ANALYSIS

Sexism Debate Front And Center With Palin Pick

Experts Weigh In On How The Sex Card May Or May Not Be Played In The Election

by Will Englund

Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008


Sarah Palin's nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate has put sexism front and center as an issue, and it is stirring deep and sometimes fierce emotions.

A quintet of top Republican women lambasted Palin's critics on Wednesday. One, Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and a McCain adviser, came close to suggesting that almost any criticism of the Alaska governor is out of bounds. "Many people have demeaned and belittled her experience," Fiorina said. "Women are sensitized and outraged."

Ellen Malcolm, head of EMILY's List, the liberal fundraising group, countered that Palin's selection was a transparent ploy that shows little respect for women. A poll that her group sponsored showed it wasn't working, she said. "It's a cynical miscalculation of women voters."

Palin clearly had the benefit of the doubt from the adoring convention crowd when she gave her acceptance speech on Wednesday night. She wowed them with her thoroughly upbeat demeanor.

Her supporters are focusing most of their pushback on those who question whether she can balance family responsibilities with the rigors of a campaign, though this question has not gotten much of an airing outside the blogosphere, and on what they called the "smears" and speculation about the pregnancy of her daughter Bristol. But, having detected sexism, some are now seeing it in almost every attack on her. (Not all, to be sure: Meg Whitman, a McCain adviser and the former chief of eBay, told Fox News that she thought the press was pursuing legitimate questions about Palin.)

If Palin takes on the traditional role of No. 2 candidate as attack dog -- and she flirted with that role in her speech -- it might seem as though she was trying to provoke sexist attacks in a culture that is still uncertain how to assess aggressive women.

It is a highly charged topic. Geraldine Ferraro, the only other woman ever to join a national ticket, ran into storms of vituperation and scorn. After her 1984 debate with George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush was asked what she thought of her husband's opponent. "I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich," she replied.

Hillary Rodham Clinton complained of sexism in this year's Democratic primary campaign, and Republicans have been vocal in proclaiming their newfound solidarity with her.

An inescapable question is whether the Republicans are playing the sex card the way they sometimes accuse black Democratic politicians of playing the race card. The answer is no more straightforward with gender than it is with black-white relations. Some measure of outrage at what Palin is facing is clearly genuine; some measure of political calculation is just as real. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. And an emotional charge like an accusation of sexism can be a powerful distraction in a campaign.

Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown professor whose book, "You Just Don't Understand," was a best-seller, said yesterday that on some level women can't escape their gender identity. Male politicians can be "neutral," but female politicians will always be "marked" as women in people's minds. The consequence of that, she said, is that "anything you say [as a woman or about a woman] is going to have extra meaning in it, and is going to get someone's back up."

Because the world is the way it is, there are no clear lines to guide political discourse. "Is it sexist to talk about women's clothing? Yes. But it tells us something about them. And the same with their hair."

"Obviously," said Charlotte Allen, a contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, "there's a double standard. Conservative women are given no quarter. They're considered an outrage to their sex."

What Allen sees as "beyond the pale" sexist attacks on Palin have ironically served to overshadow legitimate issues, she said, such as the governor's controversial efforts to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state police.

As for the argument that Palin has put her family on the public stage, making them "fair game," Allen replied, "I don't understand that one bit."

She praised Barack Obama's declaration on Monday that family matters are off-limits, and his reminder to his supporters that his own mother was 18 when he was born. "Obama really showed class when he said this has got to stop," she said.

Will woman voters respond to Palin because she's a woman, or because of the attacks on her as a woman? Page Gardner, founder of Women's Voices, Women Vote, an advocacy group for unmarried women, said that people are naturally drawn to candidates who seem to have "walked in their shoes." In the end, however, issues will trump gender, she said; the fact that Palin is a woman will be interesting but not determinative.

The EMILY's List poll, conducted by Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, found that by 59 percent to 20 percent, female respondents believe that Palin was picked out of political considerations rather than because John McCain thought her qualified. Allen's response was that running mates are always chosen out of political considerations and that there's nothing cynical about that; to hold Palin to a higher standard is in itself a form of sexism.

Alyssa Rosenberg contributed to this report.

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