I am a feminist and a liberal and I like Palin. I know it is fashionable to slam Palin if you are a self-proclaimed intellectual because of her voice and some things she said that indicated she might now be ready for prime time (although if she answered Couric that she read the NY Times she would have been called a liar and if she said Vogue she would have been called an idiot), but let me ask the feminists here this:

Didn’t women go through decades of being told they couldn’t be news anchors because of the high pitch of their voices? It was understood that no one would take a woman seriously if she were reporting the news.
How come feminists ignored her pro-contraceptive stance? How come we ignored her articulate words of being the parent of a Downs Syndrome child (if it weren’t for us feminists and liberals her son would still be denied medical care and an education. We fought that fight for Downs Syndrome people, and we won)

How come we slam her relentlessly and make fun of her (as conservatives did to Hillary Clinton) and for some reason it’s ok to do so? I mean, I saw her fighting (and winning) powerful oil companies in Alaska to be exceptional. I saw her fight with the corrupt republican administration in Alaska to be tremendous.

Why can’t women, who have fought for decades for the right to women to be who they are and run for office, so disdainful of this woman?

Why can’t feminists congratulate ourselves over the fact that Palin came form modest means, was a recipient of Title IX and went on to become governor a source of pride.

She hunts (many in Alaska do, including indigenous people there) and feeds her family form the meat. Would we slam a native American for doing this? No.

I saw a slamming of her by feminists that resembled high school girl cliques from pre-women’s liberation days.

Clearly, we slammed Madonna for dressing like a prostitute in the 1990s. We got over that. Now we have moved on to slamming women politicians.

At 17% female representation in congress and7 female governors and zero women in the Oval Office is something to be ashamed of. Maybe we should start looking closely at women’s strengths and skills before slamming her for her voice and mannerisms and her daughters.

And I know the law professsors here understand how tough the fight was. Well, we have four republican women senators and they are all pro-choice.
This is something to capitalize on. This is where we increase our numbers. Yes, Palin maybe be anti abortion, but she is pro-contraception.

Have we as feminsts thought about what it looks like to little girls when they see books and news that depict majority male leadership? How will we ever achieve parity? And how do those young girls and young women feel when we slam this Governor (who is young, vibrant and speaks her mind).

I think of that. And I was ashamed.

Good for Palin for going to Seneca Falls. Those women fought for all of us.

Being from the Northwest, I find many “liberal” objections to her understandable, but not those which call her dumb, low class, and the downright nasty personal and appearance incsults. Working on a commercial fishing boat is about as tough as it gets hard workwise. She’s like many people I know.

Hey–I’m a liberal, and well educated–does that make me unworthy then if I find her interesting and admirable? Glad to see a female governor out and about. I am not glad to see the slamming she is taking–find it quite offensive.