Intriguing

Sarah Palin, Feminist Icon

She succeeds the same way unexceptional men used to.

Contrary to popular belief, Hillary Clinton’s near-miss in the Democratic primaries was not this campaign’s big moment for women. “Women will truly have arrived when the most mediocre among us will be able to do just as well as the most mediocre of men,” Judith Warner writes in today’s Times. By that calculus, Sarah Palin, not Clinton, takes the prize. Palin gets by on the sort of things unexceptional white men used to get by on—looks, connections, a charming speaking style. It was said of her: “women want to be her, men want to mate with her.” Says Warner: “And this was the crux of the Palin Phenomenon: she was a breakthrough woman who threatened no one.”