The XX Factor: What women really think.

You Dirty Intellectual!

Rachael, I hate to be the one to have to break it to you, but you are an intellectual. (And I'm not sure when intellectual became such a dirty word.) You were valedictorian of your high-school class. You went to college. You are educated. You are learned. You had to read a few books and understand at least a couple of levels for that to have happened. And you work for the liberal New York media elite! (You don't get off pretending you are "regular folk" just because you live in Ohio!)

But being an intellectual is about more than just reading books or "plowing through studies." It simply means someone who uses their intellect rather than just their emotion. Someone who can think something out and give a reasoned, supported response, rather than simply take an uninformed stance out of fear or ignorance or laziness. (For example, voting the same way their parents do simply because they know of no other way.)

You say,

I've shaped—and reshaped—my beliefs and opinions through years and years of life experience, from debating others and even arguing with myself, from listening to viewpoints both similar to mine and different.

So you've heard other opinions and let them affect you? You've reasoned things out? You've argued with your own points of view? Intellectual!!!

And:

There are times I've struggled with my support for Republicans (though not always for the reasons you might think). I've got a lot of internal conflict about John McCain and Sarah Palin.

You've struggled with your own beliefs? You have internal conflicts? You don't just blindly follow the crowd and follow party lines? Intellectual!!!

I think what thinking people both liberal an conservative object to is not people who believe differently than they do if their beliefs are reasoned, thought out, and supportable, but people whose beliefs come not from the intellect (or even from emotion) but from prejudice, fear, laziness, or ignorance. Not voting for Obama because he is black, because his middle name is Hussein, because he's different, because one believes the rumors that have been spread about him rather than trying to find the truth.

It goes both ways. Not voting for McCain because he's old. There's also been a lot of age discrimination in this campaign that no one has talked about. Not voting for Sarah Palin because she sounds like a bumpkin.

There are plenty of "intellectuals" who aren't book smart, but who debate things: how best to raise their children, which candidate is best, which policy is best, why certain aspects of their religion don't make sense. That's nothing to be ashamed of!