While I agree with Paglia's assessment of what Sarah Palin's projected image is supposed to be, it's important in my opinion to remember that it's a LIE.
When you have a candidate so weak that you won't allow her to do press interviews, it REALLY DOESN'T MATTER whether she can fire an automatic weapon. It REALLY DOESN'T MATTER what her faux "frontier woman" persona is if she's never had the experience of dealing with military affairs (and she hasn't...the leader of the Alaska National Guard has said in no uncertain terms that she was and never will be involved in any military decisions for the Guard). It REALLY DOESN'T MATTER even if she's "studied miliary history." That's not the same as having military experience. In short, I think that Camille Paglia has done exactly what she has often done in the past. She has fallen for the *glammer*, for the *projected image* of one of her neofeminist heroines, rather than the actuality. She did it with Madonna, and now she's doing it with Sarah Palin. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Fresh blood for the vampire > > by Camille Paglia > > (...) > > Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an > explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her > startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female > qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow > able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho > futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and > leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since > Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene > Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of > the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment. > > In the U.S., the ultimate glass ceiling has been fiendishly > complicated for women by the unique peculiarity that our president > must also serve as commander in chief of the armed forces. Women have > risen to the top in other countries by securing the leadership of > their parties and then being routinely promoted to prime minister > when that party won at the polls. But a woman candidate for president > of the U.S. must show a potential capacity for military affairs and > decision-making. Our president also symbolically represents the > entire history of the nation -- a half-mystical role often filled > elsewhere by a revered if politically powerless monarch. > > As a dissident feminist, I have been arguing since my arrival on the > scene nearly 20 years ago that young American women aspiring to > political power should be studying military history rather than > taking women's studies courses, with their rote agenda of never- > ending grievances. I have repeatedly said that the politician who > came closest in my view to the persona of the first woman president > was Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose steady nerves in crisis were > demonstrated when she came to national attention after the mayor and > a gay supervisor were murdered in their City Hall offices in San > Francisco. Hillary Clinton, with her schizophrenic alteration of > personae, has never seemed presidential to me -- and certainly not in > her bland and overpraised farewell speech at the Democratic > convention (which skittered from slow, pompous condescension to > trademark stridency to unseemly haste). > > Feinstein, with her deep knowledge of military matters, has true > gravitas and knows how to shrewdly thrust and parry with pesky TV > interviewers. But her style is reserved, discreet, mandarin. Sarah > Palin is like Annie Oakley, a brash ambassador from America's pioneer > past. She immediately reminded me of the frontier women of the > Western states, which first granted women the right to vote after the > Civil War -- long before the federal amendment guaranteeing universal > woman suffrage was passed in 1919. Frontier women faced the same > harsh challenges and had to tackle the same chores as men did -- > which is why men could regard them as equals, unlike the genteel, > corseted ladies of the Eastern seaboard, which fought granting women > the vote right to the bitter end. (...) > > http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/print.html >
