The XX Factor: What women really think.

The Illusion of Catharsis

I thought I was onboard with Emily about all the benefits of openly airing this buried anger and rage about race and gender. I’d been arguing for months that it was past time to lance this boil and just have it out in the streets about how mad everyone in the Democratic Party feels.

Perhaps I’ve read one too many livid blogs today or listened in on a few too many enraged racially charged debates this weekend, but I am starting to go a little wobbly at the ankles. Can someone remind me what’s truly served by a “conversation” about race and gender for its own sake? Are we progressing toward something better here? Is all this dialoguing fostering some new paradigm for talking about personal identity and politics? Or is this just the sort of conversation that always goes badly in the end? The kind that starts when some guy in a bar says, “Wanna hear what your real problem is?”