I call this process "symbolic echo" because it's happened before, and it's happening again. If the image of a woman willing to be an "office wife" (a term for secretaries that originated in the 1920s) replaces the image of one like Hillary, maybe those ceiling cracks can be repaired, because we all become not Hillarys, but Sarahs. And if she is the object of ridicule, then all women, by extension, are ridiculed. As most women in the workplace know, nothing is as insidious and disempowering as ridicule.
Friday, October 10, 2008
"I Don't Have to Vote for Palin to Respect Her"
Women's eNews offers this thought-provoking commentary by Jane Marcellus about news media coverage of Sarah Palin.
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2 comments:
I'm so glad you have included this article, I liked it very much myself. We need to be very careful - oh well, the old caution about throwing the baby out with the bath water comes to mind. Palin is probably a great governor of Alaska, a tiny-population state with limited and restricted needs; I'm glad she has the job and is doing it well, and fervently hope she goes back to it!
Thanks for your comment.
I'm not sure about Palin as governor. If she were running for governor of Oklahoma, I'd surely vote against her. Her views on public policy--reproductive rights, separation of church and state--are certainly open to question. But so much of the commentary about her sinks to the level of making fun of her because she's a woman.
You might also like this recent post on Echidne of the Snakes.
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