Sister, Sister

Conway said the attacks on Palin's brains, accent and appearance have only served to solidify her base of support: "Go out and find a woman who doesn't feel like she's being kicked around, or being denied something that she wanted and thought she deserved in the work place or in life or another relationship. Somehow there are women across this country who are behaving like an Amish community around Sarah Palin. It's like, 'Let's build a fence around her and a house for her, because she's been picked on the way we've been picked on'."

While Buchanan doesn't define herself as a feminist, she feels that Palin has redefined feminism to include strong women who don't shy away from using their looks when necessary. "She's completely a woman," said Buchanan, who broke her own barriers when she became treasurer of the United States in Ronald Reagan's administration at the age of 32. "A man's woman if you like … what most women would like to be. That's what so remarkable and refreshing. This is who she is. She happens to be an extremely attractive woman. She's used that to her full advantage, as she's risen to the top. It hasn't made her hesitate to be the leader. I hasn't made her hesitate to be the one that runs for the office, rather than one that supports someone that runs for an office."

Michelle Bernard, president of the Independent Women's Forum, who like Palin, has young children and a thriving career, says she definitely sees the GOP vice presidential candidate as a feminist—or at least a product of feminism. "She really represents what early generations of women fought for, which was the right to do whatever you want to do with your career … Regardless of whether or not you agree with her political ideology, she really is a good representation of what the women's rights movement was about." In her interviews with Katie Couric, Palin described herself as a feminist.

And what are women to make of fact that even with Palin's and Clinton's historical achievements, there may still be no woman in the executive branch come January? Losing, says Huffington Post editor Arianna Huffington, is part of the game. In fact, for Huffington, the most transformative moment of the year, was Clinton's speech announcing her withdrawal from the race. "There was something about that speech, that had to do not just accepting failure, but recognizing that it is an inevitable part of life, and that it can be a stepping stone to the next stage of your life. So accepting it without resentment, and growing from it, is something that I write a lot about and I speak a lot about, and it's a message that [Clinton] conveyed with so much grace and so much panache."

Finally, there's some concern that there may be lingering animosity between women in the wake of a historic but mean political season where B words like "bitch" and "bimbo" were hurled about by women themselves. Brown believes that female commonalities outweigh the rivalries. "Everybody is juggling," she said. "Every woman knows that whatever face they put on to meet the world, back home it's like backstage at a crazy high-school musical. Everyone is busy trying to kind of juggle it all. It's certainly been true all through my career. I've got two kids and have had all these jobs, and it's always been wild back at the ranch. And every woman I know knows it; it's a kind of sisterhood … we just know."

© 2008