When I was first asked to be on a panel at BlogHer about what is 'pro-woman' in a post-Palin world, I was excited. While many feminists just wanted Sarah Palin to go away, I have always held that her emergence was an opportunity for us to discuss what it means to be a feminist. The word has been demonized to the point where even the most ardent women's rights activists shy away from the label. And when I say that, I mean the demonization that happened from conservatives, not the critique from women of color or others who in a sense are feminists, but don't call themselves feminists.

Ironically, the goal for the panel was to not have a debate on the word feminist, but rather the idea of what is pro-woman. From my perspective as a long-time feminist activist who has been asked why I didn't support Condoleezza Rice, Margaret Thatcher (actually I did admire her as a kid) and other conservative women, I think that people want to define pro-woman as supporting a woman just because she's a woman. And I can't do that. I won't do that.

When it came to defining what being pro-woman means to me at Blogher I said just that. I said that I'll be pro-woman depending on how specific women treat other women. I'm not someone who has super high expectations, but Sarah Palin doesn't rise to the occasion.

It was an excellent conversation that went from discussing why feminist is a bad word, if it is worth it to reclaim  it, and if there is a new word we could use. I think the room was in agreement when I said that any word that we end up using would end up being vilified.

One of the best moments of the panel was when we were discussing the horrible way the press treated Palin, comparing that to years of Hillary being treated that way and someone said, "Where were these conservative women then?" Emily Zanotti replied, "We just woke up!" She went on to talk about how conservative women are years behind liberal/progressive women in terms of seeing sexism in the media and the world. Emily pleaded that we give them a break and help them catch up. That really moved me and made a world of sense.

I went into the panel thinking that being pro-woman was about supporting Sarah Palin or not. I left pondering if bring pro-woman meant giving women on the other side of the political spectrum the time to take in and digest the feministization they just went through in the past year.

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Veronica Arreola is the Director of the Women in Science & Engineering Program and Assistant Director, Center for Research on Women and Gender, University of Illinois at Chicago. She blogs at Viva la Feminista and Women in Media and News.

Thank God for Sarah Palin. She is a real woman, and she's a babe, too.

This was an amazing post! It really made me look at the topic in a new light. Thanks Veronica!