The repubs could have nominated a bale of hay with perky eyeglasses and a chirpy cheerleader voice (come to think of it....) and this story would still illustrate a multitude of reasons it matters to have a woman on the Repub ticket and to make Repub women do their share of work on the battle with sexism front.
See Repubs are confused about women. They are confused in different terms than Dems but they are confused.
What for instance are we to make of Giuliani's bit on the campaign trail about wifey, wife No. 3, calling him on the cellphone in the middle of speeches? The fact that this is Wife No. 3 predictably should give the conservative base a royal headache. Apparently though this is trumped by the manly man with wifey always on the line thing.
Consider the Republican convention, trotting out Carly Fiorina and Meg what's her name from EBay. This is supposed to make the party look like it favors strong independent women. But any CEO who goes on as Fiorina did at the convention about "individual initiative" is an idiot. No CEO gets where they are without a lot of teamwork and my SLIGHT inclination to see where the Repubs might be going on women's issues flew out the window as soon as I heard her say it.
Next, think of Sarah Palin as McCain's trophy babe. You would think he has Cindy, why does he need another one. Think Hugh Hefner. What better way to project an image of vital virility than to surround himself with pretty younger women? The wifey deal got even better at Sturgis, the annual SD motorcycle rally. There McCain offered to enter her in the bikini contest or some such thing. There is cute and affectionate and even sexy. After all. women are supposed to be flattered to look that good but McCain was all but pimping his wife out before the assembled bikers.
And now, thanks to the men of world affairs from Pakistan, we get to explore whole new heights of gender dynamic. First there was the foreigh minister trying to "conquer" Condolezza Rice, George Bush's ice princess. Think of Palin and AlZawahi, Palin being dispatched by McCain the way some medieval lord dispatches a daughter as a gesture of friendship to a neighboring lord. In this case, really glad the good people of Pakistan are disgusted by Al Zarwahi but now it's time for some disgust in McCain's direction too.
"If he insists on hugging, I will" Ewwwwww. Is this REALLY the kind of forceful image we want our vice president projecting? Charming Cheerleader and Miss Congeniality have their place on the world stage. Women who are really good at the game even work in a bit of steely-eyed vixen, luring boorish men into multiple traps, but is Mata Hari Palin WAY out of her depth here?
It's not like there aren't already a whole raft of feminist issues on which to indict the Repubs, but even in their own terms, this one calls for serious rethinking.
DC On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 4:41 AM, Sujeet Bhatt <sujeet.bhatt at gmail.com>wrote:
> http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1844925,00.html?imw=Y
>
> Time Magazine
>
> How Sarah Palin Rallied Pakistan's Feminists
> By Omar Waraich / Islamabad
> Friday, Sep. 26, 2008
>
> Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari would have expected that his
> interactions with American leaders in New York this week could bring
> trouble at home. After all, relations between the two countries are as
> tense as they've ever been, erupting into an exchange of fire between
> U.S. and Pakistani forces along the Afghan border on Thursday. But the
> meeting that appears to have gotten the Pakistani leader into more
> trouble than any other was a brief encounter with Republican vice
> presidential candidate, Sarah Palin.
>
> Zardari met Palin on Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General
> Assembly, where Zardari was making his debut on the world stage and
> Palin was meeting with visiting heads of state in the hope of
> improving her much-derided foreign policy credentials. The resulting
> exchange turned Palin into a household name in Pakistan, but saw
> Zardari pilloried at home as a source of national embarrassment and
> accused of sexism and impropriety. (See photos of Sarah Palin here.)
>
> In footage now being endlessly replayed on local cable channels and on
> YouTube, Palin is seen rising to introduce herself as Zardari enters,
> dressed in one of his signature flashy tailored suits. As custom
> demands, the two grip each other's hands and shake them animatedly
> before the cameras. But it is the remarks that follow that got Zardari
> into hot water back home.
>
> Meetings between Pakistani and American leaders are traditionally
> staid and predictable, although some Pakistanis are fond of recalling
> an apocryphal 1963 exchange between John F. Kennedy and Zulfikar Ali
> Bhutto — father of slain prime minister Benazir, to whom Zardari was
> married. Impressed by the then Foreign Minister, who would become
> prime minister before being deposed by a U.S.-backed military dictator
> in 1977 and later executed, Kennedy is alleged to have said: "If you
> were an American you would be in my cabinet." Bhutto is alleged to
> have answered, "Be careful Mr President, if I were an American, you
> would be in my cabinet."
>
> What Zardari said after shaking Palin's hand will likely prove a great
> deal less memorable. "You are more gorgeous than you are on
> [television]," he told Palin after she declared she was honored to
> meet him. "Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you,"
> Zardari added, flashing his trademark teeth-baring smile.
>
> At this point, the two were urged to shake hands again, presumably for
> the benefit of the cameras. "I'm supposed to pose again," Palin said
> quietly. Pointing toward the aide that prompted them, Zardari said,
> "If he's insisting, I might hug."
>
> Pakistani newspapers ran prominent accounts of the "embarassing"
> incident, while news anchors smirked after airing the footage. On Geo
> TV, a popular Urdu language network, Zardari's remarks were delicately
> termed "a light and open exchange of remarks" before the short clip
> ran with blow-by-blow commentary. A subsequent version was run with an
> Urdu ballad playing in the background.
>
> Being Pakistan, attention was inevitably turned to how the event was
> covered in neighboring India. Times Now television introduced the clip
> with the words "Pakistani President Asif Zardari seems to be a big fan
> of Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, but his first
> meeting with her has critics saying that he was completely a bit out
> of line." Straplines across the top of the screen blare: "Pak
> President Out of Line with Palin", "Zardari Shocks with Sexist Remark"
> and "Zardari Ignores Diplomatic Propriety".
>
> The criticism was echoed by leading Pakistani feminists. "I feel it's
> absolutely shameful and a disgrace," says Tahira Abdullah, a prominent
> women's rights activist. "It is against diplomatic protocol. And he is
> supposed to be mourning the loss of his illustrious and so-called
> beloved wife. Instead he's flirting with her in public. He should
> apologize to her and to Pakistanis."
>
> "President Zardari's charm offensive on Ms. Palin was, well,
> offensive," wrote political analyst Mosharraf Zaidi in an op-ed for
> The News. "What excuse does the husband of a global feminist icon have
> for his faux pas?" he asked, in a reference to the late Benazir
> Bhutto's status as the Muslim world's first prime minister.
>
> While many reactions have been hostile, some Pakistanis have laughed
> off the exchange as nothing more than a source of inconsequential
> merriment. But the country's religious conservatives are unlikely to
> be so forgiving. A previous inappropriate encounter between a leading
> Pakistani male politician and an American female politician was seized
> on by political opponents in parliament after Condoleezza Rice
> biographer Marcus Mabry described in pitiless detail an abortive charm
> offensive by former prime minister Shaukat Aziz on the U.S. Secretary
> of State, after Aziz had allegedly told diplomats that "he could
> conquer any woman in two minutes".
>
> Mabry's account of the Rice-Aziz encounter spawned a minor media storm
> in Pakistan, and like it, the furor over the Zardari-Palin meeting
> will soon be forgotten. With an economy in freefall and militancy on
> the rise, Pakistanis may have little time to concern themselves for
> too long over how their president comports himself.
>
> --
> My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty.
> - Jorge Louis Borges
>
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