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The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...
January 2008 - Posts
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Now this is interesting; I see where a focus group of Republican women has declared Mike Huckabee the winner of last night's debate. These undecided, right-leaning women thought Mitt Romney came off as phony, arrogant and "a snake''—and one woman who Read More...
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On the legal front this week, we have Michael Mukasey's can't-pin-me-down testimony of yesterday, as Dahlia reported . And also this dismaying report , via his lawyer and the LA Weekly 's blog, that a Guantanamo prisoner has contracted AIDS in the camp. Read More...
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C'mon, John , there was one great moment in last night's GOP debate: When Mitt Romney sneered that John McCain couldn't be too darn conservative or else the New York Times wouldn't have endorsed him, hehhehheh, and McCain flipped him his riposte—something Read More...
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Thanks, Dahlia, for your response to my post the other day, and for raising the good question about whether women, especially young women, are more "politically checked out" than their male counterparts. Such questions are one reason I get so amped about Read More...
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Did Elizabeth Edwards damage her husband's chances in the election he's dropping out of today? She did not hurt her husband, no; she'd literally rather die than do so, I swear, and still did him more good than harm. But while people love Elizabeth, they Read More...
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No gender gap, no respect. That's the story for Republican women voters in the primaries so far. Tonight, according to exit polls , they broke for John McCain 32 percent over 30 percent for Mitt Romney. Which means they voted along the same lines as GOP Read More...
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Rachael I don’t think you’re going to find anyone on this blog racing to second Karen Von Hahn ’s simplistic take on feminism, any more than we swallowed the NOW tantrum last night or the Steinem logic earlier this month. The split you’re sketching isn’t Read More...
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So, some folks are worried that " feminism is out of style ." Gee, could it have anything to do with stuff like this ? Apologies if I seem too flippant. But I do sense a common thread between Karen von Hahn's column in the Globe and Mail (go read it if Read More...
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I see that the blogosphere is aflame - oh, it must be Tuesday - with a debate about whether Obama snubbed Hillary at last night's State of the Union. I didn't catch this moment, or lack of one, myself. Which is a shame, because after Kennedy endorsed Read More...
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I saw HBO's therapy series In Treatment last night, and felt it could be helped by adding a long-married couple to the lineup of patients: Therapist: Why don't we start by-- Hillary: Have you seen his finger? It's out of control. He's wagging it at everyone. Read More...
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Oh my dear Emily , I just read that NOW letter about how Ted Kennedy has supposedly betrayed all women everywhere by endorsing Barack Obama — and I have not seen that many exclamation marks since I read Donna Hanover's book about how great it is being Read More...
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"Whoa," says Ben Smith of Politico about the New York chapter of NOW's blast against Ted Kennedy for endorsing Barack Obama. Whoa is right. Also woe. Also wow. NOW NY calls the endorsement "the ultimate betrayal," lays into Kennedy for his apparent past Read More...
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I am also ready for Bill Clinton to sit down. But it's worth pointing out that among white women in South Carolina, Bill disaffection—or whatever turned women away from Hillary—seemed to produced a boost for Edwards rather than for Obama. You're right, Read More...
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It’s not going to be about gender when the pundits turn Barack Obama’s thrashing of Hillary Clinton in South Carolina into a referendum on her husband. The truth is that long before Bill turned himself into the Tasmanian Devil on the campaign trail, we Read More...
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A guest post from our own Will Saletan about the exit of Dennis Kucinich from the Democratic race : Why does the man who endured humiliation through the entire 2004 primary season drop out this early in 2008? I blame the wife. He didn't have a wife last Read More...
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As far as meta-themes go in this presidential campaign, this week’s “Hoppin’ Mad” trope has quickly become tiresome. Yesterday we heard endless reports about an incident in which Barack Obama ostensibly had a “testy” exchange with a reporter that proved Read More...
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And still on the subject of bias in Supreme Court reporting , longtime Slate contributor and appellate attorney Walter Dellinger writes in the following e-mail: A former academic colleague of mine once said a very wise thing about "bias": "The worst kind Read More...
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Dunno, Emily ... I, for one, am glad that Ed Whelan at NRO has outed us as raging drunks . To me, the remarkable aspect of the assault on Greenhouse is—as you point out—that she warrants such extra-special crazy-ass contempt from the right wing. She’s Read More...
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Ed Whelan at NRO didn't like the piece Dahlia and I wrote yesterday defending Linda Greenhouse. We're not eager for a tit for tat. But it seems worth repeating that our basic point, which Whelan ignores, is that critics on the right go after Greenhouse Read More...
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I'm not sure Obama can walk away —as he said on NPR this morning , if you don't respond to charges that you think are factually inaccurate, they tend to stick (Swift Boat). Obama also talked about how Bill is playing the campaigning role that the vice Read More...
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Emily , I’m not sure the Clinton campaign can’t control Bill or simply doesn’t want to. As you point out, it’s apparently working. And certainly it’s to Hillary’s advantage that she gets to appear all calm and superego while her husband spews id all over Read More...
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Newsweek's Jon Alter has a piece about Bill Clinton's recent hostile and aggressive campaign behavior. Alter quotes former Clinton lawyer, now Obama supporter, Greg Craig wondering "if Hillary's campaign can't control Bill, whether Hillary's White House Read More...
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So, Chris Matthews apologized—at length—for his Hillary comments (which XX Factor discussed here and here ). Here’s the video . I’m sure that now a chorus of laments will ring out in the world at large about how PC nags forced him into this. But let’s Read More...
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Good question , Juliet, about whether the decline in abortions can be attributed to the decline in the number of clinics. You're right about the latter. In her recent book This Common Secret , Susan Wicklund says that ”between 1982 and 2000, the number Read More...
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That's funny Ann , the one thing that never occurred to me was that Megan Meier's parents had struck an impossible bargain with her over MySpace. Perhaps because my kids still believe that Dora the Explorer actually lives inside my laptop I haven't yet Read More...
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Dahlia, I'd say one of the most poignant lines in the New Yorker article -and there were plenty of them-comes from Mrs. Meier, Megan's mother, maturely drawing stark age distinctions. She feels for the teenagers who posted messages posing as "Josh Evans," Read More...
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Emily , I agree with your Clintonian sentiment re abortion (fewer = better), but perhaps only in theory. The new report on the falling abortion rate didn't provide a reason for the decline. Maybe I'm being cynical, but could this have something to do Read More...
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Just read Lauren Collins piece on the Megan Meier MySpace/Suicide story. We haven’t really covered this story at Slate , largely because it’s virtually impossible to wrap your head around it all. Collins doesn’t try to make sense of it all either, just Read More...
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Per our discussion about Juno and abortion earlier this week, the Guttmacher Institute announced today that the U.S. abortion rate has declined to its lowest level since 1974—the year after Roe v. Wade was decided. In 2005, the rate was 19.4 abortions Read More...
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The National Women's Studies Association just completed a survey on women's studies programs. Here are some stats, via Feministing : There are 652 women's and gender studies programs in the United States; undergrad women's studies courses enrolled nearly Read More...
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Dahlia’s right that last night’s debate was conciliatory and eggshell-tiptoeing to an almost comic degree: After you , my dear Alphonse. But it was a relief to have a break from last week’s victim-of-oppression sweepstakes (which was approaching its nadir Read More...
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All three of the Democratic presidential contenders insist that the next occupant of the Oval Office has got to be more open and honest with the American people. After seven years of gut-instinct infallibility, who could disagree? Yet when asked at last Read More...
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The real truth? Peel away all the ugly, snarling identity politics of the past few weeks and what you find underneath it is a trio of Democratic presidential hopefuls who are colossal wonks. And in much the same way they might do after someone had landed Read More...
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Clearly, any article that describes the dilemmas of "young" parents, age 28 (using the same language of regret-for-lost-childhood once reserved for teenage mothers), has a hidden agenda: To make all of those fortysomething readers feel better about themselves. Read More...
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Wow, Dahlia , thanks for sharing that story on "young" parents in the WaPo . I'm not quite sure I get the point of the article, but it leaves me with a million random thoughts. First off, it puts to rest the notion that only women write puff pieces . Read More...
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Here , in a skit posted months ago, is all you need to know about how the Democratic primary is playing out. Oh, except that the Republican enjoying the show has yet to be named ... Read More...
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Dahlia , amen. Racism and sexism are issues in the campaign, no doubt, but they're not the central issues, and playing the game of who-has-it-worst could end up in a form of Mutually Assured Destruction. Luckily, the candidates themselves seem to have Read More...
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Did anyone else find the Washington Post ’s front page story today about “young” college-educated parents just surreal? (Disclosure: They own us.) First off, all these extremely young parents who are not hanging out in bars or brunching with their buddies Read More...
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Dahlia, I'd just been typing up a post in the same spirit as yours, inspired by David Brooks' column today about the "identity trap" the candidates have gotten themselves into. Maybe it's a good moment to invite suggestions for how they could escape, Read More...
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If the first half of last week was Gender Week in the mainstream media, and the past few days were the Days of Race. Today’s theme is fast shaping up to be Gender Vs. Race, and it’s only going to get worse from here. Having gone one round on Hillary’s Read More...
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Hey Melinda , no, I wasn't being deliberately provocative. I've written about women who regret their abortions, and about the importance of counseling. And I think it's an issue that deserves more attention and funding; services like the after-abortion Read More...
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Were you just being provocative, Emily ? Describing a best-case abortion as nothing more than "a few not ideal hours'' makes it sound like an afternoon at the DMV without a good book. And aren't you being just as categorical as you say Caitlin Flanagan Read More...
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Back to Hillaryland (because who can stay out for long?): Who is she kidding when she said to Tim Russert yesterday , about herself and Obama, "I don't think either of one of us want to inject race and gender in this campaign"? I'm pretty much in favor Read More...
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Emily: You nailed the problem with Flanagan's piece—the overarching, equalizing is that so officiously announces to women how "they" experience the world. Everyone's a Platonist when it comes to teenage girls and sex. One thing that was great about Juno Read More...
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Dahlia , agreed entirely. And now on to a subject that lies somewhere between the CIA and nail polish: Caitlin Flanagan's complaints about the movie Juno in the NYT over the weekend. (Did anyone else notice that the Times ' Sunday op-ed pages were practially Read More...
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Erica Jong posted yesterday on the embarrassing lack of substance in our political coverage. I don’t disagree on the merits. The media (ourselves included) have now devoted exponentially more energy to Hillary’s non-tears in Portsmouth, than they have Read More...
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Emily, So glad you brought up the love affair between Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni. It's pretty much a de rigeur topic of conversation in European capitals at the moment, but I daren't mention it too much on an American Web site, during the all-too-serious Read More...
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When this blog started in October, Anne Applebaum wrote of how the Nicolas and Cecilia Sarkozy, France's president and first lady, could be a model for American political couples. She had her own life, did not help him campaign, and no one in France seemed Read More...
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Part of the slam against Hill's supposedly subpar experience seems to be that she spent much of her career in a provincial backwater like Little Rock. But isn't it elitist and credentialist and regionalist, too, to imagine that political talent can come Read More...
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Melinda , I think your own tacking back and forth on Hillary reflects not just the tendency of women voters to swarm her only when she’s been attacked, but also our own ambivalence about what the first female president needs to look like and how we should Read More...
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I agree with you, Meghan (what had Bill Bradley done before he got elected to the Senate?). I'd go further: that untidy trajectory of Hillary's and those multiple identities and even her authenticity issues—which have us XX bloggers all tied up in knots—may Read More...
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On Hillary's electability: What had Ronald Reagan, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, done to make them "electable" before they became governors of California? Sure, maybe Hillary hadn't "accomplished" as much as some male candidates out there. But even that seems Read More...
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It occurs to me that in our discussion here, I am mirroring the reaction Hillary Clinton has gotten from women voters throughout her short but exciting political career: Expressing considerable skepticism, then rushing to her aid at the first sign of Read More...
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Anne , Being a rock star in law school, creating a local legal career for yourself, and getting involved in local politics was about the extent of Sandra Day O’Connor’s r é sum é , too. Yet it’s often said of her that even if she hadn’t been tapped for Read More...
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A smart XX Factor reader wrote in to make a great point about where the increase in Clinton's support among women is coming from: Obama's percentage of female voters was virtually unchanged -- it only dropped from 35% [Iowa] to 34% [New Hampshire]. Therefore, Read More...
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A question from John Dickerson: I am still waiting for data that proves that women flocked to Hillary in NH because of the debate pile-on or the near tears moment in Portsmouth. (Data suggests late deciders actually went to Obama.) But clearly women everywhere Read More...
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OK, this is absolutely the last time I post on this subject. ... BUT the idea that Hillary is a very accomplished person because she was a star at Yale Law School, got involved in a few minor Washington issues, and had a decent career at the Rose Law Read More...
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Wow, Anne , and now I'm defending Hillary? Weird. But she really did not hitch her wagon to this upwardly mobile guy, and the rest is history. It was Hillary, even more than Bill, who was the superstar at Yale Law. Life magazine had already written glowingly Read More...
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