It's Either Tracy Flick or Elle Woods

I covered this topic somewhat already. But here's an interesting
article delving more into the issue. Quote from the article:

In the grand Passion play that was this election, both Clinton and
Palin came to represent—and, at times, reinforce—two of the most
pernicious stereotypes that are applied to women: the bitch and
the ditz. Clinton took the first label, even though she tried valiantly,
some would say misguidedly, to run a campaign that ignored gender
until the very end. “Now, I’m not running because I’m a woman,”
she would say. “I’m running because I think I’m the best-qualified
and experienced person to hit the ground running.” She was highly
competent, serious, diligent, prepared (sometimes overly so)—a
woman who cloaked her femininity in hawkishness and pantsuits. But
she had, to use an unfortunate term, likability issues, and she inspired
in her detractors an upwelling of sexist animus: She was likened to
Tracy Flick for her irritating entitlement, to Lady Macbeth for her
boundless ambition. She was a grind, scold, harpy, shrew, priss,
teacher’s pet, killjoy—you get the idea. She was repeatedly called a
bitch (as in: “How do we beat the … ”) and a buster of balls. Tucker
Carlson deemed her “castrating, overbearing, and scary” and said,
memorably, “Every time I hear Hillary Clinton speak, I involuntarily
cross my legs.”

My question is: Why do we buy into the stereotypes? I think even
women buy into the stereotypes. Even I, a conservative, found Sen.
Hillary Clinton by the end of the campaign to be "likeable enough"
(as President-elect Obama once put it). I thought she showed a great
natural sense of humor throughout the campaign that really goes
against the narrative that she's "cold," which the media propagated
throughout the primary.

I also question the media narrative of Gov. Palin being a dumb ditz.
Yes, she made verbal gaffes in some of her interviews. It's not like
our incoming Vice-President hasn't made any verbal slip ups. I still
have trouble believing that the Governor of Alaska is as ditsy as the
media made her out to be. I've seen interviews were she talks about
energy and she's extremely knowledgeable about the topic. I also
thought she performed quite well in the Vice President debate with
"foreign policy expert" Joe Biden. I know. I know. The left blogosphere
said "Even my dog has learned to high-five" about her performance.
I don't think even with a serious amount of prepping a ditsy person
could have performed as well as she did. And she debated with such
charisma too!

How about we stop putting women in politics into the archetypes
often shown in Reese Witherspoon movies; where she's either
Tracy Flick or Elle Woods.

Mean Girls

@ Yahoo! Video

I find an interesting article on ABC News today discussing
research that watching meanness on television made females
more likely to be rude. Excerpt of the article:

Brigham Young University professor Sarah Coyne and colleagues
asked 53 British college-aged women to watch one of three video
clips, featuring either physical aggression (a knife fight from Kill
Bill), relational aggression (a montage from Mean Girls) or no
aggression (a séance scene from the horror movie What Lies
Beneath). They then filled out a brief questionnaire and were
allowed to leave the room. Right outside was another researcher
who asked if they would like to participate in a study involving
reaction times.

Once the women agreed to take part, the researcher behaved
rudely, telling them to hurry. When they showed uneasiness, she
said, "Great! This is really going to screw things up!"

The researcher left the room, and the subjects took two tests
that are commonly used to test aggression.

Subjects who viewed the Kill Bill and the Mean Girls clips
reacted in similarly aggressive ways. Prompted to subject
the rude researcher to a sharp noise by pushing a button,
they turned up the noise louder than a control group. They
also gave lower scores than the control group on an
evaluation form that supposedly was going to be used to
decide whether the researcher should be hired.

Last week actress America Ferrera had some interesting comments
on the very same topic:

The star hates the way the shows portray and encourage girls to
backstab each other. She tells Seventeen magazine, "Close, genuine
female relationships are not what generally gets depicted in movies
and TV shows. Like, if you're watching The Hills, or 90210, all the
backstabbing shapes the way we act - you go to school and you think
your job is to find a sworn enemy and be jealous of each other. Shows
like Gossip Girl kind of condition us to be mean."

Notice how she says television "condition[s] us" to mean. I'm not so sure
it's television that makes women "catty" and mean. Some of it I think is
biological. For some reason females simply like to gossip more. Also
women tend to be more relational, therefore, possibly taking perceived
slights more personally than a man would. I think as women we should
fight extra hard to resist the urge to gossip. However, I would agree
television and movies probably don't make things easy for young women
because it makes it seem fun and glamorous and it's not. There's nothing
fun about being jealous or talking behind someone's back. What do you
think?

Women Issues

Since Governor Palin was selected as Sen. McCain's Vice-President
pick there's been much talk about among the chattering media if
she would attract women to the McCain ticket? Well it appears the
answer to the question seems to be: Yes!

For a long time women voters have been reliably in the Democrat
camp. Although, President Bush was able to make significant gains
in 2004 with what the media called "security moms." Until the Gov.
Palin pick I was extremely doubtful that Sen. McCain could keep the
2004 Bush gains, even with a large number of disgruntled Hillary
supporters out there. This opinion piece might help explain why
women largely vote Democrat.

I've heard Democrats argue that women shouldn't vote for the
McCain/Palin ticket because they are wrong on "women issues."
First, I want to know exactly what "women issues" are? Are they
referring to the abortion issue? Let me talk some about the abortion
issue. Plenty of women, like Gov. Sarah Palin, don't view the abortion
issue as a women's issue but a life issue. Hopefully with more pro-life
women in the national scene the country will finally see that the
debate has been framed wrong by our media. To be pro-life is often
portrayed as being anti-women, religious zealot, and backwards. You
can be a strong woman and say abortion is morally wrong. People
without strong religious convictions can say that abortion is morally
wrong. Educated and smart people can say that abortion is morally
wrong.

If you noticed the media is now trying to portray Gov. Palin as a
religious zealot. It behooves them to make her pro-life beliefs that
stem from her religious convictions as fringe. If they don't box her
into in the religious fringe category they fear that they might have
a strong, successful woman make an articulate case for being pro-life.
Sure there are plenty of socially conservative politicians who are
pro-life. However, how many of them are women? You can dismiss a
man's argument for being pro-life by saying, "Well, he's a man he just
doesn't know what women go through." That technique doesn't work
so well when you are talking to woman. So the media is going to do
everything it can to make the governor seem like a dumb, mindless,
unsophisticated religious nut case. They have to, they have no choice.
The stakes are too high for them.

Most Americans want to keep abortion legal, however, they are
increasing becoming more comfortable with putting regulations on
it. Quote from AP article:

You have this very stable support for a principle, but a willingness
to limit it in lots of circumstances over the last decade,” said Robert
Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard’s
School of Public Health.

So limiting abortion is not so scary anymore to the public. I sense a
fear from the cultural left that they are slowly losing ground on the
abortion and with every generation that passes they will continue to
do so. Once women started saying, "Enough with abortion!" Their
main argument is gone. That's why pro-life women must held in the
shadows. That is the central reason why the Sarah Palin pick has
brought so much anger and smears from the left, even from women.
Take, for example, this excerpt from an opinion piece by Wendy
Doniger on Gov. Palin:

Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman. The
Republican party's cynical calculation that because she has a womb
and makes lots and lots of babies (and drives them to school! wow!)
she speaks for the women of America, and will capture their hearts
and their votes, has driven thousands of real women to take to their
computers in outrage. She does not speak for women; she has no
sympathy for the problems of other women, particularly working
class women.

You see to people like Professor Doniger one can't be a women and have
conservative views. That's unthinkable.

Ok, now that have fleshed out the abortion part. I want to get back on
the questions of "women's issues." I asked what are women issues?
Women issues usually get categorized as abortion, health care, and
education by our media. Why must these be the labeled as solely
"women" issues? Why can't women vote on national security and
foreign policy? As if we don't care about what is going on overseas.

And shouldn't the very notion that women vote solely on domestic
issues upset feminist? Why should we can only be confined to
domestic issues especially in a national election? I can imagine
voting on something like education on a local and state level. Women
can't be fluent in foreign affairs. Also, women can agree with
conservative, free market solutions to health care and education.

We women are diverse. We have diverse opinions. We have diverse
backgrounds. Let's cherish that and not mock it.

Identity Politics

The following is my response to this post:

I think basing decisions (like voting) on emotions are dangerous. And identity
politics appeals to exactly that, emotions. However, it's hard not to fall for it.
I know I was excited yesterday when Gov. Sarah Palin was announced as the
VP candidate. The night before Sen. Obama's acceptance speech of the
Democratic nomination for president stirred me

Looking throughout history it's not hard to see that mixing emotions and politics
is a bad mixture. Recent history shows us that partisan bickering is based on emotions.
The guys (or women) on the other side of the aisle are evil and can't be trusted,
therefore, vote for us. And sadly partisan bickering works. Our recent presidential
elections (especially 2000 and 2004) have been divisive and ugly. Has that type
politics gotten America anywhere? No. One might argue: But identity politics
brings about good emotions and inspires! Yeah but you don't make important
decisions because they warm your heart.

We have serious decisions to make as a country. We need critical thinking to solve
the problems. We need practicality and rationality. Our country doesn't need to
be inspired, we just need feet moving to get things done.