Woman and Palin Appeal

September 12, 2008

A fat envelope from my son's school this week had a slim letter with a reproachful tone and a bunch of remedial forms: I had missed a critical meeting about the college application process. I missed the meeting because I was in Chicago for a meeting of a task force on religion and public life.

Such tensions are routine in my life. And my own experience and instincts tell me that it is the balancing act that so many women face today that, more than "values" or positions on policy issues, lies behind the swell of female support for Sarah Palin.

A colleague recounted a conversation with a male colleague one morning: had she read a certain Financial Times piece? She had not, but observed that her colleague could not even begin to imagine how much she had done, before 8:30 a.m. By the time 8:00 a.m. rolls around for me, I have over three hours of activity behind me, scurrying around to fix lunch as well as breakfast, mobilize a sleepy teenager, finish the laundry, make a shopping list, answer overnight emails, water plants, and on and on. And I know I am, despite the perils of single parenthood, deeply fortunate compared to millions who struggle with lower budgets, long commutes, illness and isolation.

Sarah Palin's public juggling act brings these daily dramas right into the public domain. Her ability and willingness to deal with the hodgepodge of banal and esoteric, household and existential, practical and policy, makes her highly appealing to women who recognize their own lives in her mirror.

The novelty effect of the two tools she keeps close at hand -- breast pump and Blackberry -- will surely wear off, and women will begin to focus on the substance of what kind of Vice President she would be as they approach the ballot box.

But a central drama of our times - the mounting pressures of fast-paced life, the tradeoffs we face every time we turn around, and the daily realities of family life today, especially for women - is starkly highlighted by the Sarah Surge. She's weathered it all, and come out confident. That's what resonates.

About the Author

Katherine Marshall

Katherine Marshall, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, leads the center’s work on religion and global development. She is also a professor of the practice of development, conflict, and religion in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, teaching diverse courses on the ethics of development work and mentoring students at many levels. She helped to create and now serves as the executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue, an NGO that works to enhance bridges between different sectors and institutions. In September 2022, she was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Marshall has five decades of experience on a variety of development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those facing the world’s poorest countries; one way she shares her expertise is through her blog Faith in Action. She was a World Bank officer from 1971 to 2006, and she led the World Bank’s faith and ethics initiative between 2000 and 2006. Marshall is a member of the Working Group on Child Rights and Family Values and the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, both part of the Culture of Encounter Project.