The XX Factor: What women really think.

A Feminist Like Any Other...

What bothers me about Lafferty's cheerleading is not simply that it's condescending—and that line Ann pulls out is particularly awful "... a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight"; what job doesn't require thoughtful curiosity?—but that it's also completely disingenuous. Lafferty is a consultant to the McCain-Palin ticket. She says it right up front, but somehow it's easy to forget as you make your way through the story. She came over to the campaign right after the Palin pick—a moment when the country barely knew the name of the governor of Alaska, let alone whether she was a "quick study" or a bumbling idiot. There is something disconcerting to me about seeing her sitting there, behind Palin, on stage as the candidate assumes a quasi-feminist stance and steals Hillary Clinton's lines about glass ceilings

And now Lafferty simultaneously mocks the so-called "inside the beltway feminist" establishment that shuns Palin for her Christian-political positioning but then uses her own insider feminist credentials (former Ms. editor) as a shield against any criticism that she's remotely swallowed the Kool-Aid on this one. It's not a critique, it's a turn-conventional-wisdom-on-its-ear essay designed to rile people up. Why else be so casually dismissive of the rape kit story and the book banning rumors?  (Of the latter, Noam Scheiber's excellent piece on Palin explains her efforts quite clearly.) Does Lafferty really have such live-and-let-live relationship to Palin's positions on choice, feminism itself (Palin has recently rejected the label), and McCain's inability to support the Ledbetter Fairpay Act? I don't buy it.

Over at Jezebel there's an angry but cogent takedown of Ms. Lafferty and her strange tenure at Ms. If you click through the links to the New York Observer stories on Lafferty chafing against Eleanor Smeal and Gloria Steinem in her final days at Ms., it opens up a few other questions. Namely: While I think its essential to the future of feminism expands the definition of feminist beyond the white middle-class women who served as figureheads in the 1970s, upon reflection, why does this feel like Lafferty's means of getting in a few punches at her old colleagues? 

Addendum: Emily's take below really cuts to the point. There are plenty of good feminist reasons beyond abortion to reject the McCain ticket. Lafferty has resorted to old bromides that just don't ring true.