Anasi,
I’ll help you understand the current situation.

One poll in the US found that 80% of women would not call themselves a feminist, and 50% would regard it as an insult if they were called a feminist.

Calling yourself a feminist when running for federal government in the US would not be an asset.

In the US fatherhood is also becoming fashionable once again, after the demonisation of fatherhood by the feminist movement, with a number of books, TV shows and movies being produced with fathers prominent in them.

Many Americans are also fed up with the high divorce rate and the destruction of family which is a part of Marxist/feminist belief systems.

I also think there is a growing resurgence of national pride in the US, after so many US companies have become fed up with the current situation in the US and moved to other countries, (the latest being Microsoft).

That and many other things lead to Palin.

Personally I think Palin represents a bouncing from one extreme to another, and that is a danger, but so is Marxist/feminism.

Timkins, have you ever considered emigrating to Alaska?

In fact Sarah Palin would be HRS' wet dream come true, but for one single flaw.

Sarah Palin is employed full-time and, therefore, not at home being full-time mother as nature intended.

Oh the conundrum this must be for Timkins. Poor little petal.

HRS, you haven't explained my dilemma at all.

Why is it OK for married Sarah Palin to have big full time career ambitions, running the US no less, have her children reared by others and support her underage daughter's sexual choices? Doesn't her life perfectly reflect the life the likes of you acuse what immoral men hating feminists say women want? Lucky the father of her children has no say or ambitions. He is expected to meekly go along on her ride.

Sarah Palin is a full blown uber-feminist. She wants it all. Whatever a man can do, she can do better. You guys have heard her roar and you're lapping it up.

I’m not sure where HRS’s poll figures come from. However, polls in the US or anywhere else tend to show a majority of women don’t identify as feminists, while still believing in gender equality.

This is by no means a rejection of feminism – more a distancing from the constant propaganda that demonises the word ‘feminist’ as man-hating, confrontational and socially unacceptable. Also, most people prefer not to politicize themselves or their beliefs. For example, many people believe in social equality but don’t perceive themselves as socialists and many people believe in free enterprise but don’t identify as capitalists.

By contrast, a Global Poll of 16 countries earlier this year showed that 97% of Americans believed gender equality was important (second highest country polled) and 83% believed that the government should do more to prevent discrimination against women.[http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btjusticehuman_rightsra/453.php?lb=bthr&pnt=453&nid=&id=]

Since the 1970s, US polls have consistently shown that the majority of Americans support the Equal Rights Amendment – while successive governments have canned it. Also, most US polls show an average 60% support for abortion – and this has been steadily climbing.

As with so many issues involving women, US governments remain stubbornly out of step with the general population.

Here's an anlysis of polls conducted on Sunday (US time).
It's from the Washington Post... which is notoriously left wing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090801825.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Stunning really