I heard a story come on about an upcoming interview between Sarah Palin and Chris Wallace of Fox News. The story went something like this... Chris Wallace was doing a live interview with Don Imus and Imus asked Wallace, "are you going to have Sarah Palin sitting on your lap while you conduct the interview with her?" and Wallace replied "one can only hope."
There was some backlash from other media journalists on how this was a sexist remark and how women are still being treated with less respect than their male counterparts. One journalist that had something to say about this was Cokie Roberts, who is a senior news analyst for NPR. She was a guest on the Michel Martin NPR program Can I just tell you? where Roberts and Martin discussed how women are easy targets for this type of harassment, and that men escape this type of behavior.
Now, Don Imus is not new to the arena of criticism. In 2007 he called the Rutgers women's basketball team a bunch of "Nappy Headed Hos" which landed him in some pretty hot water. He was eventually fired only to get his job back after he met with and apologized to the Rutgers team.
After Roberts' and Martins' opinions of the interview got back to Imus he was the first to jump all over the story. He and Wallace once again were chatting live on air and they decided to talk about Cokie Roberts and smear her as if she had no room to question them, completely demeaning this very successful women.
To me, it's ridiculous how they make her out to be the bad guy (gal) in the story, saying something along the lines of Cokie's mind is in the gutter most of the time. Imus, of course, makes an attempt to play down what he means
IMUS: So you know, that morning that you were on and I asked you you (sic) were going to interview Sarah Palin and I said is she going to be sitting on your lap? Here is what I meant by that and I would tell you otherwise, I meant was it going to be a friendly interview.
WALLACE: That's not what you meant at all.
From: Huffington Post
Wallace then tries to clear himself from all the garbage and says he was just trying to get away from the conversation. They then go on to bad mouth Roberts and call her hysterical. Classic example of a women, right?
So my question here is: where is Sarah Palin and what would she say about this?
Cokie Roberts and Michel Martin put themselves out there to defend women from the feminist-bashing male media and to question why it continually happens mostly to women. I want to ask "would Sarah Palin stand up for herself and other women and say enough is enough, or would she sit on Chris Wallace's lap to get a vote?"
I would like to think she is a feminist in some small way and wants to see the movement of sexist behavior shut down. This would be a great time for her to step up and have a say, and to fight for women everywhere. She is in a fabulous power position and a lot of people are listening to her. (I personally am not.) But if Sarah Palin was to say something of great value like "stop demeaning women," I might just pay her a little attention.
I don't see with all her winking, her red leather jackets and her "you betchas," Sarah Palin will be stepping up to the plate and pissing off the men in the media that love her best!
As a matter of fact, I think this is one scenario where being sexualized is paying off. Sarah Palin definitely is appealing to a certain demographic and she knows it and loves it.
For the rest of us, it is just one more sock in the gut!
Photo from Scrape TV.
