The Glass Cieling

It is frightening. Frightening to think that once again, Americans will be outdone by hideously obvious political maneuvering. In a move that is the epitome of the knee-jerk reaction philosophy of the republican party, McCain picks Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, to run on the GOP ticket. Its the talk of the nation. I call it reactionary because its hard to seperate such a radical choice from the words of Palin's own acceptance speech: "If Hillary can't break the glass ceiling, we republicans can" (my paraphrasing).

In other words, in a move to shatter that glass ceiling, lets pick someone without a penis to not hinder those 18 million cracks in the cieling from becoming voters for us, not considering that just any other creature without a penis will not fit the bill. I mean, becuase the dems cant do it for ya, we will. Well, sort of.

Political anylists are saying that this move heralds feminists teachings and will win over all those bitter dems and independents who are still sore from not having their Hillary, and I am sure that is what McCain in thinking in picking someone as a ticket mate with no national experience. However, if shattering the glass cieling means making Joan Cleaver the next vice president, I doubt, in terms of women's rights, that this so called shattering is what Americans are hoping for.

Unfortunately, many American's won't realize this. They will see her as the figure of triumphant American "exurbanism", as Howard Fineman puts it. They will see her as the loving mother of five, from the fringes of our cities where trimmed lawns are still valued and somehow reflect a neighborly conjuviality, where consumerism is admired if not slightly worshipped, and where the traditional family can live its life far from bustle but close enough to "catch a ballgame". They will see her as provident from a place where social conservatism is not only the norm but the expected way of life. (If you need to know my opinion of this ideologically and geographically stifilling concept, please refer to my other blogs on cookie-cutter suburban life). As Fineman puts it, in ExUrban America, Amercans can get as close to "'Leave it to Beaver'America as most middle-class folks can afford or even find." So seeing "one of their own" as it were, succeed in mainstream politics can be rather affirming and it will be comforting to know that someone like themselves is running the country. Knowing that the vice president wears her pearls and knows what a struggle it is to have dinner on the table when hubby gets home gives them some sort of validation of their own daily lifes (no offense to pearl wearers: I myself find them extremely sexy, nor those who are stay at home moms: I was raised by one).

But it would really be the case of one step forward and three steps back. More like 20 steps back. Instead of presenting a VP canidate that might proffer real change and be committed to real politics, we are thrown into the vortex of bad political maneuvering: I mean, becuase the dems cant do it for ya, we will, sort of. We will give you your woman: a woman who is firmly against abortion, and will work hard to get Roe vs. Wade overturned. All hail the downfall of even the most basic of women's right. Hows that for no more glass ceiling?

Hopefully Americans will realize all this and stick to something that will make this country better, not ask for another 4 years of crap. And after 8 years that have lead us to the position that we are in now, it is hard to think, and frightening to realize, that a small maneuver like this might sway Americans to think that another 4 years wouldn't be crap. Not saying that either candidate is the most prepared for the job, or that promises made from both sides will pull our country out of the hole we have dug ourselves into--better said, that we have been drug into-- but this knee-jerk reaction to have a female VP is more transparent than the glass ceiling it presupposes to shatter. And hopefully Americans will realize that trading a glass ceiling for a brick wall is hardly worth it.