are going to speak out and take that woman with a wealth of experience.

That is one of the most sexist comments I've ever heard. The fact that it was said to put women in a positive light doesn't change that.

It's a slap in the face to working fathers, too.

if motherhood is a qualification

By: patresponse | Thu, 11/19/2009 - 18:56

Why is Palin so opposed to people's examining how good a mother she is?

This is the problem with turning one's personal life into a resume-builder. If I tell people I'm qualified for a job because of my experience managing a team, it is considered perfectly acceptable for the person who may hire me to look at how well my team actually performed. But it's appropriately considered very wrong for us to pass judgment on Palin's children, who are the only discernable "performance check" on that particular job.

A society in which parenting is treated as a resume line is one in which there is no such thing as privacy within the family. I assume Republicans, who generally defend the right to use corporal punishment and oppose schools' teaching students more than the 3 Rs on the grounds that anything else usurps parents' rights, believe that child-rearing is an essentially private matter and that candidates' competence for office should not be judged based on their children.

Why, then, have they accepted Palin's self-contradicting insistence that her children's mistakes not be mentioned by the media, but that her work as a mother be deemed a qualification for the vice-presidency?

What really bugs me about this...

By: igardner | Mon, 11/16/2009 - 13:25

is that ultimately, motherhood isn't really THAT hard. Yeah, it's tiring, it's a full time job, it requires organization and the ability to multi-task. But to put that forward as your primary qualification (which Palin did on many occasions)? C'mon. The moms I know are wonderful women and great moms, but I doubt one of them is really qualified to be president (or vice president, either).

And the thing is, yeah, the president hires smart people to be around him or her, doing much of the leg work. But hopefully the president has enough general knowledge about the world to successfully guide the conversation in the room. A curious person (which both Palin and George W. Bush both demonstrated themselves not to be) challenges the assumptions of the very intelligent people in the room. Rather than just deferring to the smart advisers ("Oh, okay, so, housing values always rise... great!"), an intelligent person asks for more information about the reasoning behind the assumptions. I just don't trust Palin to ask those kinds of questions.

Qualifications for leadership

By: Xando | Mon, 11/16/2009 - 12:59

When you're looking for a leader, knowledge isn't really what you should be looking for except in a peripheral fashion. None of our Presidents have ever spoken Chinese, yet this hasn't been a disqualifying factor despite the enormous importance of China in modern relations. Rather, our Presidents hire expert labor that can perform this function for them. What I suspect Palin is getting at is that motherhood is less a 'job qualifying skill' than it is a 'character shaping experience'. Motherhood generally indicates a person who has learned how to put others interests before their own - a critical feature in leader. Nor is this sexist: consider the fact that we've had precisely one unmarried President (and that in an age of one party dominance) for the same reason.