The perfect Feminist is Sarah Palin.
She is beautiful, thin, even athletic, successful, happily married, a good mother and a grandmother. She’s got it all – everything those Suffragettes were fighting for back in 1920. Not only can she vote, she got voted for! And, she was a great Governor. She’s got everything those sixties Gloria Steinem’s wanted. But, the Gloria’s won’t admit it because Sarah thinks “right.” Liberals want tolerance, but only for themselves.
I love the way the Palins navigate Sarah’s fame. I watched Todd and Sarah at the Searchlight and Boston events this year. They looked like they were on a date. He had his arm around her protectively as they slinked through the column of bodyguards worming their way to the stage, where he watched her shine and then embraced her back into the SUV of safety. That is Feminism. A feminine woman achieving goals with the blessing of her man, while she simultaneously supports his career endeavors and celebrates his masculinity. I read her book. They are in love and enjoy mutual respect with a splash of sexiness. There is a fire there. You gotta love it.
Now, I watch other women bragging about their single parenting. They “don’t need a man.” They can buy a baby. They can do anything a man can do. Well, they look stupid and desperate to me. First of all, women and men are very different and personally, when I’m being chased by a murderer/rapist/what-have-you, I’d rather have a big, strong man protecting me than a woman. I had a cop once, who came to the site of my car accident. She had long, blonde hair blowin’ in the wind, and two inch long, bright pink, fake nails. I mean, really. How do you get your finger through that hole to pull the trigger? I can’t even button my blouse with fake nails. Yeesh!
I’ve struggled with the career/family thing my whole life. I only came to Hollywood in 1980 because I was single, and I knew that it would be the only time in my life when I could chase a whim. I gave up an engagement ring for it and my true love married someone else. I got the career, but I gave up something. When I got reunited with my true love ten years later, I had to choose again, between career and husband. His job was across the country. This time I chose the husband. It was so painful to give up the career I loved, that I got a tattoo. It was a permanent, physical symbol of the emotional pain I was going through. What was the tattoo? My husband’s initials. P.W. The tattoo artist said, “You want a P.U. on your butt?!” I said, “NO! P.W.!!”
The joy of motherhood and the hot, husband time gradually dulled the
absence of the cheering crowds, and the creative stimulation, but the career monster lurked in the shadows ready to seduce me given the chance. 15 long years went by.
When one daughter got married, the ambitious monster popped out again and my long-suffering husband commuted from FL to LA for three years, keeping his job, financially supporting me and letting me give it a shot. I lived in LA with my teenager and she tried not to miss her friends and family back home.
I got a few roles. ..even at age 50. I got a great part playing the wife of Jeff Fahey in a Pureflix film called Marriage Retreat. Ironically, my lines all reflected my personal struggle.
My character had to look deep into Jeff’s intensely ice blue eyes, and reply to his question about moving. He said, “… what do you want to do?” My character’s line was, “You are my home.” Hmm. I guess I took the part home with me because I promptly told my family I’d leave my beloved friends and adventures in LA and move back to Florida to be the Grandma to my upcoming first grandchild due Jan. 1, 2011. That’s what they all wanted. So, you see I understand the Feminist Dilemma.
I see ambitious women splattered about naked, and well, pornographic on TV, in movies, in magazines, on billboards and everywhere.
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I see women falling for the lie, even Baptists like me. I used to get asked to play nudity a lot in my twenties. Strangely, that isn’t a problem anymore! No one asks! But, my daughters see and feel the emphasis our society places on sexuality. My teenager’s behavior changed when I transferred her from a secular school, to a Bible based school. Her clothes and her conversations changed. Her face brightened. When her daily MTV watching and junk food changed to cheer practice on a team that included prayer and Bible study, her face began to glow with health and joy and she quit asking for piercings and drawing magic marker tattoos all over her arms and legs. (I know, I’m a bad example.)
Now that women have the opportunity to have it all, (excluding Muslim women who have no freedom), we have difficult choices. Back a few years, I took my small kids to LA for an experimental year to see if I could get some acting work. Daddy commuted. I got one episode of The X Files. ( I did get to kiss David Duchovny, well, my character did, but maybe I should say I “had to” kiss David, instead of I “got to”….now that they say he’s a sex addict!…you know… germs…) We had a family meeting of sorts. On a balancing scale, I held one X Files episode in one hand, and missing Daddy/Husband for a year in the other hand. I chose to go back to Florida and be The Housewife. The kids were happier.
The last month of my LA leased apartment, I got a pilot with Sofia Vergara, Joey Lawrence, and Jon Lovitz. (It ultimately landed in the garbage can but I got a nice check.). My family was back in Florida so I wrote this sad song;
Two Weeks Away
There’s a cat litter box with no kitty poop in it.
There is silence in every room.
There are toys here and there,
But no laughter anywhere.
Shadows dance as I wade through the gloom.
I stop and stare at pictures on the wall.
They seem to caaaaalll out my name.
But when I touch their precious faces
It’s just paper and glass in a frame.
I tell myself I’m not sad, this is good, it’s not bad.
I must work, they are safe, I’m just an airplane away.
But after a while, I just can’t fake a smile,
I’ll go back, I’ll go back, I’ll go back.
One’s at the computer.
One watches cartoons.
Mommy’s cooking spinach,
Daddy vacuums.
Just to know they’re nearby
Is the joy of a home.
In the corner of my eye watching them play,
Is the bliss that I miss at a moment like this,
So I cry, so I cry, so I cry;
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You’ll never know dear how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away.
Feminism. Such a strange word. When I hear it I first think of the most
masculine and angry women, women with not a shred of femininity. Funny
how words are. Then, I think of the meaning they want it to hold. And
that word is Sarah Palin.