Why McCain Only Broke a Pebble instead of Ground

Election day is less than two weeks away. Woo-hoo. This is the most exciting election we've had in this country in a very long time, maybe the most exciting since the very first time we got to vote for president. Whatever happens, the perception of the office will have been wrenched into a new vision of possibility for many millions of young, aspiring leaders. The stereotype will have been broken, and in a very "in-your-face" way that no one will miss. We've had firsts before - the first Catholic, etc, but until now all the firsts were wrapped in the same kind of paper - white male.

So this election will create new possibilities in a big way - but the possibility of women as president is still pretty shallow, and here's why: McCain put a woman on the ticket in a race that he actually had a good possibility of winning (unlike Dukakis, who took the "chance" when he really didn't have to worry about it costing him the race since he was clearly going to lose no matter what he did). But McCain chose a woman to fill a very sterotypical role - that of protege and mentee, rather than a fully formed and equal candidate. It is a big step, and I give him credit for that. But he was unable to bring himself to choose a woman who was his political equal. Men are much more comfortable with women in support roles than true co-equal roles, and much as businessmen of old relied on their secretaries for important, substantive work (think Perry Mason and Della Street) but never allowed them in a truly equal partnership, McCain has chosen a woman with definite political gifts, but not in anywhere near a position to "threaten" his own dominance in the team.

There are many well-qualified Republican women he could have chosen. But what if they challenged his authority?

I think McCain is mostly a good man, and I do not in any way mean to imply that he consciously considered this when choosing Palin. But I do absolutely believe that he found her more palatable than other female republicans because of it.


Here's some other interesting, sort of related blog posts:
Remarkably Unremarkable - Political Women in the Limelight
Clinton on Palin

Palin, Clinton, Michelle Obama: Double standards for women in politics?