Eve Ensler Dreams of Sarah Palin

I continue to be interested in the progressive feminist reaction to the nomination of Sarah Palin for VP on the Republican ticket. The woman who wrote the Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler, has posted a piece on the Huffington Post that begins with her dream:

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I have noticed that polar bears have become a powerful symbol for many on the progressive left. Well, in Tony Crisp's dream dictionary, he writes that ice in dreams represents being cold emotionally or sexually. And a bear represents feelings about being a solitary creature, capable of living alone and surviving; danger of sudden unpredictable responses, feelings of threat.

Well that makes me think of Hillary Clinton. Clinton was perceived as a sort of "ice queen" so maybe the polar bear works in part as a representation of Hillary Clinton. Of course, it isn't Palin's fault that Obama defeated Clinton and then didn't pick her for VP. However, it does seem as if Palin is wearing the claws of Clinton as a trophy. This is how Saturday Night Live played it.

I am also thinking that Palin represents the opposite of Clinton. Palin has a large family, while Clinton had the one child. Palin's husband has supported Palin in her career while Clinton subordinated her career to her husband for many, many years.

I do like very much that Ensler shares her free associations. Almost at the end, she writes:

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Interestingly, this is not her first mention of rape in the piece. She mentioned rape earlier here:

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

Tony Crisp writes that rape "can mean that you are overcome by events, by other people dominating you, or by your internal rejected emotions. Rape in dreams is very different from rape in real life ..." Well, the bear also meant "danger of unpredictable response" which seems similar to me to being "overcome by events".

I think this dream is about the shocks of not getting a woman VP on the Democratic ticket and then getting the woman VP on the enemy Republican ticket. It is so outside the world view of progressive feminists that their perceived enemy, the Republicans, could possibly have a woman president before the Democrats. It so shocks their basic understanding that they even have nightmares. (They even deny Palin is a woman.)