Vered’s Blog

And on the other side of the political map – choosing Sara Palin as the VP for the Republicans has launched a huge attack on her with the title of “You are NOT Hillary”.

I am a die-hard supporter of Hillary Clinton. I certainly agree that Sara Palin is NOT Hillary. More than that, I certainly do not think that her views are empowering messages for women, but, there is a point where I find this whole argument going far too much to the extreme and being unfair to the achievement she has made.

You can argue from here to eternity that being a mayor of a 9,900 people town and only 20 months Governor of a state that has less people than some of the districts in other states does not qualify you to become a VP. You can argue (like I do!) that being anti- abortions, pro-gun, against putting polar bears on the endangered species list and pro drilling for oil in Alaska, is certainly not supporting what I call Feminine Leadership core values. This is certainly not a woman that I would vote as a role model for Feminine Leadership.

However, we can not ignore the achievement that she did make, which is becoming the 1st Republican VP nominee.
You can give the power to the fact that McCain needed the disappointed Hillary voters; you can give the power to the fact that she will not challenge McCain, but the fact remains – that from all the other possible candidates - SHE was chosen.

No body achieves this position without being a powerful and smart person. It reminds me of an old debate that I once had with Nisandeh, my partner, can we count top-models as powerful and successful women?

He said that they have to be in order to reach such level. His argument was that there were hundreds of beautiful girls, but in order to reach the level of a top-model, you’ll need to have the drive, the determination, the self-discipline and the willing to do anything in order to get there. All this translates into a powerful person and a successful one. Even if they had a great manager, or a great agent, they still had to do the work day in and day out.

It was hard for me to accept it, but I realized that it was true.

We women don’t like to admit that we can be BOTH beautiful and smart! Beautiful and successful and beautiful and powerful! In a way we prefer to label other women under the titles of Barbie or Smartie, but let the two never entwine.

Well, life is not like that and we can not take away the respect that those women that combine the two deserve. The fact that Sara Palin was a beauty queen and a cheer leader should not be held against her, but for her. In order to become a Governor she had to give hours of debates, speeches and visiting the neighborhoods. Nothing comes for free, certainly not in America.

Any working mother would know how hard that is to do, not to say with 4 kids at home. We should respect and admire her ability to do it. I certainly don’t know how she managed to do it, having only 1 child at home to take care of. I’m in full admiration of any woman that can achieve such a project.

You can agree or disagree with her views about pro-life, but you can certainly not ignore the courage that it takes in making a conscious decision to bring into the world a down-syndrome child and be committed into raising him to the best of your abilities. This for me is a demonstration of courage and strong character.

So all in all, you might not agree with Sara Palin, you might not even consider her as an appropriate VP nominee, but in my book she has certainly opened the road for women to realize that they can make a difference. She certainly can become a role model of how we can combine the old Barbie and Smartie image and that we can be BOTH and not have to choose anymore between one or the other.

For me choosing Sara Palin as VP nominee is certainly another step in breaking old patterns of thinking in the US and should be regarded as an historical day.