The XX Factor: What women really think.

Palin and Cable TV

Slate's Jim Ledbetter sends in the following guest post:

The irony struck me while watching cable television from my Denver hotel room on Friday morning: A kind of token feminism had finally hit the Republican Party, and was immediately being questioned by—of all people—cable television commentators. Does anyone believe that the blowdried blonds (male and female, but for purposes of this argument, female) who read newscasts from teleprompters are chosen strictly for their journalistic skills? Putting women in front of the camera—like putting women on the covers of magazines—is a proven way of attracting the attention of media consumers both male and female. It should come as little surprise that the McCain campaign—which has never come anywhere near 50 percent support in any credible national poll—sought to apply this same media logic to politics. Don’t get me wrong: I share completely the view that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be the vice president of the United States, and that McCain’s choice is a world-class act of cynical political calculation, rather than any attempt to put “Country First.” At the same time, neither liberals nor conservatives have figured out the right balance between rewarding “qualified” women and sheer representation of women in places where it is deemed to matter. The logic of affirmative action is that given equal or near-equal conditions, preference should be given to members of historically underrepresented groups. The current contortions through which Republicans are trying to argue that Palin is qualified can be read as an argument that gender representation trumps experience, an argument not unfamiliar on the democratic left, and certainly not on cable television. And anyway, if McCain and Palin end up losing, who doubts that CNN and Fox will be competing to offer her a show?