Mary Campbell Gallagher
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"Sarah Palin, She Shoots, She Scores!"Mary Campbell Gallagher, J.D., Ph.D. September 25, 2008 When 37 million people watched Sarah Palin deliver her rousing acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, they were not just seeing a ticket-balancing religious conservative. They were hearing a superb speaker and the first woman athlete to rise in national politics since Title IX mandated equal rights for girls in education in 1972. Because of Title IX, girls like Palin got to skip Home Ec and pick the same courses as boys. Equally or more important, they got to enter the character-defining crucible of inter-school athletics. They called Sarah Palin Sarah Barracuda when she led the Wasilla Warriors to the 1982 state basketball championship in Alaska. It was leading her basketball team that made Palin into Speaker Barracuda in Denver, too. As a woman, a speaker, a Toastmaster, and National Speakers Association member, I am delighted. Before Title IX, there was hardly such a thing as inter-school team sports for girls, except maybe field hockey, nor were there many women who spoke like Sarah Palin. Girls could do graceful individual sports like tennis, gymnastics, riding, swimming, diving, fencing, archery. And they had sports mainly just for girls, like synchronized swimming and baton-twirling. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Lynne Cheney were both champion baton-twirlers! But storming the length of a basketball court--and even getting knocked to the floor--with a bunch of tough gals wearing shorts, in public, would have been unladylike. "Horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies only glow a little." Basketball might as well have been Roller Derby, it was so unfeminine. And if unfeminine, then lesbian! My high school taught us half-court basketball. I cringe to think about it. Women who play only half-court basketball don't give speeches that draw blood. Inhibition was the rule not just in sports but when it came to having opinions. "Don't talk!" mothers told their little girls. "Let the men do the talking!" Samuel Johnson said: "A woman's preaching is like a dog walking on his hind legs--it is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." Intimidated and inhibited even now, many older women speak in a timid sing-song, asking permission. Or they shout to get attention, and they sound harsh or shrill. Palin shows that a woman can speak out with a wicked smile and saucy delight. Palin cheerfully whacked Obama to bits. Obama couldn't decide whether to vote Yes or No in the Illinois legislature, so he voted "Present," 130 times! Obama has authored two autobiographies, but no substantial piece of legislation! With her confident and good-humored delivery of killer lines, she's helped John McCain beat Obama--at least for the time being--in the polls, and she draws Obama-sized crowds whenever she and McCain appear together. The sorority sisters on the editorial pages may swipe at her religious faith, sneer at her pregnant daughter, and cavil at her elbows-out, shirt-tugging, executive style, but By George! that girl can speak! Palin the speaker is authoritative, down-to-earth, hortatory, humorous, go-get'em. Neither a trial lawyer spinning an emotional narrative nor a debater arguing three good points, she spoke to the Republican Convention like the Warrior Queen Elizabeth I sending her troops out against the Spanish Armada. That's how she spoke when she ran for office in Alaska, too, promising to look out for Alaska's citizens like a mother bear, "like Nanook." Palin spoke to the Convention, in fact, like the captain of an inter-school basketball team exhorting her players in a sweaty locker room--which she was. The Republicans roared their approval. Go, team! The women like Palin who have benefited from competitive inter-school team sports because of Title IX are in their forties now, or younger. They are the women who are running for public office and starting their own businesses, women who simply assume they can be leaders. Palin herself told ABC's Charles Gibson, "I’m a product of Title IX, where we had equality in schools that was just being ushered in with sports and with equal opportunity for education, all of my life. . . ." Palin didn't wait for McCain to offer her the nomination, she made it clear to interviewers long before that, yes! she really wanted that vice-presidential job! Thanks to Title IX, team sports have strengthened these younger women's competitive appetites and taught them how to build a team, how to belong to a team, and how to lead. For Palin the key to her break-through nomination was break-through speaking skills. But the secret to Palin's speaking success was break-through basketball. She shoots, she scores! ### |
