Steinem

Gloria Steinem's editorial in the Times today is really quite bad. While she is right to point out the absurd sexism Hillary Clinton faces on the campaign trail, particularly within the press corps, she is wrong on both Clinton and Obama throughout. She claims that Clinton is somehow more progressive than Obama, when in reality their voting records are quite similar in the Senate and that many of her stated positions are rather conservative. She claims that women get more radical with age, citing statistics showing that older women backed Hillary. Hillary may be many things, radical is not one of them. Any examination of the actual beliefs of the young women who voted for Obama is absent from Steinem's analysis, but I suspect that they would be at least as progressive as Clinton supporters.

Steinem also gives lip service to not promoting a competition over whether racism or sexism is a bigger problem in this country, and then goes ahead and does just that. Which is more pervasive? Is it even possible to answer this question? I certainly believe that Obama's chances of facing an assassination attempt this campaign are significantly higher than Hillary's. On the other hand, Obama has not had to face racist bullshit from the press corps like Hillary has faced sexism. Steinem clearly believes sexism is, but I am not sure; certainly she does not provide any evidence to say so. I guess I would say that both racism and sexism are still major problems in this nation, but that both are slowly getting better, as represented by the fact that the two top Democratic candidates for president are a black man and a white woman. Not to mention that none of the last 3 Secretaries of State have been a white man.

Steinem closes with this. We have to be able to say: “I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman.” No, I don't think so. I would like to elect a woman president as much as anyone. But I am not going to elect someone president because they are a woman. In fact, that is going to play nearly no role in my decision. I am not going to support Obama because he is black either. I am going to support the candidates whose policies are closest to my own; this is why I support Edwards. I am comfortable with an Obama nomination and I think it would be a shockingly wonderful thing to elect a black person president--amazing really. I also think that it would be wonderful to elect a woman president. But not when that woman is a conservative whose best reason for being president is that she will be ready to govern from day one. In fact, I will support the person who I think will make a great president. And I believe that both John Edwards and Barack Obama will make a better president than Hillary Clinton.

Bean has more.