Nobody attacked her because she was female. She was attacked because she was fabulously ignorant about nearly everything. (That wouldn't be disqualifying today, but we had a higher bar in 2008). https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1293171504256090112

To wit, she said this while trying to call out Congress for wasteful spending: "You've heard about some of these pet projects...these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not."

She believed that she was being clever, but that statement pretty much revealed she knew nothing. The fruit fly is one of the most common (and foundational) model organisms in genetics, and Drosophila research has led to major breakthroughs in studying human disease.

In other words, fruit fly research has done more for the public good than Sarah Palin ever has, or ever will.

Finally, Palin's remarks revealed a key point of GOP marketing, i.e. if you dispute science with words that sound like folksy common sense, you can get people to ignore science altogether. 12 years later, this attitude is part of our handling of a global pandemic.