I Figured It Out
Sarah Palin. The name alone induces cringes from the females I know. They don't disagree with her. They don't dislike her. They HATE her. They find her utterly despicable. They don't like anything about her. It's not a rational distaste, it is a full throttled, passionate, face gets red even thinking about it anger...
And it's been puzzling me these last couple months. Just one of those things I've noticed from a handful of different women I talk to, many of whom are some of the smartest and most leveled headed people I know. Something about Sarah Palin drives them up the wall!
Insert clips from SNL last weekend. For those who haven't seen it.
When I ask my womenfolk friend and family: Why? Why do you hate Sarah Palin so? I get the usual litany of answers ranging from her conservative political beliefs to her inexperience and unworthiness of the nomination to her anti-feminist credentials. Most of the reasons cited are pretty much gender-neutral. And I counter: but I know many men who don't like her for all those reasons, but steam doesn't come out of their ears when they say it and they aren't squeezing a stress ball and grinding their teeth. Why are you doing those things?
Because she doesn't represent ME! They say. They say she doesn't represent women.
Hmmmm....I'm thinking to myself. All these women know other women and know there is no such thing as a monolithic woman and no one women who could possibly represent "woman." It just doesn't explain the anger and especially anger by the normally level headed.
And suddenly, when I was describing the Palin Saturday Night Live video to my friend who hadn't watch it yet, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It's the oldest of all reasons. It's simple....but it's true.
Sarah Palin is the hot girl.
She isn't the cute girl. She isn't the nice girl. She's the hot girl. And other girls HATE....HAAAAATTTTTE the hot girl.
She doesn't do much in the SNL rap video but bob her head. But in those few simple head bobs, you can tell, indisputably - Sarah Palin is hot. And girls know this. Somewhere deep down they are programmed to recognize a hot girl and while they are mature and smart enough to know it doesn't matter all that much - guys care about more than hotness and furthermore, they too are hot, and good people also, and blah, blah, blah.... This is the element, the Palin element, that explains why it's not just a matter of political disagreement, but an issue of this new hot chick just came to my high school and I caught the boy I've had a crush on for two years and I'm just starting to make some progress in that department look at her and I knew he'd sleep with her - I can just tell because I know those kind of things and I freaking HATE HER!
Thank you. I know I will get abuse for this post if my female readers made it this far.
20 comments:
If I can use a board game analogy for a moment, I believe this post represents a snake (and not a ladder) in your quest to understand women.
First let it be known that I will admit she has the sexy-librarian-you-know-is-really-dirty thing down pat. Quite frankly I applaud it, it's about time a feisty young woman in red heels stepped into the ranks of the drab, sagging, frumpy circle that makes up most female politicians.
Woman are pissed about Palin for a lot of reasons, but not because of her Tina Fey glasses and Ally McBeal skirt suit. We are pissed because unlike men we have been under-represented in politics for our entire lives and for the first time there is a spotlight shinning on one of us, but the things she stands for a lot of us young, feisty women find appalling. Sure there are appalling men representing you in the White House all the time and that's exactly the issue, this is not an everyday occurrence for us.
Quit fantasizing that all women want to get in a catfight with Palin and start listening to the things she says and then you will understand why we hate her so much. Besides we all know the reason you think she's hot is because she's a Tina Fey knock-off.
i don't think Palin is hot. why has it been unequivocally decided that this woman is hot? and this is coming from someone with an unabashed librarian festish.
she is cute sure. she was the feisty point guard in high school. c'mon in what world is the feisty point guard the hot girl.
Oh boy.
Robyn - I'd like to make a quick clarification. My quest was not to understand "women," but rather, to understand why women hate Palin.
Sher - rrrrrr. cat fight.
Andy - quit cowtowing up to the lady blog readers. I see right through your attempt to curry favor among the female readership.
Duly noted, though you may be trying to understand women generally Without Even Realizing It, but anyway.
Sher is right. Let me also add that if what you say is the simple truth we would all hate lots and lots of women, like for example Beyonce, when clearly a lot of us (myself included) think she is kind of awesome.
Andy is also right: Palin is not the hot girl, she is the cute girl and there's a big difference. I'll be the first to admit that baby-faced girls who solve their social problems by winking and acting adorable have been odious to me since sometime partway through elementary school. Winking? Seriously? (cf: Amy Poehler (as KC): Is it true you become increasing adorable when cornered? Tina Fey (as SP): [babyvoice] I don't know, is it? [fingerguns]Pewwww pewww pewww!)
I think the closest you get to what is actually going on is to talk about how Palin looks is part of why I (not to speak for anyone else) am irritated with her. Quite apart from finding her politics convenient and ill-concieved, her unpreparedness embarrassing and her mud-slinging ironic, she's one of the few women in the political arena in the United States. And I can't help but think that a big part of why she is there is how she looks to men. McCain would say it's what she represents, but really, isn't that kind of the same thing in our culture?
You know, Beyonce is hot (as opposed to simpering and cute) but the woman is also good at her job.
Palin on the other hand is so ridiculously inappropriate for the job that I get the creeping fear that looks still trump all for women.
Add this to her anti-woman politics and her talking about she appeals to women and men asking me why don't I support her because she is after all a woman and yes, her very presence becomes offensive.
By the way, Andy: not finding SP hot is totally hot.
rrrrrwrrr.
one by one, i will tackle these claims:
palin is hot vs. palin is cute. i suppose it is debatable. but i'm voting for hot. (note - to frame the issue - i think tina fey is more on the cute scale and palin is more on the hot scale.) maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree. although, be honest, in the average game of kill, fuck, marry with the candidates being palin, tina fey, and amy prohler - well all know the outcome for most men.
and yes - hotness is through men's eyes. and yes - that's not fair. but if we went by women's version of hotness, all their friends would be on playboy and maxim and those reputable publications would be out of business.
now...getting to the business of palin's hotness getting her to where she is: sure. just as hillary's marriage to bill got her to where she is and gw's father being president getting him to where he is, mccain's wife's money getting him to where he is, and obama's color of skin getting him to where he is. all of these claims are partially true and partially untrue.
but only one of them drives you ladies up the wall - and that's palin's...despite her policies probably being more like yours than bush's, her gender being the same as hillary, her inexperience similar to obama...
...i'm not contending a woman ought to SUPPORT palin because she's a women. good god, i find that more offensive than any of you. i guarantee that. this whole freaking blog is basically a project against that type of thinking. what puzzles me is the anger towards palin...it's unique in a way. i suppose it is similar to jesse jackson's threat to castrate obama - but i understand why jesse hates obama - because he represents and end to jesse's grievance politics. i'm not sure palin really represents much more than the idea of a compassionate conservative, small town mother.
why this in and of itself drives women crazy to the point they find her existence offensive is beyond me. note to people: there are A LOT of american women against abortion for either religious, moral, and probably even legal, reasons. there are a lot of americans who live in small towns and have conservative values - guns, god, country. this shouldn't be a surprise or offensive to anyone. this is the country we live in and have always lived in.
i don't think you can stand up and say the palin is anti-women...isn't a person entitled to weigh competing values and come up with her own position, even if it is offensive to your own? isn't that the point of being an american? it's like saying a black person who is against affirmative action is anti-black. why can't a black person take this position if he/she thinks it is correct?
i'm not an idiot, nor do i think women i hang out with are idiots. therefore, i think we all recognize that there are HOT women in the world. to hate the existence of hot women would be foolish - it would be like hating night.
but what i think women do get weird over are HOT girls who aren't their friends suddenly all up in their shit. beyonce is like the hot chick who's been around for awhile, isn't too annoying about her hotness, and sticks to hot chick activities like singing, acting, and dancing.
palin is like the new hot chick from some other school who has the gall to be in AP calculus and run for student body president.
anyhow, if i'm not right, at least i'm being provocative.
You really think she "drives women crazy"? She's not Elvis. I would say Bush drives a lot of people the same kind of crazy, if that's what we are calling it. For a lot of the same reasons.
But Greg, come on, are you seriously going the make the "she has a right to an opinion" argument on the abortion thing? Of course she does. The point is that so does everyone else, thanks.
Also-- do you seriously think she's qualified for the position she's aspiring to? Are you not slightly embarrassed for her?
As well, declaring that the smart, level-headed, hot women that you hang out with become "crazy" over Palin because of sexual envy is pretty amazingly insulting, so hope you are aware of that too.
1. i agree bush drives people the same kind of crazy - but not only women. bush drives both men and women crazy. also, bush is the president and arguably has done a lot to deserve the anger he riles up. palin hasn't screwed the pooch the way has...and yet the anger is there. but to be fair, the anger towards bush existed before he screwed the pooch...so this is a fair point. the best argument against me is that it's not the women who are different, but the men. the men who get angry at bush don't have the same anger towards palin because she's hot. i suppose that's possible. but is that bad?
2. my point is not that she has a right to her opinion. of course she does and i wouldn't bother writing something so obvious. my point is her opinion on abortion should not be characterized as "anti-women." And i hear this claim all the time that palin is "anti-women," which first off - i don't even understand what it means and second off, doesn't seem like an accurate description of palin even if i fill in the blanks and take multiple stabs at figuring out what one could possibly mean by it.
3. is palin qualified? not the topic of the post. will require another post entirely.
3. amazingly insulting? gimme a break. no one is insulted. furthermore, given the nature of what gets written about on this blog, what do you think is really going to happen - a retraction?
Oh Greg. I really think in your rush to support this ridiculously narrow assessment of the Palin-hating women you are starting to put your foot in your mouth.
In regards to the Bush/Palin comparison, every time I see his stupid smug grin on my television I start fuming and yelling obscenities at the screen, is it because he's hot? F- no. It's because the man is an idiot and everything he does rubs me the wrong way. Same goes for Palin.
The fact that you don't understand why pro-choice supporters think she is anti-women goes a long way to explaining how you got to this hate-the-hot-girl assessment in the first place. I don't even know where to begin to explain it to you, but just briefly I will say it was not so long ago that women had no say in this matter, there were a lot of back-alley, wire hanger caused deaths to get us to the freedom of choice we have today and the idea that Palin could step into office and take that away is scary. Yes she is entitled to her own opinion, but what I do with my uterus is none of her business or anyone else's for that matter.
The fact that you think Palin's qualifications are irrelevant, again, goes a long way to explaining your misjudgment of women. Unlike men, we women want to know that there is something going on upstairs and not just that she has a nice rack in making our assessment of our possible next vice president. If you actually took the time to listen to why your female friends don't like her, I'm sure you would find that most of our beef with her is precisely her qualifications.
ps. If anything your gal pal Palin is the real hot-chick hater: http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/oh-no-she-didnt/
sher - as with the question of whether we had sponges under the sink - you are wrong.
the abortion question has little to do with palin's hotness. you guys are setting up the question of abortion as a pro-women/anti-women issue when it really isn't that at all. it is a balance of rights between the fetus and the mother. if someone believes - truly believes - life begins at conception they can be "pro-women," and simply believe the rights of the unborn fetus outweigh the right of the mother. clearly, this is a complex issue and many moral philosophers wiser than the three of us have wrestled with the question. and i can say with assurance the true issue cannot be simplified into a pro-woman/anti-woman sloganeering. but if you want to go there and have dumbed down political positions, so be it.
re: palin's qualifications. robyn was asking my opinion of her qualifications - whether she was qualified to be VP or whether I was embarrassed for her. to this i responded - not relevant to discussion at hand.
i understand your beef - you're saying, we've been waiting 200+ years to get a women in the white house and this is the shit we get?
but come on, you guys should just be thankful you can vote. uhhh, i mean...palin is a popular republican governor and helps co-opt the "change" message...
anyhow...you guys say she's underqualified and that's what annoys you. however, if she were similarly qualified and possessed your political opinions - it wouldn't bug you - in fact, you'd probably like her a lot and maybe reluctantly vote for her despite a few reservations. and if she were a black man, her name would be obama.
point is: you disagree with her political positions. and as women, you feel somehow a little bit betrayed. like the way al queda hates apostate muslims even more than infidels. and you're jealous of her rack.
ps - i knew this topic was a bad idea.
Please. I don't even know why I'm justifying this further with a response. You're a man and you will never understand the abortion issue from a female perspective. Period. Talk to me when you've had a doctor shove a cold piece of metal in your vagina.
And trust me, I'd pick my rack over hers any day, have you seen boobs that have breast-fed? I rest my case.
al contraire - i have a cold piece of metal in my vagina right now. you obviously know nothing of my plight.
Greg--
You are clearly in over your depth on this topic. It's like you've initiated a discussion on how to build a boat without having been introduced to the concept of water.
Perhaps this discussion might be like the "women aren't funny" diatribe that had you later posting that the funniest movie and TV show of the year were helmed by women.
I know you sometimes use the forum of your blog to spout off opinions for the sake of, as you put it, "being provocative". While I guess it makes for interesting investigation, I think at times it is also profoundly irresponsible. These are real issues that affect real people.
In any case, I'm hoping this discussion will make you think more about the topic and actually open up to listening to what people have to say instead of slurring everyone who responds to you.
You are, as you say, not an idiot, but right now you sure have me fooled.
easy robyn. you're only the only one slurring anyone. i've taken issues with the ARGUMENTS, you're taking issue with ME.
as for being profoundly irresponsible...i'd say you're using "profound" and "irresponsible" rather loosely. last time i checked, this wasn't the wall street journal and even if it were...i'm not so the topic of women's jealousy of palin's hotness is all that big of a deal...i mean it's at least as accurate as the claims that obama is a muslim. so i don't think i'm really bringing society to a new low here. furthermore, how serious are you actually taking this topic? a lot of the commentary amounts to intellectual masturbation. so what? it's good sport.
what else? are women funny. back me up here, sher. come on, back me up...and i say this as the biggest tina fey fan on the blogosphere
I'm still trying to figure out what intellectual masturbation means... yes Greg, you know that I, as a woman, agree a funny woman is hard to find, and that's not the same as saying they don't exist. You saw House Bunny in the theatre for cryin out loud, no one can accuse you of believing women are not funny.
not only did i see HOUSE BUNNY, i liked it for chrissake. but the counter examples are perhaps the exception that proves the rule: women generally aren't as funny as men. i don't see this as being controversial. nor do i see it as being fair...just true. maybe it's changing, with 30 rock, etc. in fact, i hope it's changing. i like a funny girl as much as a funny guy and as far as i'm concerned, they're can't be too much funny. but i'm not going to go around claiming girls are as funny as guys as some sort of affirmative action funny program that thinks simply repeating something will make it true.
anyhow, maybe it is time to put this blog comment thread to rest, as we have reached 20 comments. woo hoo. that's gotta be a public musings record!
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