Sarah Palin

There is some buzz going around the blogosphere this week (and in the Bitch comments section) about sexism and conservative women. What with David Letterman making jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter, Playboy listing the conservative women they'd like to "hate f_ck", and former Miss California's anatomy being discussed all over the place, it does seem like conservative women have been the target of more sexism than usual lately. It's no wonder, then, that Amy Siskind called people out on today's Huffington Post blog for selective sexism.

I agree with Siskind that sexism is unacceptable regardless of the circumstances, but should anti-feminists like Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean have their misogynist cake and eat their equal rights too? And can they wash the cake down with the supportive milk of the feminists they're so quick to condemn? (Okay, enough with the weird cake analogies, I promise.)

Bristol Palin went on several talk shows recently as a spokeswoman advocating against teen pregnancy, and reactions seem to be split between finding the whole thing deliciously ironic or wholly unsurprising. Although drumming attention for a critical issue in the United States (teen pregnancy rates are still extremely high--and you thought swine flu was a pandemic!), the coverage of teen pregnancy rings hollow—not only was discussion centered around practicing abstinence, but Bristol herself rarely gets a word in edgewise.

Almost invariably, Bill O'Reilly yells from the confines of the television in my Nana's living room. Nana likes to keep the TV on for background noise and she loves Fox News. I typically do my best to ignore Bill's rants, but once in a while, I just can't look away...