Women Against Women:
Lessons to be Learned

October 11, 2008

“They can’t pick another middle-aged white guy to be the Vice-Presidential candidate.” That’s what I was saying many months ago about the Republican Party. I thought maybe Bobby Jindall from Louisiana might be a possible choice. I glanced through lists of U.S. Senators, Representatives, and Governors to see if I could find Republican women who might serve as a running mate to whomever the Republican nominee ended up being. I did note that Alaska had a female Republican Governor, but didn’t know much about her and never imagined she would be the ultimate choice (my wife imagined it several weeks before it came to be). Well, she was chosen and here she is mixing up this campaign for both the good and the bad. I will happily vote for her and John McCain.

Inexperienced in foreign policy? No more than the Governors who have become President in recent history: George W. Bush, about whose foreign policy final judgment cannot be made; Bill Clinton, who may have had success in the Balkans while bungling the initial skirmishes in the war on terrorism; Ronald Reagan, who ended the Cold War, reunited Germany, and also made blunders in the Middle East. Jimmy Carter who is remembered both for Camp David and for the hostages. All inexperienced. All with mixed performances in foreign affairs. For none of these men was there such a howl about inexperience as there has been about Governor Palin.

Not well-versed in judicial history? Previous Governors who became Presidents didn’t exactly make impressive appointments to the Supreme and other federal courts. Too political. Too much ideology. Not enough vetting. No disdain for Governor Carter, Governor Reagan, Governor Clinton, or Governor Bush prior to election about being deficient in legal matters. All reserved for Governor Palin.

Not ready to be President? To paraphrase President Clinton, “Can you define “ready”? Is it possible for any one person to be sufficiently knowledgeable about every foreign theater, the international and domestic economic systems, education, energy, environmental issues, national defense, constitutional questions, health care, housing, social services, and on and on and on. The simple answer is, no. In that sense, McCain, Obama, and Biden are not ready. Yet, no one has held them to perfection standards. No one has raised expectations so high for these men that they could not help but fail. Particularly in the case of Senator Obama, whose chief qualification for being President is that he has been running for President for four years, not one of them has been rigorously examined in the detailed way that Governor Palin has undergone. No one has been asked the picayune questions she has been.

Are you starting to get the picture? A completely different standard has been applied to Governor Sarah Palin, different from the other three candidates, who happen to be men. Any double standards at work? Any characterizations being made that rely solely on gender bias? Any stereotyping taking place? Any swift and easy dismissals of a candidate being made solely on assessments of personal qualities? Any belittling of a candidate’s positions based solely on appearance and presentation? You betcha.

Governor Sarah Palin has been and continues to be the object of vicious and barely disguised sexist assaults. She is being ridiculed, she is being marginalized, she is being dismissed because she is a woman. This is being perpetrated by the mainstream media, without question, but the most disturbing part of the persecution of Governor Palin is that her fiercest critics are other women.

I cannot say definitively why Governor Palin’s harshest attackers have been other women. To propose an amateur anthropological/psychological theory, I would say that women are tremendously competitive and territorial toward other women in many arenas in life. The worst enemies of women are usually other women. To each other they can be mean and cruel and critical and vindictive and jealous and threatening.

I believe that the poisonous interactions that can occur among women are a result of their being entangled with men. They are letting their relationships with other women be dominated and defined by their connections with men. They have been conditioned to tear each other down, to find fault, to marginalize and belittle so that they can survive in the world that is dominated by men.

That is my quack theory and I am sticking to it. We can see it operative in this year’s Presidential race. A bright and accomplished and aggressive woman is running for Vice-President. Assumed by many - who are age biased - to become President soon because her running mate will die in office. A far more talented politician than Hillary Clinton. A person who has made it on her own, unlike Hillary Clinton. Yet, she has been subjected to the kind of scrutiny, criticism, insults, and insinuations that no one would dare make toward the male candidates.

It is reprehensible. It is shameful. It is harmful to the cause of women’s equality. Yet, many women in the United States are gleefully stepping forward to tear Palin down. There are other reasons why this is happening, but women must take a long look at themselves and ask why they are playing this role.