I know this is a week old, but no matter how many times I watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, I keep laughing.
But the more and more I watch, the more I notice, too. Both women have been on the receiving end of sexist attacks, and these attacks sound an awful lot like the the discussion between the fictional Palin and Clinton. The SNL skit plays this up. On the one hand, you have Sarah Palin, the attractive and kind of dumb governor of a small state of hicks who fell into being John McCain's running mate, and on the other hand, there's Hillary Clinton, an unattractive and overly ambitious "boner-shrinker."
Sexism really does work in one extreme or another: these women, who, regardless of what you think of their politics, have become governor and senator. But that's not what the media focuses on when attacking them, and SNL humorously draws attention to this. I would much rather the media focus on real issues, as Poehler-as-Clinton put it: "It's never sexist to question female candidates credentials." Pointing out that Sarah Palin has a bachelor's in communications and two years as governor of a sparsely populated state (though it is, of course, close to Russia), while Joe Biden has a law degree and substantial foreign policy is not sexist. It is, however, true.
And of course Hillary Clinton is ambitious. So are all the other people who ran for the democratic party nomination this year, or are running for president. It takes ambition to get to that point, you do need to want it. But somehow, the label "ambitious" has only been applied to two people: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. For whatever reason, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, John Edwards, and the other candidates managed to avoid being called ambitious. Maybe it has something to do with being the white guys?
But the more and more I watch, the more I notice, too. Both women have been on the receiving end of sexist attacks, and these attacks sound an awful lot like the the discussion between the fictional Palin and Clinton. The SNL skit plays this up. On the one hand, you have Sarah Palin, the attractive and kind of dumb governor of a small state of hicks who fell into being John McCain's running mate, and on the other hand, there's Hillary Clinton, an unattractive and overly ambitious "boner-shrinker."
Sexism really does work in one extreme or another: these women, who, regardless of what you think of their politics, have become governor and senator. But that's not what the media focuses on when attacking them, and SNL humorously draws attention to this. I would much rather the media focus on real issues, as Poehler-as-Clinton put it: "It's never sexist to question female candidates credentials." Pointing out that Sarah Palin has a bachelor's in communications and two years as governor of a sparsely populated state (though it is, of course, close to Russia), while Joe Biden has a law degree and substantial foreign policy is not sexist. It is, however, true.
And of course Hillary Clinton is ambitious. So are all the other people who ran for the democratic party nomination this year, or are running for president. It takes ambition to get to that point, you do need to want it. But somehow, the label "ambitious" has only been applied to two people: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. For whatever reason, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, John Edwards, and the other candidates managed to avoid being called ambitious. Maybe it has something to do with being the white guys?
