Gloria Steinem today in NYT: Women Are Never Front-Runners

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Topic subject Gloria Steinem today in NYT: Women Are Never Front-Runners
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2627262, Gloria Steinem today in NYT: Women Are Never Front-Runners
Posted by kpete on Tue Jan-08-08 09:25 AM

Gloria Steinem today in the New York Times:
January 8, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Women Are Never Front-Runners
By GLORIA STEINEM

Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.

That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).

If the lawyer described above had been just as charismatic but named, say, Achola Obama instead of Barack Obama, her goose would have been cooked long ago. Indeed, neither she nor Hillary Clinton could have used Mr. Obama’s public style — or Bill Clinton’s either — without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits.

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08steinem.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin