Sarah Palin

For women in America, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hits a nerve! True, many conservative women are fans. But for professional women in PINK’s demographic, not so much. In fact, a recent PINK poll shows that 66 percent of respondents do want a woman in the White House, but they do not want that woman to be Palin. Thirty percent “love her.” Only 4 percent think she’d be “good for women’s advancement” if elected.

My in-box is flooded with e-mails from readers who are quick to criticize. Some of the e-mails are brutally tough. Many cite Palin’s lack of experience and her stance on “women’s issues” as most troubling. Others comment on her personal and professional choices. “Full disclosure, I am extremely upset,” writes one of PINK’s talented, longtime writers who is usually a huge advocate for professional women.

PINK contributor and New York Times columnist Lisa Belkin addressed some of this outrage in a recent piece for the Times. She notices that most of those who are so upset open the conversation by talking about what happened to them. Palin has made the dialogue about previously private, deeply personal choices into a matter of public debate: whether or not to bear a special-needs child, whether or not to go right back to work after childbirth, how many children a woman can parent while pursuing professional ambitious. Regardless of where you stand on the politics, and whether or not you’re a fan of Palin the individual, I personally am thrilled that we’re having the dialogue – that we are thinking about the choices we’ve made as women, as professionals, as mothers. (I do think that we tend to be too judgmental of each other – and ourselves.) But best of all, I’m excited by the fact that the party put a woman on the ticket, not in the interest of being politically correct but simply to get votes! That’s the ROI. They picked her because they knew Palin would bring in attention and votes.

It’s my hope that corporate America is watching and realizing that women in business drive ROI too. The data backs it up. Just as more women than men have voted in every presidential election since 1980, public companies with more women in key positions have a higher return to shareholders.

By Cynthia Good