Samhita of Feministing has a great take on the… unfortunate David Letterman joke about one of the women in the Palin family
Letterman apologized last night and while I think Letterman’s jokes were in poor taste, let’s not forget that Palin’s actual stance that has been legislated and made into policy is far worse. Does this make joking about her or her daughters OK? Definitely not. But watching those two women duke it out, I think it is so interesting listening to conservative women use feminist talking points. It is smart and calculated and plays so well into the often rudimentary understanding Americans have about the fight for women’s rights.
Should Letterman lose his job over his women-hating, misogyny-enforcing, insensitive, tin-eared, offensive, intrusive joke? (Not over writing it, which he didn’t, but over not just plain balking when it showed up on his cue-card handler’s queue.)
Well, it seems a little harsh, and he has apologized, and he probably won’t do it again but… yeah, maybe I wouldn’t fire him (not knowing the entire decision-making process or who else has already been disciplined or fired for letting the joke get as far as his cue cards) but I wouldn’t shed tears if someone else did.
But Samhita points out he just made a joke. Gov. Palin and a whole raft of her ilk have not only advocated but signed women-hating, misogyny-enforcing, insensitive, tin-eared, offensive, intrusive legislation into law! And not only are they not embarrassed about it, not only are they not apologizing, and not only are they bragging about it, they’re actively and openly planning more of the same… and in the process appropriating not only the tactics of those they would oppress but the language!
And not to put too fine a point on it but that they know the tactics and language of feminism makes their opposition to it more, not less women-hating, misogyny-enforcing, insensitive, tin-eared, offensive, and intrusive.
Why are they going to be asked to resign or be fired?
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Quick note: ever since Reagan administration spin-meisters architected the “news cycle” there’s been a tendency to imagine that only one thing can be done at once or that attention can be paid to only one initiative, event, or scandal at a time. And so if you were used to that philosophy you might mistake my greater condemnation of Palin et. al as some sort of negative, “bigger fish to fry” defense of Letterman. Au contraire! One of the coolest thing about the Obama era is it turns it’s perfectly possible to do two things at once. Maybe even more! No reason, therefore, to let Palin or Letterman off the hook.
