Sadly, Palin did herself no favors. She happily played into the game - who in his or her right mind WINKS during a debate? - then allowed charges of sexism when any critiscism was made of such ridiculous behavior. Being a former beauty contestant, she is very well aware of the impact of her physical attributes, and she used them to her benefit, with cohorts crying "Wolf!" whenever someone on the other side would bring it up. Hypocrisy of the highest order. The Republicans, salivating at this thought of this woman, trotted her out, untested, unknown, and wholly unqualified, onto a national stage - they are just as culpable as any person in the media when you read the comments they made during the convention.

Sexist comments from the left and the right were off base, but had she been a better candidate she would have received much less attention concerning her appearance. Let's face it, she was a horror show, regurgitating stale talking points and having the weakest of grasps on the economy and foreign affairs. It seriously pained me to watch her in action. After the initial glow of "What's this shiny new thing?" I quickly tired of her attempts at cutesy folksiness (in $3,000 knee high boots). I won't say she's as much to blame as the media, but she did herself no favors with her behavior.

This seems to be a North American disease to put women down in the media, particularly in the States. Americans seem to be very backwards in the way they view women as leaders. I live in the UK - such an attitude would not be tolerated here. It is regarded as childish and immature.

Just how far behind are the States in this regard?

The UK had Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister almost 30 years ago!

Even now, we have a female Home Secretary (Jacqui Smith), a female Leader of the House of Commons (Harriet Harman) and we have had a female Speaker of the House (Betty Boothroyd). I could go on but you get the idea.

I have lived in both North America and Europe - there is a huge difference in attitude between the two towards women. I much prefer European attitudes and have made this continent my home. I have never had a problem because of my gender.
If you do your job well, you get respect here.

It is a shame that Americans still have a lot of growing up to do in that regard. An example of the juvenile mentality Americans hold towards women is the fact that the media still obsesses on the number of wrinkles that are on the faces of Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton.

That is truly sad and pathetic.

Genitalia aside, I must ask, "where's the comparison" with these two women?

I don't think Sarah Palin got treated badly by the media...they didn't say stupid things, rabble rouse crowds, ramble on and be incoherent, that was all Sarah's own doing!!!!
I felt she got away with a lot quite frankly, not talking to the press during the campaign, not going on political talk shows and letting us see and know more about her!!!
If that had been on the Obama 's team, all hell would have broken loose because the right would have demanded to know all about the VP!!
Rather a double standard there I feel, she was fine when she was firing up the base, but don't ask her questions..don't offend her...don't be sexist....I found that all too much.
No, I think Sarah Palin was product of her own making and blaming the media is ridiculous....that was position she chose to run for, nobody twisted her arm!!

A more poignant question -and frightening answer- is what this "sexist" behavior (especially displayed towards Sarah Palin) tells about the maturity of our society?

Nickmagoo - George Bush winks all the time, including during a debate. Not a gender-driven habit. And why do you care how much her boots cost?

How many versions of this article is TDB going to post? We've already had about five of them haven't we? Is that all there is to say about Hillary and Palin, that the media was/is sexist? If there is something substantive to say about Hillary and Palin that is being missed by the media, then say it!

Do you remember Palin jumping on the bandwagon against Sen. Clinton? She stated that Hilary should not have any perceived whine about sexism. She then added that she should just work harder. Palin is disgusting. I want her to go away. Doesn't she know she lost?

"I won't say she's as much to blame as the media, but she did herself no favors with her behavior."
-Is this your conclusion to this article? As a professor, I assume that you have some method/criteria to arrive at this assertion.

Most VP candidates have been leaked to and vetted by the press weeks before the actual announcement. However McCain decided to throw a surprise party with no coherent media strategy to introduce Palin to the country. Rather than being forthcoming about her background, they made it treasure hunt for the media.

"While Clinton was pummeled in the press for being too ambitious, Palin was trounced for being ambitious at all. Shouldn't she be at home with those children?"

-First, you can not compare a female politician with one adult daughter and another with 5 children including an disable infant and one who is preggars%u2028-Second Palin ran on a platform of traditional family values. One of these values is what whenever possible, a mother's place is at home. See Santorum's book-It Takes a Family. Unless Palin addresses these issues, then they are a legitimate news story not a media witch hunt.

I agree with cajola completely. Instead of making any attempt to fill in her astounding ignorance, Palin played her soccer mom femininity to the hilt, and I think her utter phoniness caught up with her. As for Hillary, I think she really is, as they like to say, a "tough broad," but I think, combined with her intelligence and experience, she'll make a great Secretary of State. I couldn't care less about her cleavage, and most of the men I know confine interest in that image to sexy movie stars and rock singers, not someone representing our country.

Sarah Palin needs to go home and take care of the state she's supposed to govern. And while she's at it, she should be quiet and stop embarrassing herself and us.

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?1113nov8

"Palin was uniquely disparaged for playing "too female" in a masculine arena. While Clinton was pummeled in the press for being too ambitious, Palin was trounced for being ambitious at all. Shouldn't she be at home with those children?"

Ms. Heldman, you overstate the importance/ longevity of this snipe at Ms. Palin. People didn't dwell on the 'stay at home' issue for more than two little minutes. You argument also redirects the reader away from the main reason Palin was pummeled: she pulled out all the stops on traditional feminine 'wiles' and tried to vamp her way into power, while deceitfully hiding the fact that she had zero to offer the country as VP.

While she was busy revving Bubba's engines with flirty behavior that was wildly inappropriate for the gravity of the position for which she ran, she herself set the tone for subsequent sexist comments about her. Gloria Steinem, Michelle Obama and Condoleeza Rice are all very attractive, powerful women but their behavior doesn't pander to the "Va-va-voom"-crowd as Palin's did.

In addition, the topic of the youngest child's parentage is incredibly germane to Palin's "vetting by the public". If Palin pretended to be the mother of her non-contraceptive-using teen's actual first infant, then her Party's Family Values Platform is shown to be deeply hypocritical and flawed, and, indeed, broken. Just because some issue involves gender and reproduction, please don't belabor it as sexist. There were comments and winks aplenty about how John Edwards ought to have kept his Johnson under control and it's just as pompous and ultimately inaccurate to label this sexism.

At this day and age, the name-calling is not the real problem. IMO true Feminism focuses on the women who actually are mature, powerful, and effective. When the opinions/ work of these females comes under attack as in, "Oh, don't listen to her - she's just a woman", then this is when you bring out the Feminism vanguard. But to be called a bitch, or too ambitious? Puhleez, big deal. People call Edwards a tool, and Raum Emannuel a dick, but that doesn't make it them sexist comments to be bothered about.

But, an airhead possessing female reproductive organs is by definition a bimbo, and people are going to call it as they see it. And, when a woman with a load of kids who plays on being an involved hockey-mom aspires to the Nation's high offices, then, yes, it is germane to wonder how she will transmute her super-mom self into an effective Vice President of the United States. This is not sexism - rather, imo, you are instead being PC-Police, calling every little thing with a gender spin as sexism.

So please stop getting all "I abhor her politics but I come to her defense as another woman". Tirades about Political Correctness are what show Feminism to be irrelevant. You don't see people saying Rice is bad because she's "just a woman", as they did back in my day - and you won't, because Feminism has won that battle. The fact that so many people consider men to possess a better aptitude for power or political responsibility - that is where your efforts are most productively applied.

I hate all these blogs that insist how palin and hillary was treated unfairly in the media. I feel bad for Hillary because she was a truelly qualified candidate. But Palin on the other hand....
The true sexism that we can see from her nomination and treatment in the media is the simple fact that she was nominated for a position that she wasn't qualified for. No man with her resume would have been nominated for the position. That's a double standard. Made me think of affirmative action. She acts tough until Couric gets her with "gotcha question" about what she reads. Then, she turns into a damsel in distress. She did everything to herself.
And I believe, when you have 5 not 1 or 2 kids, especially when one of the child is less than a year old child with special needs, i think it's a very legitimate question on who's going to raise the kids. Because, she even said her non-college educated husband works part time of the year, so he's not a full time stay at home dad either. That's not being sexist. That's being very realistic. To have all those kids... LIke she said, being pro life is a choice, and to have all those kids were her choice.
Male dominated media bagged on Hillary because she was a true threat to the old boys' club. A real contender.
The same media played nice with Palin because she was not a true threat, and easy on the eye. If she had the brains to go with her looks, I think she would have dealt with real sexist treatment, not the kind she got, which she did to herself anyways.

Even on this blog there are too many sexists and uneducated commenters.

For example: the following commenters

1. nickmagoo: what ridiculous behaviors are you talking about? are you taking about Joe Biden (imminent crisis? or Roosevelt on TV in 1927? Hillary is better than me?...). Or are you talking about somebody bought her clothes and she must be aware of the price?

2. cajola: are we talking about sexism? Where weren't there the same treatment toward Joe Biden? (imminent crisis? or Roosevelt on TV in 1927? Hillary is better than me?...) or Obama? (57 states?)

3. like-mind: She is deceitful and has zero to offer? Is there another person in this country that can re-negotiate a oil-revenue tax like Sarah Palin did? How about a gas pipeline? Or defeating a Repulican incumbent governor? Those women you listed are not running to be elected remember?

4. princessbuttercup79: what you were saying was that a woman with 5 children must stay home and cannot have a part-time job? Because if she can have a part-time job then that would go against your argument (her husband cannot take care of the kids because he has a part-time job). That is sexism. You admitted yourself and didn't even know it.

In the end, people need to think before posting comments. The author is a professor, he is not like you guys, who live in your mom's basement, OK!!!

Caroline Heldman's brand of feminism, to most people my age (early twenties) is a shadow of its former relevance, akin to the black power movement. Simply put, the way these commentators view issues of gender and race are skewed by a history and a social reality that most people my age were not yet alive to experience. When I grew up watching the news in the 90s and early 2000s, I was equally offended by swipes at Hillary's 'sexless' nature as I was about generalities regarding men in power. Even recently, CNN has devoted hours to the question of why men in power cheat, including sweeping generalizations and kitschy pop psychology. This fact remains: a modern male president MUST be married. I don't see a man ever becoming president if he doesn't fit America's definition of a fully domesticated husband (while, I admit, this was not always the case). McCain and Gore were ridiculed for being too cold with their wives. McCain was criticized for the failure of his first marriage, as was Guiliani. Edwards was banished from the public sphere with staggering speed and completeness. Regardless of what you think of Ted Haggard's rhetoric, one has to feel some measure of sympathy for a man who was forced to live according to societies masculine ideal, regardless of his culpability in foisting such an image on the American public. Many will find themselves thinking "well, the bastards deserved it". And that is exactly the problem. Men and women in America are both subject to unrealistic standards and pressure to conform. Caroline Heldman isn't necessarily wrong, but blind to half of this sad truth.

Wayfarin: whether or not heldman is blind to what you seem to be arguing is sexist media coverage of male candidates cannot be answered by her piece here; it is simply not the topic at hand. from what i know, caroline heldman has worked as an educator with jackson katz (see "tough guise") who argues that societal norms and expectations are damaging to men, both young and old. my own personal research also confirms media biases for men in the political realm. i do not believe heldman would disagree with either you or i. perhaps the beast needs to make it a topic worthy of one of its "big fat stories."

onthebrightside: As another UK resident I'm not sure about your comparison.
I've lived in the States and women are treated more equally there than in the UK. It's just a little confounding why this doesn't appear to apply in politics.
Women, apart from Thatcher, tend to get the soft jobs in UK politics. Normally they work in Health, education, culture ministries. Jaqui Smith is the Home Secretary it's true, but we never hear from her. Is it mere tokenism?
But I do think that Thatcher, who got to power by pretending to be a man, did make a difference to women in politics in the UK. It is now seen that they can be tough, charismatic and radical politicians. Thatcher was all of those things, although I disagreed with almost everything she said and did.
Now, of course, 30 years on, the world financial woes are almost all down to ultra-liberal Thatcherite policies (called Reaganomics in the US but don't forget Thatcher pioneered these policies).

Hear, hear! The Palin piling-on is starting to resemble Tourette's Syndrome. Any real feminist sees it.

As a 30 year activist in politics and feminism...its just not that complicated in this case. Palin is not smart and the better description is, she's dumb. She also practices the politics of division and hate as evidenced by nearly all of her 3 months in the public spotlight of the Presidential campaign.

There is so much that is wrong with this post that I don't know where to begin. I am a woman and I found it very insulting that Palin was on the ticket. If she were a man (with the same lack of knowledge) she/he would have never been on the ticket. Palin should have known she wasn't qualified, but she uses her looks and then cries sexism.

You can't blame the media. Kristol himself described her as "My hearthrob". Would he ever describe a male candidate that way? NO. But, Palin uses it for her own benefit.

Palin posed for a magazine cover (pre-VP run) that read "America's hottest Govenor". She could have said NO to that article, but she didn't. So why is it an insult to her when others call her hot, shen she herself posed for that article and was interviewed for the story? She plays both sides of the fence.

She winks at the camera, flirts with the men, and then cries sexism. Give me a break. She can't have it both ways.

Palin couldn't answer Courics questions so she has been trashing her for months. Palin doesn't seem to have a problem trashing other women (she also told Hillary to stop whining about unfair treatment). She can dish it out, but she can't take it. She also did the Couric interview because she thought Couric would be easier on her? Sexist?

You justify her 190K wardrobe? Sorry, but no other candidate spent that kind of money on clothes and accessories (silk underwear for the hubby,ect). Plus, Palin is telling the crowds that she is a regular middle-class hockey mom. Well, middle class women don't spend 190K on clothes. She is a liar. What is wrong with the media exposing her lie. I want to know the truth about the candidates, or should we just believe their PR message?

This argument seems to boil down to what's fair. There's no such thing as fair. We want and need leaders who show strength, not ones who whine when assaulted by comments that may be dismissive of their qualities. One can't be an agressive and assertive leader and a damsel in distress at the same time; if someone calls you a "bitch" and you go to your room and cry we don't need you as a leader.

The inherent fallacy here is pairing Clinton and Palin in an article at all because combining them in a headline suggests some kind of 'parallelism', not only in what the press did, but similarity in the women themselves.

Putting a clueless, uninformed, incurious doughhead next to a woman who has proven her own smarts in several arenas (even if many don't like her) creates an inappropriate platform for dialog about sexism in the media.

Heldman needs to grant that Palin got a thumping for being the dumbest candidate of 2008. The media uncovered VALID reasons to castigate Palin for running. That's a separate article from discussing how the RNC gang thumped Clinton for wanting into the old boys' network.

Let's step up to the issue that there are smart women and dumb women, just as there are the same for men. The dumb of both sexes have no place in politics. We need all the smarts we can get in our national team. Thank heavens that's how Obama is staffing his cabinet. Brains and ethics are no silver bullets in today's unsafe world, but a far better approach than the one McCain was taking with Palin.

Sarah Palin wanted to have it both ways. She wanted to be taken seriously, but took no actions to educate herself or to accept responsibility for appalling blunders. She took offense at benign questions (what papers do you read) and called anyone who disagreed with her a sexist (or worse). She castigated the "mainstream media" whatever that is, presumably asking the electorate to listen to the fringe media, like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and all of their rivals on the other side of the spectrum. I don't think she came under such scrutiny because she was a woman, I think that if someone is going to be "a heartbeat away" from the presidency they deserve scrutiny and in her case this scrutiny proved that she is an uniformed rube who lacks curiosity and mental discipline and is certainly unfit to lead this country.

Piling on Palin? Give me a break. I think the media gave Palin many passes. Look at the debate when Palin announced that she was just not going to answer questions. The bar was set so low that she couldn't fail, and the media let her get away with that tactic. If she wants to play the game, she should play by the rules.

Palin uses her looks, winks at the camera, she doesn't or can't answer questions, and then cries "got ya' journalism" or sexism.

During Palin's post-election media tour, it was embarrasing how the media just let her promote herself and take control of the interviews. Very few asked follow up questions or called her on some of her lies. Not one journalist held her accountable for HER actions and lack of knowledge. They just let her blame everyone else. Is that what we want as women? To be held to a lower standard if we are pretty, look good in expensive clothes and can wink at the camera?

Wow. We've come a long way, baby.

The real sexism is NOT holding Palin to the same standards that we would expect from a male VP candidate just because she is a woman.

February 2008 Alaska magazine featured Palin (on the cover) as America's Hottest Govenor. Palin posed for this photo shot and was interviewed. If she objected to be being being labeled "hot", she could have refused, or not posed for the cover story. Obviously, that was not the case.

Are you saying it's acceptable for Palin to allow herself to be called hot when it benefits her--such as getting noticed by the GOP to be a VP candidate. But it's sexist if the media or others call her hot?

Sounds like a double standard to me.