'Sisterhood' bars women who achieve and believe

Published in Cumberland Times-News Letters on September 25, 2008.

"Liberals see now, as do the rest of us, a seemingly truly liberated American woman emerging to claim her place on the national stage: A mindful high achiever who is happy and grounded."

To the Editor:

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." Prophetic words, it seems, written in The Mourning Bride (1697) by then 27-year-old English playwright and poet William Congreve. I wonder what profundity young Mr. Congreve might pen today if he could describe the angst being acted out on the public stage by liberal Democratic women against Sarah Palin and the likes of her.

Now they claim, as illustrated in Ellen Goodman's column (“She just happens to wear a skirt,” Sept. 20), that Palin might be proven to be female only genetically; that she is a “good ol' boy (who) happens to wear a skirt;" that she represents a women’s movement’s ascendance to mediocrity alongside a man; that she has risen out of “nowhere” to launch an “insidious” attack on feminism and the liberal agenda; that she is a pathetic example, apparently, of a disdainful womanhood in America today; and that any woman who will cast a vote in her support betrays some sort of pact, or worse.

What an inane mischaracterization and disenfranchisement of bedrock, salt-of-the-earth, hard-working, God-fearing, family-rearing mainstream American women today. Since when should it behoove a woman to desire to belong to Goodman’s so-called “sisterhood” – an elite club, as Goodman paints it, that excludes and defames women who achieve more or believe more than they do?

Goodman laments in her column that now, as evidenced by Palin’s selection, “Republicans are fighting for admission credentials to the sisterhood.” What? It seems more likely that Palin and those of her mind or ability have never thought of or sought out a “sisterhood.” Seems these may be more the type of women who believe it is possible (and desirable) for a woman to stand on her own strengths and achieve on her own merits -- with practical assistance along the way, perhaps, from her family and friends and supporters who know and treasure her and her capabilities.

Not to minimize the heroic efforts of those who have been important in the women’s movement, but the bullying groupthink tactics and the outlandish lashings-out of these “sisters” are over the top. For too many years, every woman has had to live with the expectations that she should want to be like them: Angry, insolent, combative – unhappy, at the very least, and loud about it. Well, “sisters.” not all women are dissatisfied with their lives, or angst-ridden, or constantly grasping for something that eludes them, or desirous to take or destroy something that someone else has earned or accomplished -- because they have come to grips with their own and others' worth and dignity, and capabilities.

Goodman and her “sisters” are upended because Hillary is out and Sarah is in. Liberals see now, as do the rest of us, a seemingly truly liberated American woman emerging to claim her place on the national stage: A mindful high achiever who is happy and grounded.

Nancy E. Thoerig
Mount Savage