VP Debate

The vice presidential debate was weird and frustrating. Biden did a fairly good job of
making substantive points and treating Palin with a measure of respect while still talking to her as if she were a non-threat; treating her seriously without taking her seriously. Of course, the bar was much much higher for him, who we all expected to do a solid to excellent job, whereas all she had to do was not make an gaffes.
It was definitely a weird moment for women. On PBS after the debate Jim Lehrer interviewed a few historians and academics to see what their reactions to the debate were. A female historian mentioned Geraldine Ferraro vs the elder Bush, vis a vis the danger for Biden to seem condescending. She pointed out that Ferraro was asked if the country would be in danger if she were elected, and she answered in a very straight-laced, unemotional way that in no way acknowledged the fact that she was a woman. Rather than reacting to the inherent sexism in the question, she had to answer it as if she existed in a genderless vacuum, as if she were neither female nor male, as if this were the case for male politicians. Sarah Palin constantly referred to her being a mom, a small town home-maker, hockey mom, blah blah blah. She got flustered, she implied that the media was against her.
The historian made the rather unimpressive, but also unoffensive point that gender roles have changed. She said that if Ferraro had said the sort of things Palin had, she would have been accused of pandering, of palying into feminine stereotypes. In fact, Hillary was pilloried (heh) for supposedly playing into gender stereotypes, for crying for sympathy, etc. It seems obvious to me that Palin is only acceptable as a candidate because she depends upon stereotypes of the non-threatening little woman who agrees with everything the big strong older male soldier thinks. And furthermore, the only reason McCain's campaign (I still do him the service of separating him from his current White House bid) considered picking her was because Hillary broke down the door for a viable female candidate, and left a vaccuum when she lost the Democratic nomination.