The XX Factor: What women really think.

Cottle on Feminism's Nose Dive

Michelle Cottle has a great essay in the New Republic bemoaning the campaign season as one long setback for feminism, beginning with Hillary Clinton's decision to play the grievance card right on through to her still enraged supporters, as well as John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin, because she's underqualified. Cottle is careful to say, as is Dahlia here, that Palin has smarts and strengths, and could be a perfectly able and qualified vice presidential choice. Someday. The point is that she's not there yet, and would never have gotten the nod if she weren't a woman.

Right. And that should help guide us in sorting through the Republicans' charges that the press and anyone else who raises questions about Palin is subjecting her to sexist treatment. If the question is about her experience and record, and whether and how it merits the vice presidency, then it's all fair game. To suggest otherwise, as the Republicans are loudly doing, is to cry wolf. And doesn't it seem like this will, or at least should, come back to bite them, the next time they mock the Democrats on this score?

But if the questions about Palin focus on whether she can be the vice president and a good mother to her five kids, then they seem suspect pretty quickly. No one is asking John McCain how his seven kids are handling his busy schedule. The problem, of course, is that the motherhood part of the Palin picture is endlessly colorful, and that she herself is invoking it as a reason for voters to like and trust her. In the cult-of-personality universe in which we assess presidential candidates, there's no way to separate the personal from the professional. Tricky. Thoughts?