An object of desire is an object nonetheless

So John McCain picked a woman as his vice-presidential nominee.

Two reactions.
1. Savvy, short term choice. Upstages coverage of Obama's convention speech last night. Attracts the "Hillary Harridans". Makes McCain seem more progressive.

2. Dumb choice. She's inexperienced. Media frenzy will eat her up and spit her out. Pander pander pander.

Okay, and a third reaction.

3. Objectified.

The reaction isn't "John McCain chose Sarah Palin!" It's "John McCain chose a woman!" It seems like for the purposes of the McCain campaign it could have been any woman. That he had to reach all the way to politically distant Alaska and pick a woman with less than two years of governing experience underscores how desperate he was for that second X-chromosome. I can't shake the feeling that the only reason he chose a woman was because she was a woman, not because she was qualified.

And that is a form of discrimination as much as sexism is—to judge someone solely on the basis of the gender, whether the judgement is positive or negative, is unfair and wrong. It reduces 51% of the population to a pair of chromosomes and effaces the complex differences within that group.

Moreover, McCain's choice undermines Hillary Clinton's hard-fought and ultimately unsuccessful campaign to be the Democratic nominee. Whether you like her or not, whether you agreed with her campaign tactics or not, there is no question that Hillary Clinton worked her ass off trying to get the nomination. On the other hand, Sarah Palin was almost magically selected to be on the ticket for the Republicans. There's something disturbing about the idea of a powerful, patrician old white man plucking a young, attactive political ingenue from obscurity to run alongside him for the White House, as if to say, "well, you can't get here on your own hard work and merits, so let Uncle John give you a hand." How patronizing. How sexist. How... political.