I’ve been thinking about the recent controversies surrounding motherhood and Palin’s fitness to run for Vice President. During Giuliani’s speech at the convention he said:
How dare they question whether Sarah Palin has enough time to spend with her children and be vice president. How dare they do that.
When do they ever ask a man that question? When?
This has generally been passed around as a viable feminist perspective since it is essentially saying “a woman can do anything a man can do.” My biggest question though is why would they want to.
Being Vice President (or being President if John McCain, the oldest Presidential candidate ever, leaves the picture) is, I would think anyone would agree, a huge time commitment. I am absolutely fine with Sarah Palin deciding that she is willing to take on that commitment. I don’t personally like her politics, but there’s absolutely nothing in her genetic makeup that prevents her from doing a fine job of it.
No amount of feeling good about the role of women in the world or supermomery is going to change the fact that there’s just not enough time in the day to take an active role in the lives of five small children while doing a good job as one of the most powerful politicians in the world.
This is a point where I disagree with many traditional feminists who tend to see the world in terms of men grabbing up all the power and then using that to oppress women. I’m certainly not saying a wide variety of shitty things have been and are still being done to women. What I disagree with is the idea that it’s just been roses for guys.
