Just Saying - Female Politician Supporter NOT Palin Supporter per se.

Sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. To continue from my earlier posts about women in politics and women in the media, I do not support Sarah Palin, but I support her right to be seen as a politician not a gun-toting bikini modelling bad mother.

Although American presidential campaigns draw heavily on personality, there is a great difference between the portrayal of male and female politicians. I am a pretty unbiased observer and I know that Palin totes guns, wore a bikini or pageant modelled and has lots of kids and there's something wrong with that somehow. She's not a good mother. She's also not a good manager. Inexperienced and can't cut it.
Conversely, my Obama information is, he's black and very popular. Does he have a family? I figure he has a wife somewhere or else the absence would have been noted. Some say he is inexperienced and can't cut it.


It's driving me nuts, this morning, I have to google his family. Wow, multi-culturally, go Obama! In terms of family, you guessed it, one wife, 2 darling children. All kind of invisibly good.

I posted earlier about my disgust at the complete invisibility of family as a professional issue for men, whereas FAMILY IS ALWAYS A LIABILITY FOR WOMEN in Gartner's Elephant in the Room - I am woman, hear me trumpet!

Even worse. The bikini modelling gun-toting Palins are all hoax photos. Snopes. com . That this is news to me shows how much I don't care. ALSO see Huffington Post for YouTube video analysis of Obamagirl. Both hoax virals - helping or hindering?

GOOGLE CHALLENGE: the first 20 images for "obama" vs the first 20 images for "palin". This is feminist analysis 101:

1. Obama: action shot - Palin: head shot
2. Obama: head shot at whitehouse - Palin: family shot
3. Obama: head shot w flag - Palin: action shot
4. Obama: head shot at whitehouse - Palin: head shot

in summary, one wife shot for Obama's first 20 images, no family. for Palin, 1 family, 1 husband, 1 glossy magazine cover, 1 hate site, no Whitehouses, US flags or Supermen but a few Michael Palins for good measure. If you feel the need, try it yourself.

Julia Baird's book Media Tarts explores a myriad of the ways in which media differentiation works. An example, I like that I can use the surname only "Palin" and not qualify with "Sarah Palin". Unlike Hilary Clinton, although there are other reasons, for that one. In the papers recently Reba Meagher was more frequently referred to as "Reba" than "Reba Meagher" and hardly ever as "Meagher".