The XX Factor: What women really think.

Sorry, Gloria

I also read Gloria Steinem's NYT op-ed on Hillary and sexism twice because I hoped on the second reading I wouldn't find it such a load of hooey (and I admire and am grateful to Steinem for her pioneering work as a feminist). Her opening thought experiment -- try to imagine a woman with Obama's biography being elected to the U.S. Senate  -- is ridiculous. As she mentions, Obama was a lawyer, community organizer and state senator before being elected to the U.S. Senate. This is very similar to the pre-Senate biographies of Sens. Patty Murray of Washington, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Susan Collins of Maine and others. Gloria, how about this thought experiment: Imagine a lawyer who worked for a middle-sized law firm in a small, Southern  state, gave up his career to do important volunteer work while his wife had a prominent political job, then decided he'd like to get into electoral politics himself, by starting as the senator from New York, a state where he never previously resided. Yes, it's hard to imagine. You can take either Obama's and Hillary's biographies and say it's absurd that someone with such a thin record of political accomplishment would consider themselves presidential material. But despite racism and sexism, the public has taken Obama and Hillary as serious presidential candidates, unlike more experienced choices such as Sen. Joe Biden or Gov. Bill Richardson.

Sure, we live in a world that is still full of racism and sexism. But I agree with Dahlia that Iowans went for Obama over Hillary not because Americans won't elect a woman president, but because they liked him better and resented her robotic sense of entitlement. Had they preferred Hillary, everyone would now be concluding that racism is more ineradicable in our society than sexism.