Over the past year, we have witnessed the rise and fall of Hillary Clinton followed by the rise, and continued rise of Sarah Palin. This bizarre occurrence has caused me to wonder, what is so fundamentally frightening about an intelligent woman?

Having been raised in one of the most shallow, beauty-conscious places in the country (yes, I’m from the O.C.), I empathize with women and the choice they often feel compelled to make between beauty and brains. How is it possible to embody both?

For many women in this country, Sarah Palin, the beauty queen turned hockey-mom-of-five turned politician is an angel sent from heaven to show us the light, to reveal the long-lost secret to female success. She’s everything women want to be; she’s the crème de la crème of feminism.

Rewind. Since when, and on what planet does Sarah Palin of all people, represent feminism? Feminism is an ideology that promotes the equality of men and women in all spheres. Feminists fight to ensure that multiple life paths are available for every woman to choose for herself. Thus, at its core, feminism is about making choices, not about being super woman. That said, just because you can do everything doesn’t mean you should.

Feminists have fought fervently to have the opportunity to achieve the same goals as their male counterparts, never asserting that women are entitled to success solely because of their gender, as is often wrongly assumed. Thus, feminists — my kind of feminists, at least — hope that like men, they can be judged by their qualifications and nothing more. Applying these same principles to Palin, it would be a tragedy for feminism if she somehow reaches the White House. In my mind, Palin is the antithesis of feminism; she represents everything the modern American woman, and myself for that matter, have been taught not to do. She has politicized maternity and sexuality by using these feminine traits as a means of pursuing her ambitions, allowing her intellect and dignity (or lack thereof) to fall by the wayside.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton, whether you are for or against her policies, is inarguably an intelligent woman. Though I was never a Hillary supporter myself, I still hold the utmost respect for her. Her relative success as a politician was a result of her ambition, drive, and pure smarts, all theoretically gender-neutral characteristics associated with a strong leader. In her fight to claim these traditionally masculine traits as equally accessible to both genders, Hillary Clinton embodies feminism at its finest.

Yet somehow, her intelligence was deemed a negative, her strength detrimental, and her drive threatening and intolerable. In order to fill the void left by Hillary’s defeat, the Republican Party chose Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate, a purely strategic choice that directly insults women’s intelligence. Assuming that women would vote for Palin based on the fact that they may share a chromosome highlights the incredibly inaccurate stereotype of feminism in this country.

At an Obama rally, which I attended at UCLA last year, Oprah Winfrey, one of the most powerful and influential women in the world, stood up to harsh comments, calling her a “traitor” to women for not supporting Hillary Clinton. She proudly proclaimed:

“Every part of me believes in the empowerment of women, but the truth is, I am a free woman. A free woman. And being free means you can think for yourself. I’m voting for Barack Obama not because he’s black. I’m voting for Barack Obama because he’s brilliant.”

Now that is pure feminism, the kind of feminism that Sarah Palin is going to destroy.

While Palin may seem to some to embody the new and improved, easy to swallow form of feminism, in reality, as journalist Rebecca Traister asserts, Palin is the latest “faux-feminist,” more accurately resembling Phyllis Schlafly than any modern-day feminist I know. Palin is the arch-enemy of feminism, and a bullet straight to the heart of any woman who has fought for equality based on merit.

If Sarah Palin makes history, it will not only be an embarrassment to our country, but to the American woman and her perception within our nation and abroad. While the fact is that if elected, Palin has the potential influence to reverse Roe vs. Wade, implement the teaching of creationism in public schools, and wink and flip her hair in diplomatic settings, what scares me the most is that her shallow, conniving tactics to gain power will be proven legitimate, and deemed ‘the way to succeed’ for American women. Now, this is a battle we cannot afford to lose.

Unfortunately though, I am not confident that merely electing Obama on Tuesday will put an end to our Palin nightmares. Though I, and many alike, would jump for joy to see Palin go back to Alaska and never be heard from again, the reality is, she has already gone too far. A national celebrity at the very least, Palin has even been accused of diverging from her designated duties as John McCain’s running mate. As much as I enjoy Tina Fey’s role-play of Sarah Palin on SNL, and watching her Katie Couric interviews on repeat, I am sad to say, we can no longer view Palin as a big joke. As unintelligible — and unintelligent — as we may think she is, what she does, she does well, and that makes her a threat to our future. Palin has made her climb to the top and will not let a mere Democratic victory take her down.

Thus, like with most things in this country, we cannot wait for our political system to take action and cross our fingers that it will get the job done and everything will end up for the best. Rather, we, men and women alike, and anyone for that matter who wants to move forward in this country instead of backwards, need to take action and combat Palin’s misrepresentation as the new face of feminism. This starts with correcting the negative, inaccurate depiction of feminism, and embracing an American woman who is intelligent and free to think for herself.

Carolyn Witte, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a contributing columnist at The Sun. Contact her at cwitte@cornellsun.com