Pru Goward, NSW Opposition spokesperson for women, has a really, really low opinion of those who share her gender.
What I learned from her column today: “Palin true to herself and values”:
* The most important things for women to know about Sarah Palin are the facts that she wears lipstick and nail polish, and tells jokes.
* It’s perfectly fair and balanced, as a political spokesperson with portfolios including women and the environment, to write eighteen paragraphs about a vice-presidential candidate and only devote a single clause to her policies.
* Sarah Palin’s choice to have a baby shows that her anti-choice stance is just fine and dandy. Because making a choice means… because it wasn’t really … um, because, yes, she didn’t really have a choice, or doesn’t think anyone else should have, but she did make a particular choice, and therefore … oh, well, moving on.
* Palin has had a conservative, white, privileged life, and therefore we should applaud her, because she doesn’t whine about it.
* Women should admire her and vote for her because she has children and bakes cookies, just like we do, and that’s all that should be important to women, because we’re women, and that’s what our lives are. They just are. Well, regular, normal women, anyhow.
* Palin enjoys being a woman, not like those nasty feminists.
* Normal women stick by their men and wear high heels.
* Feminists should all have a pin-up poster of Margaret Thatcher. Our refusal to do so is inexplicable and inconsistent.
* Well, soccer moms voted for Thatcher, didn’t they? What the hell is wrong with you, feminists, that you so reject the consensus of normal women?
* Pauline Hanson doesn’t even know what sexism means, and is therefore also to be admired and emulated.
* All other women in politics are irrelevant to regular, middle-class, stay-at-home, cookie-baking mommas. Political women are just not relatable. They get too involved in all that complicated politics and economics and diplomacy business, and that – what’s it called? – ‘human rights’ stuff. Of what relevance is that to standard women?
* Political issues are only important to women inasmuch as they affect their husbands and children, who should always be women’s primary and central concerns.
* Women only want maternity leave so they can care for their children, only want equal pay so they can look after their husbands and elderly relatives, and only want decent working condition so they’ll have time for their P&C committee work.
* Men are not to blame. Ever. For anything.
* We should just relax and enjoy being women. Other women do.
* Who’s Obama’s running mate again? Oh, who cares.
TEN POINTS for Slytherin for AWESOME RESEARCH. Go, Goward.
Categories: gender & feminism, Politics, social justice
96th Down Under Feminists Carnival 
Today in ‘You can’t make this sh*t up’ because no one would believe you’ 
Fetal personhood in NSW: “an issue that should be of serious concern to all of us” 
Are cultural politics worse than no politics at all? 
Hoyden About Town 
Oh pooh. In spite of her party affiliations, I’ve actually liked Goward sometimes, because of they way she spoke up about the NSW parliament being an Old Boys’ club (although she was quickly silenced on that one– and she seems to repudiate those views in this article), and because she seems pretty staunchly pro-choice. But this– bloody hell! What’s her point? Feminists don’t bake enough cookies to be relevant? ALL women should be overjoyed to be able to vote for ANY woman?
I know I’ve said it here before, but it infuriates me that feminists are so often accused of sexism against men, and yet when we DON’T put someone on a pedastal because she’s a woman we’re just bitter and jealous.
And again, I’ve said this before as well, but all this focus on the fact that Palin is ZOMG A WOMAN rather than her policies or lack of experience and judgment, means that when she falls (and her lack of experience and judgment makes that pretty likely), she’s going to fall harder than a man ever would– and that’s something that she doesn’t deserve, regardless of whether or not I agree with her on anything.
*sigh*
This is exactly it. We’re ungrateful bitches who should be lapping up the crumbs thrown our way, because by golly if we don’t, we shouldn’t expect any more ever.
Well, that was actually worse than your summary lead me to believe. You REALLY have to dumb yourself down for the NSW Libs don’t you? Hope the undistinguished career of minor portfolios is worth it, Pru.
* “The day Hillary Clinton sneered at baking cookies, she lost the vote of the female heartland. Lying for her husband did not help either – most of these women kick men out for behaving like that.”
Erm, wasn’t she chosen in part to capitalise on the “Hilary factor” and snaffle some of her support? And hasn’t she run a few successful political campaigns since then? And aren’t husbands to be loved and supported, as per your previous paragraph? And … and … and …
*”Palin’s ability to do the job of vice-president is unknown. So is the other guy’s, whoever he is.”
Is this a Tina Fey skit? Socratic irony? WTF?
I can fisk no further, since every sentence needs it.
Also: Palin Interview Generator.
Actually, just scanning over the “all women should be overjoyed to be able to vote for any woman” thing again, I do think I phrased that problematically– because I AM happy for women from any side of politics to have a go, so I think we should scrap the “be able to”– it should just be “all women should be overjoyed to vote for any woman” (the focus then being on casting the actual vote, rather than the ability to cast the vote).
(And of course, I’m not the first person to make the point about all women/any woman– hat tip to heaps of other women who’ve already expressed the same thing here and elsewhere.)
I just want to throw up. Sorry, I can’t say anything more intelligent than that.
By Invitation Only is a space for people of influence to have their say.
Don’t you just love that?
I can fisk no further, since every sentence needs it.
That has stopped me from writing so many posts, Amanda. Just too much stoopid to address in less than 15,000 words and then it would be giving them too much oxygen. Lauredhel shows admirable restraint.
O/T irrelevant info: I have a very nice friend who has the misfortune to look like Pru Goward’s twin separated at birth!
I’m actually kinda chuffed that y’all noticed. There was so much more there, but I pulled back and thought “This post would be enormous, and hey, why don’t I leave a few gazillion points to the Hoydentariat?” … and it seems to show. Perhaps I’m just transparent.
I do on occasion wear nail polish. Sometimes with lipstick at the same time. And I tell jokes, though my personal sense of humor lends itself better to making sardonic comments in response to things.
Gosh dang, I should be worthy of candidacy.
Beppie, a point of technicality: Goward didn’t say the NSW Parliament was an old boys’ club, she said that it was “ruthlessly sexist”. She was right of course.
I’m not sure about her remedy though:
‘Shrill’ be damned; I think she is conflating the actual sounds of actual voices with the content of what those voices say, content unerringly deemed ‘shrill’ by anyone who thinks a woman’s place is barefoot and pregnant.
Beppie said: “Well, that was actually worse than your summary lead me to believe.”
Damn straight! And I’m sorry, but I missed the policy clause — I didn’t read anything of that nature… and am not going back to try again.
That is gobsmacking stuff from a former sex discrimination commissioner.
And, “Cheryl Kernot was a man’s woman” because, … um … why?
the policy clause
Shorter Pru: Her abortion views are teh scary. OTOH she “clearly likes a drink” so wev, let’s call it even.
Gringo: It was Amanda who said that, not me. 🙂
Why is Pru wearing an eyeball around her neck? and whose is it?
That’s politics – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…
One thing I love about America is that it is OK to be different, Sarah Palin is different, but I believe, a good “different”, somewhat reflective of a time when that was “Normal”.
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Different from who? Different how?
When what was “Normal”?