Sarah Palin's female. That doesn't make her feminist
Priyamvada Gopal
<snip>
In [corporate feminism's] worldview, "women" are a generic category and the clear winners of an oppression sweepstake for which amends must be made to already privileged women at the expense of everything else. It's a position exemplified by Gloria Steinem's support for Hillary on the basis that "gender is probably the most restricting force in American life today". Gender has indeed been a greatly restrictive category and nowhere more so than within this brand of feminism. With its narrow emphasis on biological womanhood to the exclusion of other factors, this feminism has persistently refused to recognise the ways in which gender necessarily intersects with other forces like ethnicity, race, class and sexuality to produce a range of different positions from which women relate to the world.
As such, Sarah Palin is less a scourge than a lesson. She – and her rapidly growing support base – has finally laid bare the category "woman" as deployed by the media and prominent American feminists: all along it has actually meant "white woman". (The same voices that so loudly defend Palin against sexism were not so voluble when Michelle Obama was subjected to far more vicious pillorying on the basis of her race and gender.) Palin's rise has also made clear that, while it is perfectly acceptable on right and left to stress gender and gender equality, talking about race is still verboten.
[...]
full at --
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/18/uselections2008.sarahpalin>
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Excellent stuff.
Once again, I feel compelled to point out that these are precisely the points our very own shag (described by the publisher of 'Fearful SoCal Gold Buyer Quarterly' as "toxic hostility") has been making onlist for years and fully developed at Bitchlab, her inactive blog which now rests among the honored undead.
Hilariously (or infuriatingly, depending upon your POV and blood sugar level) the response here has often either been interstellar space-like silence or one of those ripping yarn arguments ignited by some high-strung rabbit's mis or over-interpretation of a word or phrase.
We do often seem to ignore the cleverness and insights available right here.
But back to Priyamvada Gopal....
To see what Gopal's talking about in action, visit the increasingly goofy Jezebel.com (my new favorite dart board). There, you'll witness women tying themselves into the Gordianist of knots trying to smooth out the contradictions: if taking the big jobs IS feminism, Palin's ascension must be all good. But then again, the Gov's views are, to put it charitably, fucktacularly awful. So maybe it's not good for feminism after all. Blam! And counter-blam! Round and round they go.
As Gopal (and shag) point out, the real problem is the narrow, power besotted, status quo loving, class division ignoring, racial bias pooh poohing concept of feminism these confused souls cling to like pit bulls to ankles.
.d.
"Drink the damn orange juice! If it's good enough for 60,000 hornets it's good enough for you!"
SMERSH .............................. http://monroelab.net/blog/