Women and Politics

Front and center, Herald tries to slander Coakley by associating her with Palin

By WCF Fellow: Trish

Usable against any woman, forever in any political war chest, there is a four-syllable bomb. Sarah Palin. After attracting sexist attention of her own while running for Vice President, her name is now used like a dirty word.

Some have compared an answer Coakley gave in an interview on WCVB’s “On the Record” to an infamous answer that Palin gave during her campaign for Vice President. Hillary Chabot of the Boston Herald writes:

“Rivals blasted the strange foreign policy credentials offered by Attorney General Martha Coakley yesterday after the U.S. Senate candidate - in an answer reminiscent of former vice presidential contender Sarah Palin - counted her sister’s overseas home as part of her own international know-how.”

Watch Coakley’s interview for yourself. The interviewer asked Coakley, “What is your experience traveling, have you ever been abroad?” Coakley responded appropriately, and she responded well. She pointed out that as the Attorney General, she is not required to travel abroad, but that she’s a student of history, has a strong appreciation for other countries, and has traveled extensively on her own; her sister lives overseas.

Are some people so sexist that they can’t differentiate one woman from another? Terms like Ice Queen and Mean Girl are bad enough—but now Sarah Palin has been made a stereotype by the virtue of the fact that she is one of only two women to run for Vice President.

So when we can’t think of a derogatory, stereotypical name to call a woman, we’ll just compare her to another female candidate?

It’s a terrible irony that women writers like Cabot and Falcone are pushing a woman like Coakley, a trail-blazing, mold-breaker woman, into a cast that Coakley is trying to break on the behalf of all women. All Coakley has in common with Palin is that she, too, is running in a highly publicized race, and that she, too, has two x-chromosomes.

During the presidential campaign Chabot lauded Sarah Palin writing in one article, “Palin charged up the GOP with a heavily watched, prime-time speech.” So what is Chabot doing trying to take down Coakley by the negative Palin association she had a hand in creating after Palin’s failed election?

Sarah Palin should not be used in comparison with other female candidates without justified parallels beyond the fact of sex and running for office.

To do so is purely sexist.

Give your support to Martha Coakley; let her know you recognize her as a distinct leader.