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  US Feminist Katha Pollitt on Sarah Palin: 'Gender Alone Is Not Enough'

US Feminist Katha Pollitt on Sarah Palin 'Gender Alone Is Not Enough'

Part 2: 'If Hitler Had Been a Woman...'

SPIEGEL: And what was the new normal?

Pollitt:Well, part of it was that women could be fully invested in their careers, and not just see them as marking time until marriage and kids. Another part was that premarital sex became socially acceptable, divorce lost its stigma, and it was no longer disastrous to have a child out of wedlock. Domestic violence and rape were taken seriously as crimes for the first time, whereas before they had been seen as a combination of trivial and the woman's fault.

SPIEGEL: In spite of all the achievements of the women's movement, many young women in Germany don't identify with traditional feminism, or at the least they want to redefine its goals. Is there a similar generational conflict in the United States?

Pollitt:To older feminists it can seem that the younger women do not understand the precariousness of what they have won -- the right to an abortion, for example, that could be revoked at any moment. But at the same time older feminists sometimes don't see that things have really changed. Some of those old battles have been won, and you aren't fighting them again. For example, abortion rights may be at risk, but the right to enter a profession is not at risk. Gays are not going back into the closet. Single motherhood -- including abortion -- is here to stay.

SPIEGEL: So is a women's movement necessary even today?

Pollitt:Definitely. Our generation won a lot of the very clear battles, the ones that had to do with with winning rights and liberties. The battles that young women face are much more ambiguous and they are harder struggles. What career opportunities does their employer grant them, what happens if they have kids, how do you achieve pay equity? I am the mother of a daughter who is about to turn 21, and I frequently notice how we are living in the same world and the same year, but depending on what age you are, you are in a different life stream. But a lot of the older feminists overlook that.

SPIEGEL: Is there a new crop of feminists at all?

Pollitt:Yes, and they are just as radical and militant as we were. What is different is they stay away from the aspect of "the personal is political" that means you can tell another person what shoes she can wear. For them feminism is women having the freedom to make choices. That is not an easy fit because someone like Sarah Palin will come along who is making a bunch of choices that to a feminist are really terrible. How do you deal with that?

SPIEGEL: How would you justify criticizing or even fighting another woman's choices?

Pollitt:You have to remember that choices may not be as free as people think they are. I oppose the kind of "You go, girl!" feminism that applauds every effort by a woman to gain self-confidence. If a woman says, I am getting these breast implants to gain self confidence, then I have to ask, What kind of a society do we live in where a woman's self-confidence depends on having a dangerous, expensive and painful operation on a perfectly healthy body?

SPIEGEL: And then you would tell her that she is suffering from false consciousness?

Pollitt:No, I would ask her questions: Why are you doing this? What is involved? What do you expect the outcome to be? Do you think this is really the best way to reach your goal? One of the very important ideas of feminism for me has always been women helping and supporting each other. Sarah Palin doesn't do that. With her anti-abortion stance, she would force all other women to do what she wants; she would rob them of choice and moral agency.

SPIEGEL: How likely do you think it is that Roe v. Wade will be overturned?

Pollitt:With a Republican administration it would happen, I am sure. And then the issue will go back to the states, so we would have a patchwork of states like California or New York, where abortion would still be legal, and states like South Dakota or Louisiana, where it would be prohibited. Since abortion rights are winning the day around the world, it would be anomalous and odd for America to go the other way. But America is nothing if not anomalous.

SPIEGEL: A few weeks before Palin's nomination you said that a woman president would be a great thing in and of itself. Do you still believe that?

Pollitt:No! Ah, you have caught me. I guess I have learned something. Look If Hitler had been a woman, would that have been good for women?

SPIEGEL: As an ardent feminist, you supported Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Doesn't that contradict your fundamental political beliefs?

Pollitt:I was on the fence for a long time. But when Bill Clinton started interfering in the race, it reminded me of how tired I was of the Clintons. And I felt, let's turn the page, let's have new people in government. With the Clintons it would have been the same old group of people in the White House, because in reality you never just vote for the guy -- or the woman -- at the top.

SPIEGEL: What about the symbolic value that a woman in the White House would have held for women in the US?

Pollitt:The funny thing is that I have spent my life saying, yes, I am for women in power, and then often when push comes to shove, when you actually look at the candidates, I will back the one who is more honest and more competent and has the better political program. And sometimes the man will be better, like Obama, and then I can't justify not voting for him. Sure, I would give two percent to gender in a political race ...

SPIEGEL: Only two percent?

Pollitt:Yes, I think that is a lot. Because the important thing is what are you going to do in office. Gender alone is not enough.

SPIEGEL: Ms. Pollitt, thank you very much for this interview.

Interview conducted by Susanne Weingarten.