Glass ceiling?

I haven't been following US politics deliberately, but with my daily practice of going through the news every morning, I can't help but read at least a little. I don't envy those of you in the US, with having to choose between McCain and Obama. (Not that I feel much better about our own choices, should we find ourselves with an election this fall.)

McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, however caught my attention. She's pretty much the only US governor I can actually say I know anything about. I've read articles and interviews about her in my perusal of global warming stories. She came across, to me, as someone with a good head on her shoulders, and a strong backbone. With her to balance some of McCain's bandwagon hopping, I felt this was a great improvement.

Imagine my surprise, then, to read the headlines the next day. The very first general news site I visit had a headline describing Palin as an "Ex-beauty Queen." WTF??? What does that have to do with anything? The story didn't mention it again, it was only in the headline. Why was it there at all? Seriously - who cares?

Apparently, a lot of people. Silly me.

Before long, more stories cropped up, this time going on about her pro-life stance, and the fact that she's religious and goes to church regularly. Clearly, these articles were meant to somehow make her seem scary.

It was bad enough reading about all the woman that supposedly dream about Obama. My husband told me that, on one of his online martial arts groups, there's an active discussion over who the group's members would rather sleep with - Palin or Michelle Obama. Even otherwise sane commenters on blogs I visit regularly had people making comments about her attractiveness, as if it had any bearing on her ability to be VP of the US. As least they weren't crude about it, as in other places.

In various speeches, comments were made about cracking the glass ceiling for women. So long as crap like this goes on, we've got a long way to go. It's friggin' disgusting.