Over the past year I’ve made it abundantly clear that I don’t care for Sarah Palin. Thanks to her extreme socially conservative views, John McCain all but lost my vote when he selected her as his running-mate. Then she sealed the deal with her shortsighted and ignorant comments.
Todd Purdum’s piece in Vanity Fair sheds light on Palin’s political maneuvers, none of which are altogether surprising: “In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived.” Purdum cites many anecdotes to support these assertions, which really aren’t all that unusual among politicians anyway.
It was the speculation regarding her mental health that made me cringe. Purdum wrote:
“More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.”
As thick-skinned as politicians must be merely to survive, I still expect it would be a little disconcerting to hear that your constituents were playing armchair psychologist and consulting the DSM-IV on your behalf.
Worse though was the suggestion that her actions might be attributable to postpartum depression:
“All the while, Palin was coping not only with the crazed life of any national candidate on the road but also with the young children traveling with her. Some top aides worried about her mental state: was it possible that she was experiencing postpartum depression?”
Postpartum depression? To quote Claire Shipman, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Shipman goes on to write: “Postpartum depression is a serious illness, and hardly one you can put on the back burner while you give a killer convention speech, and then knock the socks off of enthusiastic crowds for weeks on end with your own, um, enthusiasm and exuberance. So….maybe….just maybe….wild guess here….the depression stuff was male code for ….irrational and difficult female?”
I have to give credit to the detractors who consulted the DSM-IV before issuing their diagnoses. Because, subconscious meanings aside, the idea that Sarah Palin had postpartum depression is completely inconsistent with the symptoms of PPD.
According to the American Psychological Association website, postpartum depression can “lead to a loss of pleasure or interest in life, sleep disturbance, feelings of irritability or anxiety, withdrawal frm family and friends, crying, and thoughts of hurting oneself or one’s child.” None of these symptoms fit Palin, with the possible exception of irritability (which I’d attribute to her naturally cantankerous personality). More like postpartum mania, I’d say.
Now her plans to step down as governor of Alaska will continue to fuel the fires of speculation, not just on her plans for a presidential run in 2012, but on her mental state as well. At least she didn’t step down as the vice-presidential candidate, as Kathleen Parker in the National Review Online had advised her to do. But resigning her position as governor helps neither Palin nor any other woman.
Oppose her on the issues or on her experience – there’s plenty of room for criticism in both areas. But leave her mental health out of it. Fighting her on those terms, while it may hurt her, eventually hurts the rest of us too.
Wait, the guy from Vanity Fair is saying that people just mentioned in conversation that “. . . they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”—I can see people saying, “she’s a narcissist” but to then site their reference? That made me laugh in disbelief.
Personally, I think most politicians are narcissists. My dislike of her has to do with her position on issues, not her mental health, or how she names her kids (another thing that was brought up way too often, along with the hockey mom thing). May she fade away soon.
Brava – thank you for being so fair-minded in your criticism of her. I wish more people in both parties could do the same, as I remember well the criticism and cruel and unfounded speculation about Hillary Clinton. Neither Republicans nor Democrats hold the higher moral ground here.
I read that bit about PPD and thought it was incredibly offensive. I felt like this was what someone pulled out of his ass because it was no longer acceptable to wonder if it was that time of the month.
Yet another reason she was a major setback for women, and this time it wasn’t even directly her fault.
Ha, seriously. Time of the month is no longer PC, but speculation about mental health is. How sad.
[to the tune of Bravely Bold Sir Robin ala Python & Holy Grail]
Brave Dame Sarah ran away.
(“No!”)
Bravely ran away away.
(“I didn’t!”)
When danger reared it’s ugly shead,
She bravely turned her tail and fled.
(“no!”)
Yes, brave Dame Sarah turned about
(“I didn’t!”)
And gallantly she chickened out.
Bravely taking (“I never did!”) to her feet,
She beat a very brave retreat.
(“all lies!”)
Bravest of the braaaave, Dame Sarah!
(“I never!”)
ha — good one, Kyle!
I agree, SP is all kinds of unusual and unexpected and unqualified, but diagnosing her with PPD is ridiculous.
That kind of conjecture is belittlling to everyone, but particularly the author. He may have written a good article up to that point, but he immediately lost credibility to most women and I hope many men. That has nothing to do with the subject matter at hand and is a last ditch, hail-mary effort to put the final nail in the coffin of Ms. Palin’s political ambitions.
I’d think it would be offensive to most women, but I have to wonder how many, regardless of party, viewed that statement as objectively as we have. If it suits their purposes in making fun of her, perhaps it doesn’t matter than by extension, it makes fun of all women.
My understanding is that PPD, like any mental health issue, manifests itself differently in different women. And as such, knowing that women I know have been all over the spectrum of capacity while dealing with PPD, I absolutely refuse to speculate on Palin’s mental state and whether or not she suffered from PPD. I would never say she did and I would never rule it out. Everybody’s brain and hormones and body are different.
That said, the one that really gets me is this whole “I’m doing it for a higher calling” and “this is the ultimate sacrifice,” crap. She’s quitting. When you quit, you quit, and that isn’t always something to be ashamed of, so just own it. We all know you’re quitting, so just call it what it is. Higher calling, my ass.
Yes, to some degree different symptoms arise in different women, but as in any mental health issue, there’s a core set of symptoms that allow doctors to diagnose. If symptoms were all across the board in every case, there would never be any definitive mental health diagnoses. So I don’t buy that excuse for letting this author off the hook. It was conjecture, playing on the supposed irrationality of women, and just because the target was Sarah Palin – someone I don’t care for either – doesn’t make it any less offensive.
It’s really hard to separate what’s sexist in this story from what’s possibly fitting. The beltway gossip is that she behaved so irrationally throughout the campaign, that my guess is the people around her who knew her best were looking for explanations. Were they being idiots to call it PPD or was there a good reason? Hard to say because the story never dug into it.
Then again to have PPD you’d have to have been pregnant in the first place. But I digress.
She is such an anomaly in so many ways and sadly, like many women breaking new ground, she became a reflection on the entire sex. It’s more infuriating that McCain picked her for that reason.
On that note, did you feel the same way about people a few years ago guessing that Britney Spears’ behavior may have been related to PPD? It seems like a fair guess for anyone to make in either case – both women behaved out of the norm and both had recently had a baby. While it doesn’t mean that either of them did suffer from PPD, I don’t really find it offensive that someone would look for a CAUSE for their behavior as opposed to assuming that this was typical of women at large.
I honestly didn’t know about that speculation. I prefer political gossip to celeb gossip.
That said, I don’t think it’s ever fair for laypersons to suggest that a woman’s behavior could be chalked up to mental health issues, especially postpartum depression. It perpetuates unfair and inaccurate stereotypes, both of women and of those who suffer from mental health issues, and it dissuades women from seeking help for fear of being labeled “crazy”.