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!

The Wall Street Journal: Sarah Palin Feminism

Townhall: Sarah Palin: A Liberated Woman

LA Times: Sarah Palin's 'new feminism' is hailed

NPR: Sarah Palin: New Face Of Feminism?

Adweek: Feminism's Next Wave

The New York Post: A Feminist Dream at the GOP

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.)

http://www.feministing.com/archives/010904.html

when what you want to do is destroy everything feminists fought for.

She's a wrecking ball, folks, another Phyllis Schlafly.

with please-your-man makeup and a newsbunny hairdo, which the media likes infinitely more than feminism or feminists.