Web Letters: Sayonara, Sarah

I am sorry. If you are the epitome of who the "feminists" are today, I feel sorry for your sister feminists. You are a far cry from who I always thought of as feminine.

I am an agnostic and believe in abortions when necessary. However, unlike you, I do respect other people's beliefs. I also feel that as long as we have radical fringes such as yours on the left and others on the right, important issues will never be solved and those who suffer will be the millions in between the fringes.

harold c. prichard

Glen Ellyn, IL

I wanted to thank you for your article and its insights. Oddly enough, I am on the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to the feminist movement and views on gender roles. I am one of those you would likely label as a "frilly doormat" type. I am a Bible-believing Christian, a homemaker, and I submit to my husband. I see the absence of women from the home, and from their traditional roles in church and society, as a huge loss to our civilization and the negative result of the feminist movement.

And it is precisely for this reason that I was aghast at the right's championing of Ms. Palin. I was disheartened that so many people who have decried the feminist movement, and have spoken loudly (and too often proudly) about the need for women to return to their God-given roles as homemakers and mothers, could turn around and lavish such praise and devotion on a woman who represents the very thing they have been railing against.

But this speaks to something that saddens me even more than this one instance of Christian hypocrisy, and that is the marriage of the conservative Christian community to the Republican party in the US (where I am from, although I now reside in Canada). For so long the believing church has been so devoted to partisan politics that they have equated faith in Christ with membership in, and devotion to, the Republican Party. As someone who sees her citizenship first in the Kingdom of God and her primary leader as Christ the King, I see this partisanship for what it is: idolatry.

Thank you, Ms. Pollitt, for pointing out the hypocrisy of so many. I have forwarded your article to many of my friends, across the faith and political spectrum.

Nicole Mueller

St. Jacob's, Ontario

I certainly respect Katha Pollitt's right to her opinion, however,I don't understand why she needs to be so mean-spirited and anti-Christian. She refers to "Christian zealots" and states: "Even women who stay home and attend churches that bar them from the clergy thrill to the idea of women being all they can be and taking their rightful place in the public realm. Like everyone else, they want respect and power, and now, finally, thanks to the women's movement they despise, they may actually get some." Is it really that difficult to accept that a women might be both a feminist and a Christian?

Erik Long

Naperville, IL

Why is pregnancy considered a disease? And how does killing a child in the womb have anything to do with the common good? If abortion reaches epidemic proportions, just how much is the common good to be impacted?

Lawrence Petrus

Rocky River, OH

The only thing Pollitt didn't say of Palin is that Palin and anyone who's like Palin is too stupid to buy anything that Pollitt writes.

I wonder what liberal quality in Pollitt would cause her not to say that.

cameron jones

Indiana, PA

The transition from Women's Liberation to Girl Power took place at the turn of the century. Sarah Palin's candidacy, whatever may be said for or against it, may have sounded the death knell of contemporary feminism.

There seems to be a groundswell, far from the madding drowd of privileged liberals--in which I include myself--that appears ready to say out loud what many people, within cultural earshot, have been whispering for a long time. The combination of social privilege and self-serving opportunism that characterized the rise of feminism in the post-Vietnam era, coupled with the misandry that, to this day, remains left-liberal culture's most open, ugly and unacknowledged secret, seems, at last, to be creating a healthy counterweight to the false notion that feminism, in its current iteration, was anything other than the attempt of a privileged class to advance their fortunes at the expense of the less privileged and well-connected.

Sarah Palin, without intending to and perhaps being unaware that she was doing so, may, despite the current Obamaphoria, presage the next--and quite unexpected--round of American's women's self-assertion as the chickens of yesterday's feminist duplicity come home, at last, to roost.

lee laurais

Bellows Falls, VT

The web letters in response to Pollitt's column are breath-taking in their reinterpretation of her words. Apparently, any criticism of a "working-class" woman, no matter how clearly phrased, must be read as an attack on women and on working-class people in general--and anyone writing such criticism is an urban elitist hater. And any real classist or sexist comments made about Palin by anyone can be attributed to Pollitt here, whether the words actually appear in her column or not.

Somehow, the last two paragraphs of Pollitt's piece must have disappeared before they were read.

jeff frane

Portland, OR

I'm just a hick from Wasilla where Sarah is from, but even I know the definition of feminism. "Social and political rights of women being equal to those possessed by men." So do women have the right to be just as stupid as men? Yes, they do. But is that what we want? To be free to be as stupid as men? Yes, we have that right. But do we want to stick up for an ignorant woman (see: Sarah Palin) just because she's a woman, when clearly there is a better-qualified man? I think not. Don't be stupid. I would have absolutely loved it if Obama was black and a woman! Best-case scenario! But we cannot support an idiot just because she is a woman. That only makes it harder for the next woman who has to overcome the prejudice of people saying "See, women are stupid and aren't fit for public office." This is in response to some of the comments to this article (not Katha's article--which I totally agree with.)

Barbara Servin

Wasilla, AK

In light of the post-election revelations from the McCain camp regarding Sarah Palin's many indiscretions, I couldn't help but make a preliminary diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic classification system used in the United States, as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy."

The narcissist is described as turning inward for gratification rather than depending on others and as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power and prestige. Narcissistic personality disorder is closely linked to self-centeredness.

DSM Criteria
: A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

has a grandiose sense of self-importance
is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
believes that he or she is "special" and unique
requires excessive admiration
has a sense of entitlement
is interpersonally exploitative
lacks empathy
is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

That will be five cents, please.

Bob Forer

Lawrence, KS

I've noted a serious reversal in the "anger" roles of the two divegent political groups in America of late. The right has, after eight years of being on the inside looking out, become the more manipulative and nasty, spewing out political garbage every day in order to stem the poltical tide. Not that they have a monopoly on it, but the screaming, raving, accusatory and intolerant actions of the left as exemplified by Gore, Dean, Michigan state student leaders et al. has gradually been transformed and taken over by the right.

Then I read Pollitt's vindictive nonsense, with her Nyah Nyah Nyah theme, and I realize the left still has just a little way to go yet.

I voted for Obama, but I tell you here and now I'll take a Sarah Palin over people like your "writer" anytime.

CHARLES THORNTON

Reisterstown, MD

Now, this just bothers me. What is supposed to be clever or cute, just comes accross as mean-spirited and, may I say it, catty.

What is it with you upper-class "feminists" that you feel the need to trash women not of your own crowd? Certainly you did backbends to defend Hillary Clinton even when she was in agreement with McCain. There is something tragic about Sarah Palin. She was naïve and men used her to incite the shock troops and now she is the scapegoat. This is more of the same crap you pulled in defending sleazy Bill Clinton against what you elitist ladies referred to as the the "trailor trash" he preyed on--as if only women in your own neighborhood qualified to speak out against sexism. Is it any wonder that the women's movement has become truly irrelevant and little more than a elitist ladies club for upper-class liberals only. Maybe if it wasn't such an exclusive club and some human sensitivity and compassion was extended to women used by men--from Paula Jones to Sarah Palin--then women could all share in a feminism to be proud of instead of this intolerable scoffing at those beneath you.

Raphaelle del Vecchio

Trenton, NJ

This is a bit premature, as she is still governor. Secondly, she could maneuver her way into the Stevens Senate seat, and still be around quite a while.

John D. Froelich

Upper Darby, PA

How ironic it is that Katha Pollitt crows about the end of Sarah Palin. While Pollitt positions herself as the champion of women struggling to break through the glass ceiling, she and other upper-class feminists from tony locales trash on tawdry grounds a woman who is doing just that.

Palin certainly should not hold high office. Nobody is disputing that. However, she is due a great deal of respect on an important level. Between Palin and (the monstrous) Condoleeza Rice, the GOP has recently forwarded two strong-willed women who have advanced quite on their own, and who each have their own iconoclastic personalities and outlooks. Rice is a brilliant (if evil) woman who spoke multiple languages and held a PhD by the age of 25. A woman of color, never married, she has been both a National Security Advisor and a Secretary of State at an age equal to or younger I suspect than the age of Katha Pollitt herself. And Palin? In contrast to Hillary Clinton, a corporate lawer briefly, and then career first lady who rode William Jefferson's coattails to fame and stardom, and then failed completely to win a certain presidential nomination through her own faults, Palin has run for two offices (mayor and governor) with no marriage to any political superstar or great wealth and lofty connections to count on, and won.

I was appalled by Sarah Palin; but I respected and welcomed her candidacy.

Not so for Katha Pollitt and the other many and varied high priestesses of upper class New York and Hollywood feminism who trumpet the plight of the lowly working-class woman but who are apparently struck by horror at the actual prospect of such a figure somehow emerging on the national stage.

Palin has been treated horribly by media, and in particular, by feminist "progressive" media. She has been subject to attacks on her family, her clothes, her makeup, her religious views (I thought we were allowed to have those) and, most telling of all, her humble origins in Alaska. By "telling," I mean "telling" in the sense that Palin's candidacy has exposed the utter class intolerance of figures like Pollitt or so many similar commentators who apparently don't have any actual respect for a woman who achieves if she didn't attend an Ivy League school or live in a bastion of elite white privilege. The phrase "Caribou Barbie," a completely patronizing and demeaning insult, has been hurled at Palin. This is terrible, she has been called "Barbie" for running for vice president. What a message to send.

Perhaps if Palin had denied religion in all but the most superficial terms, cut her hair short like a man, and donned a pastel panstuit, Pollitt would have sang her praises. Perhaps more praises if she lived in Manhattan or Maine. If Hillary Clinton had gotten the presidential nomination, and received Palin's treatment, figures like Pollitt would have been screaming "misogyny!" and "sexism!" from the top of their lungs for months day and night without end.

Never once have I seen a single serious expression of respect for a woman who, despite all her (obvious and glaring) flaws as a potential leader, really did manifest the American dream for many women who didn't go to Harvard, weren't born rich, can't choose the right wine from a list, and might feel excited about the chance to, finally, and for once, go hog wild in a Saks Fifth Avenue.

I am glad McCain/Palin lost, and I am more revolted by upper class white privilege "feminism" than ever before.

Seymour Friendly

Seattle, WA