By Sharanya Sharma

Something you should know about this article: It may look like another one of those now rather repetitive pieces on Sarah Palin, but it is not.

I know you’re all probably getting a little sick of hearing about her latest screw-up (not the least of which is calling Putin big and ugly), or about how she’s a sexy soccer mom, and you’re beginning to wonder if your Bi-College news staff has anything better to write about. But, as the proverbial saying goes, “why look a gift horse in the mouth?” She makes laughing at her much, much too easy for intelligent people. In fact, it’s almost criminal. No human being should embody and exemplify President Abraham Lincoln’s saying, “’Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt” so wholly and faithfully.

But I digress.

This article may look like it’s about Sarah Palin, but it is in fact about Donny Deutsch.

Mr. Deutsch, that fine specimen of American manhood from CNBC’s "The Big Idea," has proclaimed that Palin’s progress as a woman is ushering in a “new form of the feminist ideal”—one in which women need to be attractive and flirty in order to succeed, never mind their credentials.

In order to prove this, he decided to equate Palin to a product. (Yes, that’s right, a product. I was actually offended for her.) He then proceeded to list all of the qualities that make her “sell”—being a sexy, smart, feisty, super mom. He also said that Palin did the one thing Hillary Clinton did not—“put a skirt on.” Deutsch declared passionately that Palin “sells” because she is someone who women want to be and men want to “mate” with. “I want her watching my kids,” Deutsch exclaimed. “I want her laying next to me in bed.”

Oh, yes, Donny. Because being a good babysitter/sex object is exactly what feminism is all about. What have we been thinking for the past oh, I don’t know, one hundred plus years? If only Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton could hear you now—they’d be so proud of how you’ve single-handedly tried to undo their entire lives’ work. How could we not have seen it before?

Welcome to twenty-first century America, ladies and gentlemen—an age in which we have made so much progress that we’ve created a feminist ideal where a woman is qualified for the vice presidency because she is bedable and looks like she might be good with kids.

When asked how liberals might combat this “new form of feminism,” Deutsch replied dismissively, “They’re going to battle it with all left-brain stuff. They’re going to say issues and this and that. It doesn’t matter.” Hi, excuse me, this is the right election, isn’t it? I didn’t accidentally walk in on a high school beauty pageant? I mean, God forbid we actually talk about the issues when it comes to a presidential campaign.

I honestly don’t know which is more offensive—Mr. Deutsch’s chauvinist pig-spit, or the fact that he is using said pig-spit to show that Sarah Palin, of all people, is an ideal feminist. Never mind that she wants to take away a woman’s right to choose while banning sex education in schools, so that essentially the only choice left for a girl is to become an uneducated teenage mother. It is absolutely galling to have someone call what Deutsch is describing—that is, why Sarah Palin “sells”—as feminism. Since when does feminism mean that you stand still and look pretty?

It’s not enough that Republicans are spouting unconventionalities (for them, anyway) such as “breaking the glass ceiling” and so forth, but now we actually have people misconstruing the ideals of feminism to such a degree as to turn it backwards. If feminism means categorizing women into those who wear skirts and those who don’t, then clearly we haven’t come as far as we think we have. And it is maddening that people like Deutsch have been and likely always will be holding us back with vitriol like this for centuries to come.

And, by the way, Donny, this issue-concerned feminist wears a skirt.

Sharma, a sophomore English major, can be reached at srsharma@brynmawr.edu.

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