The end of whining

Governor Palin’s nomination as a VP candidate has certainly shaken things up, even (especially?) for feminists.

Camille Paglia has this piece in Salon examining the effect of Governor Palin’s nomination. While I may not agree with all of Paglia’s views, I certainly respect and welcome her as a provocative and insightful thinker. The article is on the longish side, but worth the read for anyone who has any interest in feminism or matters related to women. Here are a few samples. Remember, she’s a staunch Demorcrat and in favor of abortion rights, and refreshingly candid:

It is certainly premature to predict how the Palin saga will go. I may not agree a jot with her about basic principles, but I have immensely enjoyed Palin’s boffo performances at her debut and at the Republican convention, where she astonishingly dealt with multiple technical malfunctions without missing a beat. A feminism that cannot admire the bravura under high pressure of the first woman governor of a frontier state isn’t worth a warm bucket of spit. ….
Now that’s the Sarah Palin brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism — a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be. Sarah Palin, if her reputation survives the punishing next two months, may be breaking down those barriers. Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership. ….

It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents. And it is equally foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda. There is plenty of room in modern thought for a pro-life feminism — one in fact that would have far more appeal to third-world cultures where motherhood is still honored and where the Western model of the hard-driving, self-absorbed career woman is less admired.

Paglia laments the frenzied attack on Palin, among which I think we can include attacks like this one from Maureen Dowd which comes across as nasty, personal, bitter, and…whiny. Dowd repeats many errors about Governor Palin which have already been debunked as Newsweek does here.

No one is forced to agree with the Governor’s positions or even constrained to vote for her. But her nomination should be treated with respect and taken seriously. Otherwise, what’s the point of feminism and its alleged gains for women?