Conservatives Want Feminists to Defend Sarah Palin

Within the last week, as shocking as this may seem, two separate human beings insulted the honor of the unimpeachable living saint, Sarah Palin.

I know, right? All Palin did was compare the federal debt to slavery, and then all these mean liberals came after her and said mean words about her. And where were the feminists? Nowhere to be found.

First, there was Cher, with an admittedly less than clever tweet calling Palin the dreaded “C-WORD”! Like, literally. She said “C-Word.”

Go to dictionary,& look up The “C”Word,….next 2 the definition…you’ll see a Pic of Sarah PALIN ! NO…WAIT …SHES UNDER DUMB C WORD
— Cher (@cher)

Michelle Malkin and friends at Twitchy was angered at the fact that no one on the left cares when Cher calls a conservative woman a cunt, because the evil leftists are all secret misogynists who don’t think conservative women are real, or something. Because being called a part of the female body is the worst thing anyone can possibly be called.

Then, there was Martin Bashir, who thought it might be nice to talk about how bad slavery actually was, in comparison to the federal debt. He read an excerpt from the diary of an 18th century slave owner describing one of the punishments he used to keep his slaves in line — making them defecate in each other’s mouths. Which, you know, is maybe kind of a worse thing to deal with on a daily basis than the federal debt is. He then suggested that perhaps someone should shit in Palin’s mouth, so that she might begin to understand the difference between the two situations.

Both of these incidents infuriated the conservative media. Ben Shapiro at Breitbart was indignant over the fact that both NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation refused to stand up for Palin and denounce Bashir’s remarks. Once again, this was chalked up to the fact that feminists give liberals a pass on misogyny. He compared it to the refusal of feminist groups to freak out over Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs.

I think these people might just be a little confused about how feminism works. We’re not fighting for men to never cheat on their wives; we’re not fighting to never be insulted for any reason. No one is fighting for chivalry.

Bashir’s comment about Sarah Palin was not a gendered insult. It was vulgar, sure, but he would have said the same thing if she were a man going around comparing slavery to things that are not at all like slavery. It had nothing to do with the fact that she happens to have lady parts. Thus, not our problem.

Quite frankly, I think he made a pretty good point. Stop comparing things to slavery or Hitler without actually thinking for a second about what that actually means.

There isn’t a feminist on earth that argues that women cannot be insulted. That would be ridiculous. On top of that, thanks to the GOP, we have 80,000 other things to worry about. Like our bodily autonomy and such.

Perhaps, if we didn’t have to worry about the fact that now 77% of Texas women are cut off from reproductive health centers, or equal pay, or maternity leave, or marriage equality, or companies trying to get out of giving women insurance that covers birth control, or rape and dumb politicians saying dumb things about rape, or actual violence against women, or transgender rights, or any of the other things we have to fight against on any given day, we could concern ourselves with things like Sarah Palin being called a bad name.

For now, defend your own people, and stop looking to progressives for validation.

[ Photo by Flickr user Gage Skidmore ]