What does anyone think would happen if she ran for president? She would have to give specific, detailed answers to any questions about her policies and goals, instead of the canned GOP talking points. And someone is sure to use her inane remarks about various things against her. They could be Republican primary opponents or the Democratic opponent in the general election. At 45, she is too old for the cutesy act if she wants to be taken seriously.

She is just as divisive and inflammatory now as she was in the campaign a year ago. Recycling things like William Ayers and the birth certificate issue show the same kind of fearmongering and hatemongering that cost the Republicans the presidential seat.

So, all in all, I don't see her as representing any kind of feminism that I would recommend for my daughter or any other young female in my family.

"Palin’s goals have nothing to do with a “better or equal position for *women.*”

I think this lets me make the distinction that I was going for. I think on some level her goals are largely in line with feminism, its just that her methods to get there are actually work against it.

Looking at abstinence only education, I think that she truly believes that this type of education does benefit women and would allow them to live better lives. She is wrong and implementing these policies would be terrible for women, but that's not the point.

I think the problem here is defining feminism as a set of means rather than a set of goals. Cynically or not, Palin is a feminist because she largely embraces the end goals of feminism even if her means actually result in the opposite.

And just how is she "strong"? She couldn't even hack one term as governor! She practically had hissy fits at legitimate criticism of her (lack of) qualifications. She came across as an utter diva. She's not independent; she has successfully crammed herself in the box that the Republicans require for support from the party.

What really ticks me off is that people who were slamming Hillary Rodham Clinton back in 1992 for being a strong, independent woman are probably the same women gushing over Palin's alleged "strength".

As Rebecca West said almost 100 years ago: I myself have never understood what femnism is. I only know people call me a feminist when I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.

She never had the intellect or the skills to represent women or a political group. She reminds me of the "perfume lady" at Macy's that you just ignore as she blabbers on and on in her Stepford World in her mind.

I mean, jesus the woman should have stopped having babies LONG ago. She's too old, failed at raising the ones she already had, and still cannot seem to figure out "what the problem is" with her kids and her family. She cannot handle a family, but is a walking example of a "female-middle-aged-crisis".

I hope for her sake she realizes how silly and vapid she is, gets a grip on the reality of being an "older and more mature" woman and just gets out of politics altogether.

I sort of view her as the "idiot that slipped through the cracks" somehow and ended up in Politics.

Utter bullshit. Your anatomy does not make you a feminist nor your actions, but you ability to speak up and fight for other women's right and freedom to make their own choices, not just the choices you think they should make.

This, about the choice not to prosecute a rapist, from the trendy, "new" feminist supporting website, Jezebel:

"My sexual assaults (yes, it's now happened twice) are not a political peg for other women to hang their hats on, and I should not and will not apologize to anyone for making decisions that were best for me. My body is mine — it doesn't belong to Feminism anymore than it belongs to the men who sexually assaulted me — and what I choose to do with it, or about it, is supposed to be my choice. To be told, subtly or otherwise, that my choices are invalid or anti-feminist is demeaning and condescending and in violation of the whole concept that feminism is about giving women choices and letting them make them." http://jezebel.com/5022019/my-sexual-assault-is-not-your-political-issue

Similarly, the New York Times culture reporter Pat Cohen thinks any decision a woman makes about quitting her job or the division of housework is a good evolution away from the elitism of bad old Friedan type feminism:
"Choice feminism was an adjustment to reality." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/weekinreview/15patti.html

Or Pogo: We have met the enemy and it is us.

Exibit A: Wasilla rape kits. Good for her--make victims of sexual assault pay for their own exams, save some money and look good for balancing the budget. And if some women can't pay . . . well, crime will just go down, won't it? Win win.

Exibit B: Abstinence only education. Good for her--resonates with the base, builds her religious appeal, lets her show off her own cute kids (all of them conceived within the covenant of marriage!). And if some seventeen-year-olds have to have unplanned pregnancies, well . . . oops, that one kind of came back to bite her.

Exibit C (and this is the scariest): She thinks the work of feminism is finished. Must be, right? After all, she got herself elected to high office while raising a pack of cute kids. Now she's making money hand over fist and all these people seem to love her and line up for her autograph, so how can there still be discrimination and harrassment and gender-based violence? After all, her life is just peachy-keen.

The scary thing is, people will buy it. People want to believe that sexism is this specter of the distant past--that because women are more visible today we're also equally valued. Palin is popular not because her supporters think women are just as good as men but because she conforms to their idea of "women the way they should be" or what's "appropriate for women." This is positively terrifying to me because in the not-as-distant-as-you-think past is was inappropriate for women to do silly things like vote or seek an education (and still is in parts of the world). If people stop actively talking about the rights and needs of *all* women, there's no place to go but backwards and women like Palin will find their niches rapidly shrinking.

I'm sure others can come up with more thoughtful and constructive examples; I just jotted the ones that first came to mind.

I just wonder if within feminism if this is really inevitable because the category of what constitutes "women" and even more so their goals is not singular or very clear. Maybe its the women's studies texts, but I think its really tough to exclude Palin and others from the category if their goals are on some level to achieve what they conceive as a better or equal position for women.

That being said, I think you could and should discuss why Sarah Palin's policies and beliefs about how to achieve equality for women is extremely harmful to women.