Hooray for fathers and cheerleading!

Fun!

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It gets more colorful at 3:54.

First heard by me today on The Week According to Frangela on KTLK AM 1150, during Frangela's beloved segment, "Professional Idiot of the Week":

"Slavery was evil, there's no question about that. But you know what? If it hadn't happened, where would you be right now? If your ancestors hadn't come over here for whatever reason, where would you be right now? You'd be floating down a river in Rwanda in pieces. Or maybe you'd be chased down by machete-wielding Janjaweed militia in the Sudan. Or starving under Robert Mugabe.

"Hey, ingrates. Get on your knees. Kiss the American dirt beneath you. And, please, shut up."


- Jim Quinn, from the June 24 edition of Clear Channel's The War Room with Quinn and Rose

There is so much nonsense to unpack in Jim Quinn's statement, including 1) most slaves in the Americas came from Western Africa, which does not include Rwanda, the Sudan, or Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe; and 2) most black people born in the United States have non-African ancestry as well, often due to the owners raping their ancestors. So, despite Jim Quinn's penchant for the one-drop rule, in a parallel universe without centuries of slavery throughout the Western hemisphere, we ungrateful black people could have been living in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the South Pacific, pretty much anywhere. Correspondingly, many allegedly white people in that same parallel universe could find themselves living in Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria or picking diamonds in Sierra Leone, all homes of their hidden ancestors.

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The wrong way to spend your money

For those of you who cannot view the video, a 26-year-old lawyer living in Manhattan calls into The Suze Orman Show during the "Can I Afford It?" segment. He would like to spend $35,000 to upgrade his wife's engagement ring from 1 carat to 3 carat, in order to "give the impression of success." He calls himself "pretty conservative about many things" but the ring is "an investment piece."

$35,000? On a diamond? He needs to buy himself some gold bars, like the one Hank received on the pilot episode of Royal Pains. This man has the same problem as public-school-Taylor from NYC Prep: spending money you don't have will not impress people who would never like you anyway.

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I don't care about "melba toast," Michael Bay.

I do care about a pattern of racist behavior that has continued from the first Transformers film. Now the racism, and sexism, is back.

Dr Boyce: Yes, The Transformers Movie Was Quite Racist, by Dr. Boyce Watkins, PhD, BV Black Spin.

Harry says TRANSFORMERS 2 is foul mouthed, racist & misogynistic! It also runs an hour too long!, Ain't It Cool News.

Jive-talking twin Transformers raise race issues, AP.

Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact hatchbacks, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.

How does a car have a gold tooth? And why does reading come up in a film about cars?

Actor Reno Wilson, who is black, voices Mudflap. Tom Kenny, the white actor behind SpongeBob SquarePants, voices Skids.

Wilson said Wednesday that he never imagined viewers might consider the twins to be racial caricatures. When he took the role, he was told that the alien robots learned about human culture through the Web and that the twins were "wannabe gangster types."

Gangster types like Michael Corleone or Tony Montana? No?

"It's an alien who uploaded information from the Internet and put together the conglomeration and formed this cadence, way of speaking and body language that was accumulated over X amount of years of information and that's what came out," the 40-year-old actor said. "If he had uploaded country music, he would have come out like that."

It's not fair to assume the characters are black, he said.

"It could easily be a Transformer that uploaded Kevin Federline data," Wilson said. "They were just like posers to me."

Kenny did not respond to an interview request Wednesday.

Way to cash that check, Mr. Wilson.

[Director Michael Bay] brushes off any whiff of controversy.

"Listen, you're going to have your naysayers on anything," he said. "It's like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes and sizes."

If the racism wasn't bad enough, the sexism makes me physically ill:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review, by Tara Meacham, Associated Content. Emphases mine.

You might have noticed that this Transformers film not only contains some poignant stereotypes of black people, but also that the movie is loaded with women. Most of them have fake boobs, push-up bras, and exist solely for the purpose of being sexualized in one way or another on a college campus. If they're not such women, they might be one of a few others—like the protagonist's mom, a typical empty nest middle-aged white woman ridiculed for wanting to have sex with her husband and stupid enough to purchase pot brownies without knowing what they are.

[ . . . ]

There is also Fox's character, Mikaela Banes, a female capable of fixing bikes and hot-wiring cars. She chooses not to go to college because she isn't a bimbo like all of the women that go there (because obviously college is not for smart people or women who think education might help them in life). She stays home to take care of her dad and mind the bike shop while Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) goes off to school on the East Coast.

She does other useful things, such as: run around in slow motion for a full five minutes at the end of the movie after taking off a protective layer of clothing in the desert, land her face on another male character's crotch, open her mouth a lot, appear with inconsistent amounts of collagen in her lips, flash her underwear while getting changed in the front yard, and attempt to be compared to Xena. Her secondary objective seems to be tagging along to help her boyfriend save the world; her primary objective involves getting him to say the L word and keep him away from fem-bots with anal probes.

Fox has a few key scenes in the film. In Egypt, she randomly dons a scarf over her mouth for a moment, because clearly the stereotypically fundamentalist Muslims all around would have been horrified at the sight of her uncovered mouth when her boobs could hardly be contained.

However, Fox does not play the most interesting female character in the film. That task falls to an unnamed female student in an astronomy class. Her job is to pick up a discarded, half-eaten, tossed-on-the-floor apple upon the command of the professor, who tells her to eat it. This degrading display is so horrific that I can't even be sarcastic about it.

Kudos to all involved. The Transformers franchise is now the front runner for the newly coined Rogen/Apatow Award for Excellence in Perpetuating White Male Privilege.

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Acceptable double standards,

or, This post made me giggle and crystallized my disappointment in Justin Timberlake.


The Race™-Approved White Guys [Humor], by AJ Plaid and Fiqah.

[ . . . ] in an effort to make sure such a pop-culture faux-pas don’t happen again, we’ve composed a list of white guys who are deemed The Race™-sanctioned—any Black female performer can be seen with these white performers and know she’s doing right by Us™. Our criteria:

1. We know they’ve dated, are dating, are married to, have and/or have babies by Black women. (Having Black or Black biracial daughters, adopted or biological, is an added bonus. ‘Cause, as some of us wanna believe, if the white guy can touch/sex up/adopt/father a sistah, they can not possibly be…well, you know the rhetoric.)
2. They can actually have performing-arts skills. (This leaves out Kevin “K-Fed” Federline.)
3. They’re famous in their own right. (This kinda sorta leaves out Gabriel Aubry. Some early men-watchers know him as a model. But many more know him for siring Halle Berry’s baby. If you don’t believe us, say Aubry’s name and “model.” Then say Aubry’s name and “Halle Berry’s baby’s daddy.” Record the results.)
4. We get the 6^th Sense* that they’ve been with sistahs but aren’t talking about it.
5. We sistahs have sensed the sexual tension between these dudes and the sistahs on-screen.
6. They’re not Justin Timberlake.

My favorite special mentions in the category, "You'd Think So . . . But No", include Bill "I'm Not 'Down,' Just Visiting" Maher, and the winner of the "Don't Date Him Gurl" Award, Quentin Tarantino.

For more positive examples, please see this photo spread in Essence.

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Two affluent men talking about abortion

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"Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee talk about issues where they will never be the protagonist."

Readers, this is where the real change happens.

Also, at 2:28, you'll see that Mike Huckabee is worried that his children will send him to Shady Pines. If I were Mike Huckabee, I'd be worried, too.

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Pigeon-holed

I have been watching and loving Beautiful People. It's a BBC series about a fey, young British lad, his eccentric family, and his sassy, black best friend. The problem is that instead of airing on ABC Family, the show airs on Logo . . . because it has a few gay people in it? The show is about a boy and his family, yet it comes on Logo on Tuesdays at 10 pm, followed by Queer as Folk. Which is like having Gilmore Girls followed by Secret Diary of a Call Girl. They're both about straight women, right?

In conclusion, if you have Logo or BBC 2, watch Beautiful People. It's funny!

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I don't have a subscription,

and I don't swoon at Alec Baldwin. But I do like what the star of My Life in Ruins has to say about Hollywood.

What’s the big fat deal?, by Nia Vardalos, Anderson Cooper 360 via IMDb.

It’s just weight. Just 40 pounds of fat now gone from my body, but wow, it’s pretty much all I get asked about. In the last year, I got to star in a movie, wrote and directed my next one, and adopted a three year old from American Foster Care. But guess what I’m asked…how did I lose the weight?

I am embarrassed to be in the position of answering questions about my body again. On the publicity tour of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ I was asked over and over again, if, as the writer, I felt it was a fair depiction of real life to have someone of my er, below average looks, hook up with hottie John Corbett.

It’s been years, and I have sat through many a movie like Sideways, where nobody blinks an eye when Paul Giamatti gets together with gorgeous Virginia Madsen. And, then ‘Knocked Up’….well, the visual of Seth Rogen on top of Katherine Heigl made me put the popcorn down and reach for my purse. Not because I was grossed out but because I knew the film was about to stop and Ashton Kutcher would now jump out and go “aha, you’ve been punked, that would never happen.” I waited. But no Ashton. The film went on. And many a reviewer, who probably look like sweet Seth (yes even the women) gave it a thumbs up. [ . . . ]

Furthermore, I apparently will be seeing every Fox Searchlight movie out this summer. You're welcome, Rupert Murdoch. Also, that's a whole bunch of white, brown haired people in love. (Click on the links.) I guess it's the brown hair that makes the films "indie." And yes, I'm still going to see them.

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Knowing your audience

and being self-aware. M-P G for the win!

Though, I'm still not watching Jimmy Fallon's show.

Speaking of early 90s icons, Mayim Bialik for the win!

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This man should be removed from his position.

"Date Rape is not Rape" ?!, by passtheERA, Feministing Community.

University of the Pacific Says Date Rape is Not Rape, by Cara, The Curvature.

UOP responds to sexual assault lawsuit, by David Siders, Recordnet.com. Emphases mine.

A woman identified in court papers as Jane Doe claimed in a March lawsuit that two basketball players raped her at a May 2008 party at Townhouses, campus housing on Pershing Avenue, and that a third player came into the room where she was and assaulted her as the first two players were leaving.

Pacific spokesman Richard Rojo said Thursday that the school does not consider the incident to be a rape.

"We would call it date rape," he said.

Rojo said the university considers "outright rape" and date rape to be different, in that date rape does not involve "a rapist jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly."

He said, "These are people who knew each other. ... It's a social situation and unfortunately an all-too common problem at universities.

"It doesn't make it right. It's a sexual assault, and that's why the university took action in this matter."

Doe said in her lawsuit that Pacific's handling of the matter was hostile, causing her to feel unwanted at Pacific. Doe, a freshman, left the school.

I wonder how Mr. Rojo would feel if he had attended a party with his university colleagues, and three men whom he knew brutally attacked him. I guess it would not be called "outright assault" since the situation did not involve someone "jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly." No, it involved three men purposefully attacking a targeted victim. Since Mr. Rojo knew his assailants, and was therefore on a "date" with the three men, he should feel comforted because this was "a social situation and unfortunately an all-too common problem at universities." Getting assaulted at university parties happens all over the world, therefore Mr. Rojo should not feel too bad that it happened to him. He could simply leave the University of the Pacific, like the above Jane Doe did, and find another university with new colleagues that might not "outright" attack him.

Additional articles and posts:

Thursday Frustrations, by Sarah M, The SAFER Blog.

University of the Pacific official's comments blasted, by Jennie Rodriguez, Recordnet.com

University Of The Pacific Claims That Date Rape Isn't "Outright Rape", by hortense, Jezebel.

University Of The Pacific Doesn't View Date Rape As Outright Rape, by Marcella Chester, abyss2hope.

From the annals of willful ignorance on sexual violence, by Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon.

Rape Comes From Bushes, Spokesperson Says, by Amanda Hess, The Sexist.

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"This is where the magic happens."

"Yo, Professor Puggleface. You feel good about our sound investment? Roo roo roo roo."

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"Are we talking about ice creams, or is this becoming a metaphor?"

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Via stuff white people do.

The children are our future. Even the ones that can't clap.

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So, it's not just me?

Dating 101: Dealing With the Race Factor, by Arnold Chao, Yahoo! Personals.

Internet love is not colorblind, UC Irvine study. Emphases mine.

[UC Irvine sociologists] Cynthia Feliciano and Belinda Robnett collected data from Yahoo personals between September 2004 and May 2005, randomly selecting profiles of people ages 18-50 in the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Atlanta metropolitan regions. While white men were more open to dating outside their race than white women, both had specific racial preferences. White men preferred Asian and Latino dating partners to African Americans; white women were more likely to exclude Asian men.

According to Feliciano, negative portrayals of African American women and Asian men in popular culture could contribute to these preferences.

"Stereotypical images of masculinity and femininity shape dating choices and continue to be perpetuated in the mass media," says Feliciano, sociology and Chicano/Latino studies assistant professor. "The hyper-feminine image of Asian American women contrasts greatly with that of Asian men, who are often portrayed as asexual."

In comparison, the image of the strong African American woman is at odds with idealized notions of submissive and frail women. This may explain why African American women faced high levels of rejection among men, researchers say.

"Cultural portrayals of African American women in the media continue to stress traits seen as negative, such as bossiness," Feliciano says.

[...]

Researchers' analysis of minorities' racial preferences showed that Asians, African Americans and Latinos are more likely to include whites as possible dates than whites are to include them. This suggests that whites, as the dominant group in the U.S., remain in the privileged position of being able to facilitate or hinder the full incorporation of minorities.

Or maybe I'm a crooked pot without a crooked cover due to my "bossiness." I'm sure that's it.

Also, way to be timely, Yahoo! and UC Irvine. I re-reported this phenomenon two years ago, and Racialicious still reports on interracial relationships regularly. Their Craigslist personals article from two years ago is still my favorite. I also enjoyed the open thread on dating that followed a year and a half later.

Furthermore, the survey should have examined same-sex relationships as well. Way to be heteronormative, sociologists.

Ooh! I liked this post, too, by the Frog Princess. I have been saying the same thing for years, yet it is so hard for my friends to comprehend my outlook and my situation. As the Frog Princess says about the open thread on Racialicious, "The article and the comments really validated what I’d been feeling my whole life but that I’m not allowed to say in public because it makes some people uncomfortable."

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"Exactly! A reverse racist!"

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"We call it that because it's the opposite of the way you're supposed to be a racist."

Also, no matter what The Today Show (at 4:12) or the Telegraph suggest, Judge Sotomayor's parents did not "immigrate" to New York from Puerto Rico. They moved to New York from Puerto Rico. Like when the Clampetts "loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly. Hills, that is." Or when George and Weezy were "moving on up/To the east side/To a deluxe apartment in the sky." They didn't change countries; they were Americans finding a new, potentially better, place to live.

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Dead Parents

HuffPost Review: Away We Go, by Marshall Fine. Emphasis mine.

You're a couple in your mid-30s, expecting a baby, suddenly shorn of the anchor tethering you to a hometown you're not that crazy about. Now what?

That's the conundrum confronting Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) in Sam Mendes' Away We Go, from a script by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. Burt and Verona are only a couple months away from parenthood, when Burt's parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara) announce that they're moving to Europe for two years -- before the baby is born.

Since being close to Burt's parents (Verona's are dead) is the only reason they've stayed in Connecticut, Burt and Verona decide to hit the road, visiting friends, siblings and relatives around the country, auditioning potential new places to relocate.

That's what happened in Flashdance, too: ethnically ambiguous characters in movies often get no family because you would have to admit that they aren't white, as I have mentioned before. The most egregious rendering of this in my recollection was on One Tree Hill when Haley's parents, sister, and son all ended up being white people, even though Haley is clearly not a white person.

In conclusion, I will probably see the movie anyway. Also, John Krasinski: what is up with that beard?

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Musings from a black woman: I can weigh in on this!

Write What You Know: Limiting or Authentic?, by Neesha Meminger, Racialicious. Emphases mine. It is a long post, but keep reading. You can do it!

The other day, I came across a blog post by Editorial Anonymous, “The CSK is Dead (Long Live the CSK).” The Coretta Scott King Award was established in 1969 and is given to outstanding African-American authors and illustrators of children’s books.

Editorial Anonymous writes,

"If the CSK were in charge, male writers wouldn't be able to comment on what it's like to be a woman. The CSK is saying that you cannot understand what it is to be black in America unless you are black.

"Giving an award for creating art about the experience of race is a wonderful thing. But giving an award for creating art and being a particular race?

"That’s racism in action."

So this set me a-pondering. Is it cool for white people to write from the perspective of people of color? How about, as Editorial Anonymous mentions in the quote above, for men to write from the perspective of women?

[. . .]

[prize-winning white woman author Laurie Halse Anderson] also goes on to write, “Slavery affects all Americans today, regardless of ethnic background, or how long our families have lived here. Slavery is the elephant in our country’s living room. It won’t go away until we acknowledge, understand, and deal with it.”

This is absolutely true. Racism (and slavery) affects every single one of us, no matter what our background. White people should be taking it up as an issue – just as men should be taking up the issue of sexism and misogyny –and talking about it, examining it, exploring, and looking for more equitable and just paradigms. And writing a novel like Chains may be this one white woman’s way of doing that.

So . . . what’s the issue? Is there an issue?

There is the view among some writers that one’s creativity or artistic vision should not be limited or “fenced in,” and restricting writers to write only what they know does exactly that. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard some variation of, “Who wants to read about a liberal white woman from New Jersey/Iowa/Seattle?” [I would!]

However, in an interview on ustrek.org, Sherman Alexie, author of Ten Little Indians and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, as well as the writer/director for Smoke Signals, jokingly suggested a “10-year moratorium for white writers so that Indians can tell their own stories instead of having white people tell them. ‘The fact is, when white authors step away from their typewriters, they’re still white. When I get up from the typewriter, I’m still an Indian.’ He wants those authors to question their privileged positions.”

[. . .]

Next time you go to a bookstore, check the shelves and see how many books there, are in any given genre on any given subject, written by people of color. My guess is that very few genres, if any, will have an accurate representation of global demographics in the titles. And that is because there are so few writers of color getting picked up and supported by publishers in any kind of substantial way (a là Twilight, Harry Potter, The Princess Diaries, etc. And, of course, these examples hold true for film as they were all adaptations of novels).

As a South Asian author writing YA, I know from experience that many editors are hesitant to pick up more than one novel with an Indian-American protagonist written by an Indian-American author – even if the two novels are different genres and about entirely different subjects – because both novels still fall under the Multicultural category. This often creates the “everyone elbowing for the one seat on the bus” phenomenon among the marginalized authors who have to fight for that one lone multicultural spot. But I digress…

Yet, as we all know from visiting our local bookstores, or taking an online stroll through Amazon, there is an abundance of books/films by white writers writing on every subject, in every genre – with more than one writer often covering the same topic for varying perspectives. A publishing house can have several white fantasy authors and historical romance authors, even a few writing about spiritual journeys and all of those books are seen as different books. None of my white author friends have ever had their agents come back to them with, “No, this editor declined because she already has a European title about identity issues.”

I, on the other hand, have heard that exact same phrase, substituting “European” with “Asian.” . . .

I thought about this recently as I was looking at some of my associates who insist upon socializing with and befriending others based on color and gender. I'm not kidding. It is that bad. When you look at them, you feel embarrassed for them. It is hard to believe that they are 30-year-olds living in California, instead of high school seniors going to a segregated Georgia prom.

As I try to explain to people with whom I have enlightening discussions, there is a difference between white men writing about nonwhite and/or nonmale people, and those people writing about themselves. For instance, I know infinitely more about white men than they could ever know about me or any other black woman. I have personally encountered thousands of white men in my short lifetime. That does not include the countless number of white men I have been forced to read about, listen to or watch as part of my "educational" process. In the United States, white men are in your face all the time. Unless you live on a reservation with no mainstream media access, you cannot escape them. I could tell you gross generalizations of what they like, what they don't like, how they grew up, what they think of themselves, the lies they have been told and which they subsequently believe, and who they dream of becoming and why. I could adopt a pseudonym, write Memoirs of Joe Six-Pack, and it would sell millions. (Don't steal my idea! Or, if you do, please blog about it and let me know.)

However, that does not work in the reverse. Some white men have never met any black women, or any nonwhite people at all. Others can count all the colorful friends they have ever had on one hand. They could also count the important black women they have heard of on two hands. An example:

1. Rosa Parks
2. Harriet Tubman
3. Michelle Obama
4. Oprah
5. The overly-mentioned Halle Berry
6. Weezy Jefferson
7. Whoopi Goldberg
8. Tyra Banks
9. um . . .

There aren't even any black women in either of the Night at the Museum movies, as if black women never existed in history, or at least in museums. There are two women (barely) featured in the second one, including Amy Adams, who primarily function as Ben Stiller's younger, better-looking love interest. Or "Amelia Earhart." Whichever.

Based on my above analysis, writing what you know may be limiting, but it can be more authentic. It is revolting that so many books, TV shows and movies that include (white) female characters are written by (white) men. It comes through in the voices of those characters, like when those middle-aged men were writing about those self-involved twentysomethings. It is dishonest, less than believable and disappointing. If more nonwhite and nonmale people were allowed to actively participate in the infrastructure of corporate media, then sure, write whatever you want. But that is not the case, and I do not appreciate having my alleged story told by white men who all share the same one black friend. That is, if my story gets told at all.

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I have never worn Lacoste.

But I have read Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster who is featured above. It was funny. Too bad we don't all have the time to exercise for four hours a day like the main character of the book has.

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My advice:

Take a nap.

Here, Here! 13 Years Of Perfect Attendance., by , The Washington Post via Yahoo!.

. . . Stefanie Zaner, Iron Kid of Darnestown, is closing in on her 2,340th straight day of public school. The 18-year-old is unlikely to get the standing ovation afforded Ripken for his streak when she arrives at Northwest High School on Friday for the last day of senior classes in Montgomery County. But hers is a rare accomplishment. Not once in 13 years was Stefanie marked absent: not for a cold, a family vacation, a college visit or a senior skip day. She once went on a freshman trip to Shanghai with the school marching band and boarded the plane with her clarinet only after securing written assurance from the principal that the trip would not count as an absence. She has never broken a bone, thrown up or caught the flu or even a bad cough, she said. "There were days in high school when I thought she was too tired to get up," said Debbie Zaner, Stefanie's mother. "But by high school, it was up to her. It wasn't up to me." . . .

In five years, no one will care that you missed no days of school and got straight As. Furthermore, college visits are way more important than attending class during your second semester of your senior year.

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What is that supposed to mean?

Hello, Mr. Heartache, by Jincy Willett, New York Times via Jennifer Weiner´s blog.

Holly Frick, the writer at the heart of Sarah Dunn’s new novel, hates the term “chick lit.” Since we never actually get to read her own novel, “Hello, Mr. Heartache” — whose horrible title was imposed by her publisher’s marketing department — we can’t be certain that she hasn’t actually written “fiction by and for women,” the generally agreed-­upon definition of that loathsome term. But the novel in which Holly herself appears was definitely not written just for women, no matter how it’s packaged. True, the protagonist is female, the setting is Manhattan, and the focus is on relationships — and there’s a big shopping scene. True, mostly women will read it. But then women are the ones mostly reading every­thing. Besides, it’s not about shoes. And the shopping is for books, at the Strand. Also, unlike chick lit, chick TV and chick movies, “Secrets to Happiness” is actually funny.

Way to self-hate, Ms. Willett.

bt-dubs, New York Times: aren´t you up for sale?

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"A woman voting for the GOP is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders!"

And how.

Republican women: A minority in a minority, by Erika Lovley, Politico via Yahoo! News.

Women make up almost 51 percent of the U.S. population but less than 10 percent of the House and Senate GOP — a gender disconnect that could make the Republicans’ climb back to power even steeper than it would be otherwise.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) notices that she’s part of a shrinking minority every time she heads to the Senate floor for a vote.

Republican women in the House say they feel the problem — literally — when their male colleagues nudge them to the front of GOP press conferences to break up the solid lines of middle-aged white men in neckties.

Indeed, Rep. Kay Granger — the first and only Republican woman to represent Texas in the House — says Republican women have to work to make sure they’re even represented at public events in the first place. "We pass the word to make sure we're there at this ceremony or that photo-op, because there are fewer of us and we're spread more thinly," Granger said. "We're working in a very successful manner, and we want to make sure that’s shown."

I would like to be in a photo-op!

While Palin provided a high-profile role model for Republican women thinking of running for office, her experience was a double-edged sword. Lawmakers say the rough treatment Palin received showcased the nastiness of modern campaigns and underscored the notion that women are susceptible to the charge that they’ve been picked to run because they’re a good demographic fit — and not because they’re the most qualified.

Yes, the rough treatment that Sarah Palin received during the 2008 Presidential campaign. No one else received rough treatment. No one else at all.

But the pool is shallow. State legislatures, which often serve as feeders for Congress, are also seeing fewer Republican women step up to the plate. Meanwhile, Democratic training outlets such EMILY’s List have been well-organized and highly successful at recruiting, while Republican womens' groups, such as the National Federation of Republican Women and the Wish List, say they are bracing for another tough election cycle.

. . . "If you believe that a more centrist position for the Republican Party would bring about more success and bring more voters back, then women would help make that happen," [said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics]. "Women bring a voice of moderation that could pull them back to the party."

The Republican Party should focus on bringing in moderate people, not simply matching the Democratic Party by getting more women, or by putting a white lady and a black guy in high-profile leadership positions.

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