Pretty In Pink

The NY Times continues to plumb new depths in exploring the psycho-sexual chaos wrought by Sarah Palin's presence on the public stage: Why Women Can't Let Sarah Palin Go

If life is like high school, then today’s educated, ambitious women, on both sides of the aisle, are the student-council presidents and the members of the debate team — taught that if they work hard and sacrifice something along the way, their smarts will be rewarded.

This makes Sarah Palin the head cheerleader. (Though, in reality, she was the captain of the basketball team.) Pretty and popular, with no apparent interest in studying, she’s the one who industrious girls were tacitly promised would not succeed in the real world. Whether we voted for Hillary or not, we weren’t about to let Palin breeze in, with her sexy librarian hair and her peekaboo-toed shoes, conforming to every winking, air-brained stereotype, and sashay to the front of the line.

This is graduate school level of denial about women and "success." The real world, such as it is, is practically designed to allow the popular girls to to succeed. I don't care how how progressive and hip we ever become. A woman who is pretty, feminine and charming, and has a bit of moxie to boot, will always be able to make her way in the world and live well. Sarah Palin didn't make these rules, but she has certainly thrived under them, and no she did not "sashay to the front of the line." No one handed her the governor's mansion in the same way Hillary was handed her Senate seats. Neurotic feminists do themselves no favors with this sort of high-flown cattiness.