Sarah Palin's mis-adventures in cyberspace

I am thinking a lot about the Internet lately--the fact that it brings so many good things into our lives as well as many problems that we may not have anticipated, may of which we have no way of opting out of, no matter what our behavior or personal choices.

My Mojo Mom Pocast co-host Sheryl Grant studies technology for a living now, and she's convinced me that as parents, it is really important that we use new technologies in our own lives, to personally experience phenomena like social networking. That way we understand what our kids are going through, everything from safety issues, to dealing with that old "high school" pit-in-the-stomach feeling of realizing that your friends took a trip together and didn't invite you, once you see their photos uploaded to Facebook. That's a totally legit use of Facebook, with normal human consequences. I'll be honest and admit that Facebook does occasionally evoke feelings that I haven't felt since high school! Imagine how a real high-schooler might feel now that one's popularity is so visible.

I am giving a brief talk on these issues later today and Sarah Palin came to mind as an example of one person's misadventures in cyberspace. Of course when she was catapulted into the spotlight this August, a virtual unknown in the media's eyes, her digital dossier began to show up very quickly. Many of her professional gaffes came to light as a result of a combination of traditional media and viral videos. However, I was really struck by the extent that she was actually cyberbullied in ways that were beyond her control, that had nothing to do with her actual behaviors or qualifications. Not surprisingly (but very depressingly), this is where a ton of sexism crept in to the picture, in some shocking forms that were not even called out by media feminists.

Here is my brief list of Sarah Palin internet phenomena from Fall 2008. I am writing this as a quick draft, so if you can think of other incidents, please leave a comment. Whether or not you like Sarah Palin, I think these examples are instructive for all of us.

Sarah Palin's misadventures in cyberspace

Palin announces that her daughter Bristol was pregnant, and boyfriend Levi Johnson's knuckleheaded MySpace page is immediately reported and widely publicized. Bristol's pregnancy is announced in part to debunk another blogosphere rumor that Trig Palin is actually Bristol's baby, and that Sarah faked a pregnancy to claim him as her child.

A Photoshopped image of Sarah Palin's head on an American-flag-bikini-wearing, gun-toting woman's body is circulated.

Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account is hacked and taken over when someone guesses the password based on statements she made in the media about where she met her husband Todd. The hacker changes the password, takes over the account, and Palin's personal emails and photos are released.

A viral email is sent out with a list of books that Palin allegedly wanted banned from the Wasilla public library. This email is later debunked.

Palin's poor performance during interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson are broadcast on TV, and then take on a life of their own the video clips are distributed online.

Saturday Night Live actors Tina Fey and Amy Poehler create instant-classic parodies of these interviews ("I can see Russia from my house!") which are also popular viral videos and reach people who don't watch SNL's live broadcast.

Most disturbingly, in my judgment, is that Hustler's Larry Flynt shoots a Palin-lookalike porn video called "Who's Nailin' Palin." The porn video is distributed online, and so-called "safe for work" clips are published as a "spoof" and joked about uncritically on mainstream blogs including Salon.com's Broadsheet blog and The Huffington Post.

While the video may be legally protected free speech, it's despicable. I was very disappointed to see excerpts posted online by some of the sites I usually respect. It was normalizing the video, which is inflicting virtual sexual violence on a female political candidate. I was so disappointed that feminists did not come to Palin's defense on this one. What message does it send to any woman who is thinking about stepping into the public eye to run for office, to know that those who step onto the highest stage are fair fame for sexual humiliation of this kind? (In addition to the Hillary Clinton "Nutcracker" line of thinking.)

So the online dimension has added a lot to the media, to public debate. Again, so much is out of our control. A teenager can be cyberbullied whether she or he is even actually online. Someone can instigate a cybersmear campagign of many varieties even if we are 100% responsible in our individual behavior. Still, life on the 'net can be a wonderful way to maintain frienships, start or cement new ones, speak up, and participate in democracy. We parents need to get right in there alongside our kids, as safely as we can. But it's clear from some of the bullying that Palin experienced that we need to look at the big picture of how people are behaving toward one another online. As the Megan Meier/Lori Drew MySpace suicide/harrassment case has shown us, the online world is evolving much faster than our public policies and laws.

As Internet Safety expert Linda Criddle has taught me, these issues aren't just about "irresponsible teens" and "uncaring parents." In fact the largest leaker of private information is the government, which exposes each of us to identity theft just through the basic information it posts about us every day. The Freedom of Information Act and privacy concerns have not been reconciled. That's a subject for a fuller post on another day, but in the meantime I highly recommend Linda's website, www.Look-Both-Ways.com

Pundit Mom's questions for "maverick" Sarah Palin

Yesterday I got the Soccer Mom Myth newsletter in my email box, and the authors asked whether the term "maverick" would resonate with women as well as it does with men, given that one of the definitions of maverick is an unbranded calf, cow, or steer, esp. an unbranded calf that is separated from its mother.

What an ironic identifier of rugged American individualism as applied to a mother of five!

Lots of Moms have questions for Sarah Palin, and Pundit Mom came up with an excellent list that she wrote as a blog posting on MomsRising.org, An Open Letter to Sarah Palin from Working Moms.

Starting with....

1. If you're elected vice president, what are you going to do to help all the other working mothers in America? You know, not all of us have the kind of support system of family and friends you do to take care of our kids, but we still have to work so we can afford food for the table, gas for our cars and the after-school day care arrangements because most of us don't have nannies....

So go read the whole post!

Palin needs to stop answering "personally"

I don't have a tally of how many times Sarah Palin has framed her answers in media interviews in terms of her personal beliefs, but she's done it one time too many.

Palin is entitled to her own personal beliefs. I wouldn't be concerned about her religion or morality if it weren't for the fact that she could be in a position to shape national policy that affects all of us. Such a simple, essential idea, but one that Palin fails to project in her responses. Case in point, her answer to Katie Couric about what she thought about a 15-year-old incest victim getting an abortion (via Salon's War Room blog):

Then, when questioned on social issues, Palin avoided giving straight answers. Here's the conversation about whether Palin opposes abortion even in a case of rape or incest:

COURIC: If a 15-year-old is raped by her father, you believe it should be illegal for her to get an abortion. Why?

PALIN: I am pro-life and I'm unapologetic about my position there on pro-life, and I understand good people on both sides of the abortion debate.

Now, I would counsel to choose life. I would like to see a culture of life in this country. But I would also like to see, taking it one step further, not just saying I am pro-life and I want fewer and fewer abortions in this country. But I want, then, those women who find themselves in circumstances that are absolutely less than ideal for them to be supported, for adoptions to be made easier.

COURIC: But ideally, you think it should be illegal for a girl who is raped or the victim of incest to get an abortion?

PALIN: I'm saying that personally I would counsel that person to choose life despite horrific, horrific circumstances that this person would find themselves in. And if you're asking, though, kind of foundationally here, should anybody end up in jail for having had an abortion? Absolutely not. That's -- that's nothing that I would ever support.

Notice that she doesn't really answer the question about illegality, and keeps falling back on her personal viewpoint. It is possible to be personally opposed to abortion for oneself, or even opposed to the concept in general, while realizing that there are sound legal and moral reasons to refrain from forcing one's own beliefs on other women.

Alternet had a very interesting discussion, "Can You Be a Feminist and Anti-Abortion?" looking at Jennifer Baumgardner's new book, Abortion & Life.

In this election year it's important for all of us to spend time thinking about how we think about and value reproductive rights and self-determination in many forms, including sex ed and access to birth control (currently under fire from the Bush administration). As voters we need to consider what kind of leaders we want for all citizens and what rights those leaders should protect as a matter of public policy and social justice.

As a starting point, I would suggest the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective's paper, "Understanding Reproductive Justice," as required reading. It would challenge Governor Palin to start thinking about reproductive issues systemically, politically, and legally, and not just personally. If she is going to advocate denying reproductive rights then she should own that policy and real-world consequences and not just that belief. The fact that she is not even at that basic starting point yet is one more reason that she is not fit to become second in line for the Presidency.

The Amazing Tina Fey and Amy Poehler

It remains to be seen what the 2008 will mean for women in politics, but it's been a boon for women in political comedy. Everyone agrees that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler created an instant classic on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, appearing together as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.



I am so glad this dynamic duo got to do this scene before Amy Poehler had her baby! She hid her 8-months-pregnant belly behind the podium. (Of course, if Poehler were Sarah Palin, she'd deliver the baby and be back at work the next Saturday.)

Will the Fey-as-Palin storyline make it onto her show 30 Rock? Wouldn't Liz Lemon's ultra-conservative boss Jack Donaghy become irresistibly attracted to her because she's a dead-ringer for Palin? His ex-girlfriend is Condoleezza Rice, for gosh sakes. Here's how I see it: one day Liz wakes up and hastily puts her hair up in a scrunchie when she's on the subway, late for work, accidentally creating a mini-beehive look...and the rest is workplace-harassment comedy history.

Final thought, to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I love you guys, but it's really time to get some women on your show! Samantha Bee is great, but such a "token girl" in your roster.

Susan Douglas on 'Pit Bull Feminism'

Susan Douglas reported masterfully about the hypocrisy of the Republican Party and the rise of Sarah Palin, Feminism without Feminism.

Choice quote from this must-read piece:

Pit Bull Feminism is about looking stylish and pretty so you can get away with attacking the accomplishments of those who have actually fought for women’s issues, like authoring the Violence against Women Act, as Joe Biden did. It is about using your status as a “hockey mom” (and now they’re better than other mothers?) to immunize you and your party against charges that you are, in fact, deeply anti-family when it comes to public policies.

But most of all, Pit Bull Feminism is about exploiting 40 years of activism, lawsuits, legislative changes, and consciousness-raising—all of which you have benefited from—in the hopes of then undoing them all if you manage to get into office.

Susan Douglas is the author of Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media and co-author, with Meredith Michaels, of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women.

Mojo Moms don't have to be macho

People have been asking me why I haven't written more about Sarah Palin and part of the answer is that I'll never get my book done in time if I allow myself to become obsessed with her. But here I go....

I am proud of the blog post I wrote last week analyzing the content of her convention speech, and yes, her personal storyline is a little like Mojo Mom on steroids, in terms of a mother reaching the highest levels of leadership. But I don't think her life story is at all realistic, and I am worried about what would happen if we were all expected to be like her. I hate that she has to act so macho and invincible. I cringe at the stories of her hiding her pregnancy and returning to work days after giving birth. From the New York Times, "Fusing Politics and Motherhood in a New Way":

Before her son was born, Ms. Palin went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that his arrival would not compromise her work. She hid the pregnancy. She traveled to Texas a month before her due date to give an important speech, delivering it even though her amniotic fluid was leaking. Three days after giving birth, she returned to work

Maybe she could get out of bed and go back to work competently three days later, but that seems incredibly unrealistic and actually inhumane to me. I would never encourage any woman to aspire follow that example. My current activism is focused on efforts to make sure that mothers get the family leave they need to care for themselves and their families during important life transitions and health care crises.

Journalists Katty Kay (mother of four) and Claire Shipman take on these issues in today's Wall Street Journal, "Let's Talk About Palin's Family Challenges." These successful professional Moms argue that the future trend is toward life sanity, not insanity like Palin's:

Fed up with 50- and 60-hour weeks and a career ladder we didn't build and don't want to climb, women are looking for jobs that demand fewer and freer hours. We want to work but we also want quantity time, as well as quality time, with our children. Most of us no longer buy the onwards-and-upwards drive to the corner office (or in Mrs. Palin's case, the West Wing) at the cost of a fragmented family life. More and more, women are choosing a tapestry of family and work in which we define our own success in reasonable terms -- even if we sacrifice some "prestige."

And by the way, in Gen X and Y, men are more willing to choose that path as well. If we play our cards right we could get a workplace revolution that benefits all of us.

Palin's Superwoman image is a Republican fantasy come true. She might as well get "Rugged American Individualism" tattooed on her forehead. She can shoot the moose and cook up the mooseburgers; she'll tell you that her teenage daughter's unplanned pregnancy is a blessing, not a burden, as is the arrival of her special-needs child; and by the way, she'll birth her baby and then be back to run the state after a weekend's worth of rest.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a country run by people who make public policies based on that unrealistic, unsustainable storyline.

Give me a Constitutional law prof any day

Sarah Palin sure knows how to deliver a speech, but are we willing to look at the content embedded in her rousing delivery?

Palin may be no Dick Cheney in that she's less likely to be a behind-the-scenes puppetmaster than he has been for the past eight years, but Palin does pull McCain toward the dark side in several ways.

I focused in on two things Palin said. First, she mocked Barack Obama for wanting to read terror detainees their rights. She had quite a lighthearted take on the fact that Bush-Cheney have been willing to make an unconstitutional grab for power, and have wanted to deny detainees basic legal rights including habeas corpus, a foundation of English Common Law even older than the U. S. Constitution. Palin may be eager to dehumanize detainees, but what would she say to the more than 400 men who were released from Guantanamo without being charged, often after years of detention?

Habeas corpus may sound like an arcane legal principle, but I encourage you to listen to the award-winning episode of This American Life, "Habeas Schmabeas 2007," that explains it really skillfully--what it is and why it matters to all of us.

Palin's attitude in her speech last night ties in with disturbing recent development of McCain voting in favor of waterboarding, the interrogation procedure that most people agree is torture. McCain was the last person most people thought would approve the use of torture, but it looks like we can't count on that.

(Another show to listen to: the Fresh Air interview with investigative journalist Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side who explains that the U. S. harsh interrogation techniques were derived from outdated tortuous interrogation methods originally designed primarily to extract FALSE confessions from prisoners.)

Second, Palin slammed Obama for not using the word "victory" when talking about the Iraq War. You know who else doesn't use the word victory when talking about the war? General David Petraus, who is in charge of the whole U. S. military action. Personally, I respect Petraeus, whom I believe is doing his best to find resolution to the tragic, incredibly complex situation that has resulted from the U. S. invasion of Iraq. Steve Coll discusses "The General's Dilemma" in his profile of Petraus in the September 8 issue of The New Yorker.

I would hope that most thinking people would realize by now that ending the conflict in Iraq is not about declaring victory. You can't win an occupation.

I happen to think that Barack Obama is an extraordinary candidate, but even if he was just okay, I'd support him because of his expertise as a Constitutional Law professor. After the past eight years, it would be a welcome relief to have a President who respects the Constitution, rather than constantly trying to find ways to undermine it.

NY Times on Mommy Wars: Special Campaign Edition

I went away for the weekend for a much-needed break with a group of girlfriends. Even if we had traveled over the summer, for most of us, this was our first time in a long time to have two or three days to put down our daily responsibilities and truly unwind.

And in those three days the news went wild! Sarah Palin was chosen by McCain, and the campaign storyline continued to sound more and more like an episode of Desperate Housewives (and yes, John Edwards, I am talking about you, too). And then came hurricane Gustav, too. It was all too much -- if this were a screenplay they'd say there was way too much crammed into one act.

Thankfully the hurricane appears to have been somewhat manageable for the residents of the Gulf Coast.

I have many thoughts about Sarah Palin swirling in my head, but I am behind the curve on a lot of my own Mojo Mom writing. So as I collect my thoughts, I will refer you to two thought-provoking articles:

The New York Times has "A New Twist in the Long-Running Debate on Mothers." Can Sarah Palin juggle 5 kids including an infant with special needs, a daughter becoming a new Mom herself, and joining a national campaign/possibly servicng as Vice President/potentially stepping into the Presidency? Strangely enough, it's conservatives who are saying Yes while some working Moms say No.

Also check out Rebecca Traister's piece "Palin, pregnancy and the presidency" on Salon's Broadsheet blog. She details the way that Palin/McCain are actually using the language of choice to describe their views on family situations. I don't want to see Sarah Palin's daughter's private life dragged into the campaign, but it is valid to examine the consistency of the public policies that McCain/Palin advocate and their thought processes about their personal situations. For example, what does it say about abstinence-only education if the curriculum does not even work for the Governor's high-school aged child?