is it unsisterly to think that Sarah Palin is horrid and the worst possible example of a woman in power

[beforesunrise]

ok, I used to think that as women we ought to support other women to almost unreasonable levels. i was totally for Hillary despite Obama's star appeal.... but then came Sarah Palin. i abhor her and everything she stands for. i am incredibly disgusted by the level of PC that prevents people from stating the obvious, ie that she is an incredibly BAD mother and she gives women a bad name.. i mean WTF, going back to work after 3 DAYS of giving birth, exposing your pregnant 17 yo to national attentionand not being there for her while she needs you most... she keeps banging on about being a hockey mom but having delivered 5 children is not the same thing about being a good mum. she is also incredibly, scarily unqualified for the job. i cannot find one ounce of feminist feeling for her... and it makes me question my beliefs!

It's like a 'soccer mom', only with hockey as the sport where you turn up to support your children in their games, make refreshments at half-time etc. It's an all-American thing to be.

I think 95% of mumsnet posters would think Sarah P back at work 3 days after giving birth and me taking 2 weeks holiday when I had my first three babies before returning to work full time when they were 2 weeks old is wrong. I would be delighted if 95% thought it was fine but I bet I'm right. I suppose it might be 70% think I'm wrong. But I bet it's most. However I suspect many woudl think it's fine to return after 3 or 6 months ad others a year as if wrenching a child from a routine at 1 year is better for it than establishing patterns and connections and routines when it is very little (which in my view is fairer on the baby).

I don't think it's wrong to go back so soon after giving birth. I do think it's wrong to assume every woman should do that, but so far that's not been part of her policy statements for fair play to her.

Apparently, she's more popular there than here - maybe media coverage, I know not because I no longer live there and so pretty much all I see is British coverage.

No Xenia. I couldn't care less when you returned to work after you had your children. It was your business. You however do not extend that same courtesy to me.

I don't think I've ever said every parent should return to work within 2 weeks of birth. But a lot of women on mumsnet have criticised me for doing so in a way they would never do with a man.It's the expectation that women will take months , a year, years off placed on them by employers, other mothers, family members and their husbands that is one of the reasons they find it hard to get back to work or decide not to. It should be a neutral decision entirely up to a man or woman.

It's certainly provoked some interesting comment, even one of the men on Any Questinos on radio 4 was making sexist comments suggestiong women but not men should stay home as was a BBC journalist on the radio causing a female politician here to say don't they send BBC staff on how to be PC courses any more....

I do think we need some positive discrimination. It's why I suppose Harmon's Equality Bill and I woudl like to see a 40% of all boards must be female law in the UK just to continue to aid women given so many of them seem to end up in sexist marriages with men who don't lift a finger at home and expect them to do all things child related.

to the OP : which other women in power were you thinking of, specifically?

Lol at the Lipstick Pit-bull formerly a Miss Congeniality

aahhhrrgh just come back to this after a few hours (had a challenging day with my dds...), so first of all apologies for throwing the stone as it were and then disappearing. what an interesting discussion...

first of all: the only reason i care about her parenting is because she keeps banging on about it. i simply detest the way she keeps bringing her motherhood into it (i am a professional as well as a mother and i don't walk into a meeting at work saying, hey, listen to me, i have a vagina! i have kids! therefore, i can do the job!). so, if she uses the fact she is a mother to justify her credentials, then yes, i feel entitled to have an opinion about her motherhood skills.
say, if Bill Clinton had campaigned on a "i am a great husband" ticket, i would have probably gotten equally exercised.

and i have absolutely no qualms about the fact that she has political ambitions, hell, i salute her for it, i just think that no one forced her to have a child right in the middle of her governorship term- other than the fact she prob doesnt use contraception, but i simply abhor the hypocrisy of someone who thinks giving birth to a child and then abandoning him (if she gets elected, that's what will happen, effectively, i am pretty sure she will be in DC 24/7) is an example of brilliant morals. and again, i wouldnt particularly care except she is putting morals at the centre of her political agenda.

i also get very annoyed about the blatant double standards to which different women are subjected: Hillary was lambasted for being too ambitious, too shrewd, too 'unwomanly', while at the same time her standing by her man through infidelities etc was interpreted just a symptom of her ambition, rather than respect of her marriage vows. she was repeatedly attacked for her gender by both republicans and democrats, and yet she was the most qualified of all candidates. yet we can say nothing about Palin's gender? bollocks to that!

Xenia, i dont know you, and i am sure you do a great job of both parenting and whatever career you have, but i disagree completely that it is the pressure of society that prevents women from going back to work within 2 weeks. it is biology (most mammals, let alone women, are still a wreck 2 weeks after birth), survival (in the form of breastfeeding) and instinct- i bet you that most women who are forced by financial need to go back to work after 2 weeks of giving birth are feeling horrible, weak and devastated. i suspect you are the exception rather than the norm. the 5% figure you quote sounds about right.

Donnie- there are plenty of women in positions of power both here and in the US (Angela Merkel, many scandinavian PMs etc, Condoleeza Rice, Nancy Pelosi). most often you don't even know what their family status is, and i think that is the real equality!

beforesunrise I absolutely agree. But in the US it seems to be de rigeur to parade your family and for them to be part of your campaigning (for example see www.mccainblogette.com/)
Personality of course is relevant in the UK too, but can you imagine Brown or Cameron parading their kids at their party shindings?
Personally I think it is because Presidential elections are shallow affairs where people can and do reduce the message to the "hockey mum" = my sort of gal, so I'll vote for her, POW = moral, so I'll vote for him etc etc

I am not keen on her, she's abit aggressive but then again I think I read her DH is a SAHD so at least her kids have a parent at home. Saw a pic of her with a dead mousse/dear..yuk. Also read that her waters broke with her DS but rather than go to the hospital she continued with a conference. I know I would have put my child first and gone straight to hospital, especially as her pregnancy was high risk. Still, that's just what I read, and it's not my country.

i dont think i am doing anyone's work, i am just expressing my opinions! what i am saying is that i wish we could get to a stage where a woman doesnt feel the need to remind the world she is a woman and a mother first and a (whatever) second. wheel out your family as much as you want, but that is a slightly different thing.
Hillary did not frame herself as a mother, whereas Palin is doing that. and then accusing anyone who dares criticize her of sexism. that is frankly a bit ludicrous.

If women want to put their careers first or high priority, then that is fine. But there are many women, me included, who are happy to be more family centred and don't feel they have to be just like men and that it is OK to be different. Choice is the key theme. Being militant that everyone should choose the same as you is abit weird and makes me question whether someone is truly happy or feels threatened by anothers choices.

He's not a SAHD. He works for BP (one of the reasons greens worry about her ideas on energy) and he is a commercial fisherman too, oh and apparently he advises the Alaskan government and is a community worker too. Finally he is a champion snowmobile racer (all from Wikipaedia). So I think it's fair to say he is a busy man in his own right.

Although I have also read that he does the lions share of parenting and only sleeps two hours a day...

I'm not bothered about whether or not she went back to work 3 days or 3 years after her children were born. I am worried about her horribly right wing politics and dangerously barmy religious beliefs. Her gender has nowt to do with it.

Dittany- apparently there was meant to be a film introducing Palin, whcih got cancelled because Giuliani overran. it was entitled "Mother, Moosehunter, Maverick". it's a bit if on my cv i wrote "Mother, Cinemagoer, Joker" or something like this.

anyway- as i said i think she is doing more than wheeling out her family. and i suppose i am singling her out because as a woman i have high expectations of other women and i am saddened by her reactionary, chauvinistic views on almost everything, and by her shameless use of her gender for political advantage. that does not advance women, it sets us back.

The devil's work on this patriarchal planet. Thank God God is female.

"horrible, weak and devastated." no, surely it's easier to sit at a desk than run round after your 3 and 1 year old and look after the new baby which is the lot of many a new mother in week two who doesn't have the luxury of care, a nanny or a partner around. I just don't get this - hard to work at 2 weeks, unless your work is pulling a plough or something.

Did you not feel quite sleep-deprived, though, Xenia? I found the night feeds pretty tiring.

Hmm... As I had c-sections both times I certainly would not have been able to return to work after two weeks. Nor would I have been welcome. In any case maternity pay mean't I didn't have to, so why would I want to? Second time around I kept my nanny on part time (using part of that maternity pay) as I didn't fancy looking after my 16mth old and the new baby every day.

I do think returning to work after three days having had a premature special needs baby is a little "macho" perhaps, but the US isn't good on maternity rights etc, and I supose that SP might have felt under pressure (sad IMO). My husband had two weeks paternity leave to meet both our babies and support me, and I think that should be a minium for all families.

hmm, there is a HUGE difference between being a good mother and being a good vp (not saying Sarah Palin is either because quite frankly I don't know enough about her to judge - which is terrifying with regards to the 2nd point...)

on a side note I sat a university final 29 hours after giving birth, it wasn't fun but I managed.
Some women find child birth easier than others, there are so many variables, in my case I had a healthy 4lb 7oz baby whom my DH sat with in the hospital while I sat the finals!

hmm, there is a HUGE difference between being a good mother and being a good vp (not saying Sarah Palin is either because quite frankly I don't know enough about her to judge - which is terrifying with regards to the 2nd point...)

on a side note I sat a university final 29 hours after giving birth, it wasn't fun but I managed.
Some women find child birth easier than others, there are so many variables, in my case I had a healthy 4lb 7oz baby whom my DH sat with in the hospital while I sat the finals!

I went back to school a week or so after DD was born!

OH did raise his eyebrows that I'd take a year maternity leave but put a future child in nursery at the first opportunity (that was tongue in cheek though).

I've not really seen that much about this woman. Am finding the whole thing a bit boring and dragged out I'm afraid. She looks a bit too perfect looking, plus I disagree with her anti-abortion rules. Not too bothered about her pregnant daughter - 17, not really a big deal in my opinion, although it's a shame the whole world knows & is discussing it.

Would be interesting to know what my sister (who lives in the US) thinks of her.

I don't like her for the extreme insularity which she expressed, was also appalled to see the baby going from lap to lap for the photo ops - was also suspicious about how the baby slept through all that din.