Commentary: Liberal feminists destroy their own cause by diminishing Sarah Huckabee Sanders' success

With Friday's appointment of Sarah Huckabee Sanders as the new White House press secretary, it's never been more evident that liberal feminists are selecting their Joan of Arcs based on their political slant rather than on the fact that they are women.

If you're sitting there, scratching your head, wondering why a self-proclaimed feminist would attempt to diminish another woman's successes, you're not the only one, and there is an answer.

It's called "selective feminism," and the concept is exactly what it sounds like: Women who support other women ... so long as they fit into the mold of what they consider acceptable "feminist" standards.

From the very moment that Sanders was revealed to be the latest White House press secretary for the Trump administration, she faced attacks on her education, her qualifications, and — perhaps, worst of all — her appearance.

See some choice tweets targeting Sanders for shattering her own glass ceiling.

I feel like Sarah Huckabee Sanders left and right eye switched places or something.

— Akilah Hughes (@AkilahObviously) July 21, 2017

Sarah Huckabee Sanders looks like every woman eating lobster on a cruise ship.

— Damien Fahey (@DamienFahey) July 11, 2017

Countdown til the White House starts spinning the appointment of Sarah Huckabee Sanders as some kind of feminist milestone #NOPE

— Natalia M. Petrzela (@nataliapetrzela) July 21, 2017

Even an article written by a Mediaite author decried Sanders' success, and chalked it up to ... well, not much at all.

An excerpt from the article — titled "How Sarah Sanders and the Women of Trumpland Hurt Women" reads:

"With the decision to promote Sanders, expect the topic of gender and the Trump administration to surface once again, and with this discussion, expect plenty of tokenism. Expect Sarah Huckabee Sanders to respond to every question about imminent future questions about Trump sexism by lavishing praise on the obviously open-minded, pro-woman boss who entrusted her with this high-level position. And expect Kellyanne [Conway] to bring up something about how women don’t care about casual sexism from their president because ISIS and violent crime and jobs, but in either case, expect valid criticisms of Trump’s sexism problem to be wholly tuned out."

Dee Dee Myers and Dana Perino — two previous White House press secretaries who also happened to be female, and maybe ... just maybe got the jobs because they are qualified — were celebrated, lauded for their groundbreaking work in a "man's world."

Sanders, however, seems to have gotten the rougher end of the stick, and because she had the audacity to accept a position that many women in the political arena would give their life for no matter what their political affiliation, she's automatically forced to turn in her feminism card — if she even cared to carry one at all.

If conservatives or Republicans said even half of the things about prolific liberal Democrats in power that liberals have said about Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, and now Sanders over the last six months and more, you'd have a liberal lynch mob on your hands.

Feminism isn't selective. Feminism is all-encompassing. It's about supporting all women – because if it's about supporting all women, it's about supporting zero women. Picking and choosing which women should be supported because of their race, age, experience, physical appearance, or political affiliation shouldn't fly with die-hard feminists because that boils down to sexism, elitism, racism, and xenophobia ... all of the important tenets that the most vocal of feminisms claim to be against.

Is Sanders the best choice for White House press secretary?

Only time will tell, and if she's not, it's certainly not because she's a woman. But liberals will likely tell you that — they'll tell you that should Sanders be forced out of or resign her post, it was because she's a woman, and in Trump's "sexist" administration, women can never thrive.

But the excoriation of Sanders based on the fact that she is a conservative, Republican woman in power is worse than liberal feminism at its worst — because it's not feminism at all.