Struck dumb....

I was struck dumb. I literally couldn't say anything, and I walked away without speaking.... a friend of ours asked us yesterday, "Don't you just LOVE Palin?" and then, with adulation in her voice, "Isn't she such a Warrior Woman?"

*blink*

*blink blink*

John McCain's Latest Beautiful Trophy Wife, a warrior woman? Um, aren't those two terms mutually exclusive? Wouldn't a Warrior have her OWN opinions? Wouldn't a Warrior live by her own well-thought-out values, rather than parroting the patriarchy and obediently falling in line with the existing Good Ol' Boy party planks? Would a Warrior Woman try to enforce one religion on a free people? This is a woman who tries to ban books. Hasn't mature adult thinking gotten a little beyond that point even in our culture... oh say... forty years ago? And doesn't it take a certain amount of mature adult thinking to be a Warrior?

Sarah Palin may think of herself as a Warrior--I don't know--but how can ANYONE look at her (or at ANY political candidate) so uncritically?

My definition of Warrior Woman isn't complete... I've never been called to articulate it before, so I know it when I see it but I can't always talk about it. Certainly it includes acceptance of a free and diverse society, and the willingness to stand up for that freedom of belief and thought which is the hallmark of a healthy society!

How can someone who wants to promote one religion--and who will fire any public employee who disagrees or resists--possibly be considered a Warrior under that definition? How can someone who would happily force her own child to marry someone unsuitable be entrusted with the welfare of all the children of America? How can someone who is bent on enforcing the already-failed ecological policies of the early twentieth century guide us into the twenty-first century? How can someone who cannot see ANY alternatives to war keep us safe in the modern world?

Here is another part of my definition of Warrior Woman: someone who knows how to avoid fighting when fighting is not necessary; someone who undertsands that fighting is the LAST resort, not the first action.

I'm not interested in debating politics (I myself am definitely not a Warrior Woman!), but I am very interested in definitions, in how we all perceive the world. So what is your definition of Warrior Woman? What do you see as the characteristics of a Warrior in this world?