Mama grizzly

Nearly one year later, while promoting the Alaska natural gas pipeline project to federal officials in Washington D.C., Palin said, "Don't tell me that we should ever be on our knees to any dictator because of our desperation for energy, not when we have supplies here at home." Referring to her son's imminent deployment to the Iraq War zone, she added, "This mama grizzly ... has more reason than ever to protect our young."[5]

By October 2008, Palin's usage of the bear metaphor to describe herself was reported in a New York Times article, "Provoking Palin's Inner Bear," which quotes her as saying that negative media coverage about her children makes, "the mama grizzly bear in me [come] out, makes me want to rear up on my hind legs and say, 'Wait a minute.'"[6] Soon, other media outlets began picking up on Palin's self-description. In January 2009, Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald penned a column, "Unbearable Mama Grizzly clawing way to Oval Office" in which she noted that a YouTube interview of Palin had nearly three quarters of a million views, proving "that mama 'grizzly,' as she called herself, remains irresistible."[7] The Vancouver, Washington newspaper, The Columbian, commented in January 2009 that, "Sarah Palin is on the prowl, snorting that when the media poke fun at her family, it brings out the mama grizzly in her."[8] The connection between Palin and mama grizzly was made internationally in July 2009 when the New Delhi, India-based Hindustan Times reported on a Palin tweet describing mama grizzly bears in Alaska.[9] In August 2009, an opinion piece in The Columbian suggested that Sarah Palin could serve as a Mama Grizzly head of a third or a fourth U.S. political party.[10]

Palin addressing the 2008 Republican National Convention. During her speech, she called herself a "pit bull".[11]

Speaking before the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List organization in May 2010, Palin called certain novice female political candidates running in the 2010 election "momma grizzlies". Referring to her earlier self-description as a "pit-bull" in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election,[12] she said,[11][13]

If you thought pit bulls were tough, you don't want to mess with mama grizzlies.

Later that day, Shannon Bream of the Fox News Channel reported that, "Palin says, women who she calls Mama Grizzlies will lead a national Republican wave in November."[14] In July 2010, Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, released a video pushing the mama grizzly meme as representing herself and "her fiercely independent, common sense conservative" candidates.[15] The day after the 2010 midterm elections, Palin released a video showing a montage of her winning grizzly candidates, a roaring grizzly bear, and narration in which she says "this is our morning in America".[16]

Publications such as Newsweek explored the impact of "Mama Grizzlies" on the 2010 election cycle, prominently featuring Palin-endorsed women candidates such as Michele Bachmann, Nikki Haley, Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell in cover art and photos accompanying the story.[17]

The 2010 general elections placed a historic number of Republican women in Congress and "many were also ... heralded by Sarah Palin as being 'Mama Grizzlies.'" However, these women did not affiliate themselves with the term or discussions about gendered identities at all.[18]