Ordinary Women and Sarah

“I Am Sarah Palin. Her Story is My Story”

T-shirts with that slogan are beginning to show up on websites and on the backs of women at political rallies. Women and men are excited by Sarah Palin because she is so recognizably one of us. More than that she represents a practical feminism that many women and thinking men have been yearning for and not finding.

Because she is pro-life, Sarah is ipso facto not a feminist…at least if you subscribe to the Gloria Steinem-Patricia Ireland definitions. Abortion is the cutting issue for the official women’s movement. Causes like withdrawal from Iraq, support of the Democratic Party and dedication to “racial justice” are also litmus tests of the true feminist.

When men and women watch discussion shows or read magazine articles about feminist ideals, the conversation is often about career (not job) issues verses home life and ways in which the sexual dynamic between men and women is changing. It is not about the ordinary problems of ordinary women.

Most of the women I know do not have glamorous careers or sophisticated sex lives. Quite a few are waitresses or coffee shop barristas. They include hospital orderlies who have to do nasty cleanup work. They are behind the counter at convenience stores. They are checkout clerks and stock clerks at the supermarket. They operate farm machinery.

They sell tickets at the multiplex, or they are behind the refreshments counter. Some are dispatchers and some drive cabs. Some wash dishes at the diner. Some answer the phone at the office. Some of them are young and attractive, some of them are old and, frankly, kind of tired. Some make good money; most don’t. And some work a second job –in addition to raising one or more children. Often, this is done without a father in the house, living one or two desperate paychecks away from ruin.

The feminist movement isn’t talking about women like these when it talks about “having it all.” These women have it all dumped on them. Work and a family aren’t even a choice for these women, but matters of necessity.

The feminists don’t even know who these women are. Waitresses, maids, janitors, farmers, cops, cabbies, and orderlies --they may or may not be from “flyover country” but to the feminist elite they are “flyover people.” The left elites reason that powerless and poorly educated, these women can only be led. They cannot lead.

Then, improbably, from the Republican Party, emerges a woman who demonstrates the universality of true feminism and proves that respect and equality for women are deeply conservative values.

Sarah Palin has earned her bread through hard physical labor alongside her husband. She has a decent education but not a fancy one. She is articulate but not glib. Her accent is a northwestern drawl. Her clothing is unfashionable but respectable. And she is prickly.

She has that same prickly quality the women we know ourselves get when the school defaults on a promise to their kids, or they plan to locate something hazardous in our neighborhood, or the town refuses to put up stop signs at that dangerous corner. Sarah gets her back up and speaks up.

Sarah does as she likes. If she wants to hunt, she hunts. If she wants to go snowmachining, she’s off! And if she wants to run for office, she gathers a bunch of her friends together and gives it a shot. Her husband is there to pick up the slack with childrearing and housework –when Sarah is not attending to those items personally. They make a good team as she makes the most of the choices that life in Alaska gives her.

The issues that preoccupy the women we know so well, the Wal Mart Moms, these Hockey and Soccer Moms who try to do the right thing for their families, are the issues Sarah Palin has lived with all her life. How are we going to pay for groceries? Where is the rent/mortgage money coming from? Do I like those kids my daughter is hanging out with lately? Should I get a third job on the weekends?

With enormous talent and energy Sarah Palin has answered the big issues in her life through enterprise and hard work. This ability to solve life problems in the same way men have always been able to in a free society, by using all her God-given talents, earning respect and recognition for deeds rather than sexual characteristics, ought to be the ultimate expression of the feminist ideal.

Well, it’s not. The left has defined in very specific terms what feminism is and what a feminist must believe in if she would call herself “feminist.” Sarah Palin, does not have a fancy degree, has no show business talents, is not a part of the L.A.-D.C.-NYC cocktail circuit, has no bonafides as a member of the permanent political class, dresses unstylishly, prays in church and is a breeder.

She is, talents aside, common and ordinary. Modern feminism has no use for common women and their issues. But thanks to Sarah Palin, the Republican Party has discovered that these women we know so well are a natural constituency.