Why is a personal attack on Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin like a punch to my stomach? I’ve examined this surprising visceral reaction in light of my own life.
If I had been confronted with a pregnancy as an insolvent, immature unmarried of the 1960s, abject fear may have sent me to an illegal abortionist, even with all the dangers that a back street brought. So I am pro-choice, but eclectically hold pro-life beliefs that partial birth abortion, or that of any viable fetus is murder most foul. If Gov. Palin walks the whole walk of pro-life, it’s not a threat to me or Roe v. Wade.
As a young bride trying to be a good wife, I got up once at 4:30 a.m. and went hunting. When the squirrel met my gaze, I found I could not shoot. So I am not a hunter.
Sexism, however, laugh-out-loud boisterous, howling in the open and in your face, is something both Sarah Palin and I know plenty about.
American women may point to the ream of legal documents of protected freedoms, but ingrained cultural attitudes are not moved or intimidated easily. In quiet times, sexism is a superficially scabbed over wound easily scratched open by the slightest scrape threatening to shift the balance of power. Add that to the snooty-speak of those who breathe that rarefied atmosphere found around ivy-league colleges and media editorial boards, and it is an explosive nasty mix.
I expect viciousness at worst, snarkiness at best, from the elite cognoscenti, who strut, pose and pontificate as they link arms and urge each other on. Sadly some of these peacocks are women who are grateful to be let in as far as the peripheral cloakroom of the boys’ club. But don’t be surprised when your neighbor or friend takes the cue and lashes out too.
I find women are most terrible and cruel to other women. Perhaps it is jealousy that makes us project our deepest frustrations onto other women who may achieve what we never will. We immediately go for the jugular, probably the reason we were eliminated from manly wars of the past with their rules about fair play, and calling a truce to share coffee with enemies in foxholes on Christmas Eve. I find most men begin tentatively swiping with a ping-pong paddle, before progressing in matador-like stages to the honorable kill.
There were almost no women administrators in the 1967 City of Baltimore government when a director hired me as administrative officer to run the daily business of the department. Needing to work, I signed a pledge he had written that I would not marry for five years or have a baby for 10 years.
He laughingly made his excuses as he introduced me to incredulous colleagues by saying, “She was the lesser of three evils on the civil service exam list, and so I had to chose a woman. One guy was over 65 and the other was a black musician.”
Wanting to get along and glad to be in the cloakroom of the club, I laughed too. The director retired after 15 years. I took the exam for his job and came out on top. When they chose the man from Indiana who later was removed, the board called me before them and the guy in charge explained that even though I was first in all categories, “We just can’t see you kicking butt in the office every day and then going home to change diapers.”
Mayor William Donald Schaefer rescued me immediately by asking me to join his staff. Always without fanfare, he provided open skies overhead. He was rewarded for his courage by a hit piece in Esquire Magazine that made disparaging note of others and me as his “all girl Gestapo” who would probably drink Kool-Aid on his behalf out of gratitude to be around a seat of power. Devastating at the time, it was mild compared to today’s vitriol spewed at Sarah Palin. So when they punch her, I instinctively cover my stomach for the both of us.
Stephanie Esworthy is a writer living in Bel Air. Reach her at [email protected].
