VPILF

VPILF

After receiving a text from Lora Mae last week expressing her desire to kick over a Palin sign, I thought about my reactions to the woman. Seeing her on TV, seeing her picture, and especially hearing her voice raises a seemingly irrational rage in me. I thought that was weird. I haven’t had that kind of reaction since my reaction to W in the last election. For a small scale social experiment, I asked a man of my acquaintance with very similar political views if seeing/hearing Palin made him angry. He said no. I know one man doesn’t make a truth, but it seemed to be a telling thing to me.

I guess it is because she’s attractive to the men, or somewhat attractive to them anyway. Men have the strangest ideas about women being attractive. I’ve read men say that Palin is attractive in a in-the-dark, as-long-as-she-doesn’t-speak, squint-your-eyes, from-behind-her-ass-looks-good-enough way. There are those that find the whole package appealing, but I haven’t heard so much of that. To my brain, these qualifiers would seem to lead one to the conclusion that the object of said qualifiers is, in fact, unattractive. But I guess that’s one of the things that separate women from men.

I finally pinpointed the source of my own rage by relating it back to an episode of Futurama. I relate entirely too many real-life situations back to Futurama; I guess it is a testament to the genius of the show, or conversely to my mental state. Remember the episode where Leela became the first female Major League Blurnsball player? She was a pitcher that was discovered because she has no depth perception, and just keeps beaning people in the head. She became a parody of what could have been a major milestone for women. A very talented college female player expresses to Leela how disappointed she is that Leela is giving female players a bad name. Her argument is that by allowing herself to be exploited, she belittles the other women.

This is what Palin is doing. By being the worst qualified vice presidential candidate in recent history, she is prolonging the day that a woman will be vice president, even president. Her use of sexuality to succeed, her consistent use of emotional appeals, her smearing Obama, and her cattiness confirms all the negative stereotypes that have convinced the voting majority that women are unfit to serve in these important positions. No one takes her seriously. We’ve moved from having a strong, capable female candidate for president to a complete mockery of a political figure that allows the public to continue under the impression that strong women are bad and unnatural, and what you can allow is an Eskimo Barbie to go with your White House playset.