Note to mainstream media: Sarah Palin is NOT a feminist

The mainstream media seems confused these days. It appears that because Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is a woman, she is also a feminist. And not just a feminist, but THE feminist - a sign that all is right in the world when it comes to gender equity.

But how could that be, you ask? How could anyone paint Palin - whose policies make it all too clear that she's about as anti-feminist as they come - as feminism's second coming? Well, by pithy misleading headlines - that's how!

Even more interesting is that the reporters touting this Palin-as-feminist nonsense are people who pretty much know jack shit about feminism.

Take Wall Street Journal reporter Naomi Schaefer Riley, who writes that progressives should rest easy about Palin's candidacy because "most American evangelicals have wholeheartedly embraced the idea of women in the workplace." A radical feminist sentiment if there ever was one! But perhaps one should take Riley with a grain of salt, considering she's the same reporter who wrote that murdered NY college student Imette St. Guillen should have known better than to be out drinking at 3am. Victim-blamers aren't exactly bastions of feminist thought.

Karin Agness, who wrote the piece for Townhall, calls Palin a "success of feminism" and "truly a liberated woman." Agness is also the President of the Network of Enlightened Women, an anti-feminist college organization that lurves Elizabeth Hasselbeck and even (sigh) mocked a NOW conference attendee in a wheelchair on their blog.

Really, most of the "feminism" talk is coming from conservatives appropriating the language of the movement to push a ridiculously anti-feminist candidate. This, of course, is nothing new (cough, IWF, cough) and fairly transparent.

But what I find even more upsetting is the Palin/feminist talk coming from mainstream outlets who are demonstrating absolutely no knowledge of feminism. Take the Adweek article, for example, which says "Palin is a classic third-wave feminist, benefiting from all that came before her in terms of the women's movement..." So by this definition, any woman who has benefited from feminism is a feminist. So, all women are feminists? Uh, yeah.

So, please, esteemed members of the mainstream media - if you want to write about Palin and feminism, how about you get a feminist to do it? Or at least interview one of us for goodness sake - there's plenty of us around and we'll be happy to talk to you about what the movement is about. (Hint: It's a lot more than thinking any woman is a good choice for all women.)

Orwell was well aware of the power of controlling the terms of the debate and it’s time we took some of it back. Perhaps a movement to adopt specific terms to express conservative values could come together if enough of us worked on it.

I think we're already using them. The trick is getting the liberal media to have to use them also. So long as they can slide sideways into sort-of synonyms which do not really amount to the same degree of meaning, but aren't different enough to call out as distortions, then they'll do what they can to preserve those differences and to avoid being caught using our terms of reference. After all, they define what is proper, not us, yes?

Also, I have been trying to inject the notion that Orwell has become the source text for how to manipulate populations rather than the apocalyptic warning against being manipulated which I believe he intended. But the difficulty is that citing him is transactionally equivalent to citing someone's behavior as Hitlerian. You don't do that. It's the adult version of going from 'I dare you' to 'I triple-dog dare you'. It leaps the intensity level from simply engagement to open warfare when one does not actually know the firepower or moral intentions of the opponent. So one treads carefully. Rather than point out the open Orwellian aspects of current liberal media practice, we limn the details of actual manipulations the media have carried out. Separately we would then discuss the topic of what really mattered in 'Animal Farm', 'Down and Out in Paris and London' and '1984'. The connection is left as an exercise for the student.

This is not to say that occasion will never arise for the writings of some especially imprudent liberal media person to be identified as Orwellian. Any time you see some article using words improperly (like 'legendary' for 'prototypical' or 'seminal'), especially when the use incorporates an untrue inference that the usual word in the case does not(like insisting on modifying 'pro-life' with 'rabidly'), you know that Orwell's warning has been used as a hammer rather than a shield. Then it's pretty safe to make the point, but the comment starts with the comparison and ends with the accusation. To begin with the accusation only gives the Alan Colmes of the world the chance to launch a noise-making interruption with spluttering indignance and ruins the opportunity for clarity. I hope it's a trick our side is learning.

As for Beren, he sleeps in joy with his beloved Luthien sleeping at his side. Only Eru knows the ultimate plan for them, but it is sure to be glorious. Luthien was a feminist for life too, you know.

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