I was interviewed for an article that appears in the September issue of Elle Magazine, The Best and the Rightest, A new generation of conservative women is stepping forward to dis feminists and cheer low taxes, guns, and motherhood.  Nina Burleigh reports on how these ‘Baby Palins’ are going to reshape the 2012 presidential election.  I was curious to read her take on how we were going to “reshape the 2012 presidential election,” but what really interested me was her use of the term “Baby Palins.”


I wrote about it for The Corner on National Review Online, Conservative Women as “Baby Palins.”



I have never heard anyone claim to be a “Baby Palin.”  Of all the interviews in the article, no one self-identified as a “Baby Palin.”  In fact, S.E. Cupp and Dana Loesch both cited 9/11 as their inspiration to jump into the political debate, and I started the Network of enlightened Women (NeW) four years before Governor Sarah Palin hit the national stage.  Palin is only mentioned five times in this almost 4,000-word article.  Why then try to associate us with Palin, and create a unifying narrative around her?


Rather than try to understand how some women could be conservative and the arguments we have against feminism, it is often much easier to explain us all away as “Baby Palins” following in Palin’s footsteps.  With the “Baby Palin” label comes the Palin brand.  The Palin brand has been so damaged by the media that the “Baby Palin” label serves the purpose of quickly stereotyping and delegitimizing us at the same time.  Would a typical journalist call someone a “Palin” as a compliment?  Ultimately, categorizing us as “Baby Palins” is a way to dismiss us.


In her Editor’s Letter, Roberta Myers describes us as “young, angry, and brimming with conviction, proudly shoring up the flanks of the Republican party under the banner ‘Baby Palins.’”  She must have forgotten that her reporter was the one who created the banner.   The most humorous part of this coverage is when Myers refers to us as “Baby Ps.”  Watch out J. Lo and P. Diddy.


Read the rest of it by clicking here. Have you ever heard someone be called or use the term “Baby Palin?”


(cross-posted at enlightenedwomen.org)