The XX Factor: What women really think.

Annals of One Smart Cookie

This whole debate about Lafferty's piece in the Daily Beast raises a question for me: Does it matter whether Palin is a feminist or not? Isn't it possible that she could be a net benefit for feminism without being one? I, too, am bothered by Palin's politics on a number of women-related issues, from abortion to abstinence-only sex ed. But before I go to the "she's terrible for feminism" place, I think of two 9-year-old girls I know, and I try to see this from their perspective. This is the first election they're really going to remember. And what they'll remember is that Hillary Clinton very nearly was the Democratic presidential candidate and that Sarah Palin was a dynamic, funny, personable VP candidate. Hopefully, they'll come of age thinking such an accomplishment for women is, if not normal, at least possible. Hopefully, they WON'T remember this campaign as the moment they realized there's a profound double standard for women--namely, that female candidates are criticized with more vigor than male candidates.

The problem that Lafferty doesn't acknowledge, alas, is that all these issues are tied together. It has to be fair for liberal feminists to criticize Palin on the basis of her positions, as Emily points out. At the same time, though, there's plenty of latent sexism tinging the discourse. Lafferty lumps all this together, which doesn't help further the debate. No doubt Palin is smart; but what troubles a lot of voters is whether she's intellectually curious and whether she's open to debate and advice. And as Ann pointed out, deeming a woman a "brainiac" after one plane ride smacks of overcompensation.

Joe Biden's Wardrobe, Unpacked

Last week I asked XX Factor's male readers to weigh in with thoughts about the suit Joe Biden wore to the VP debate. I was trying to see if we could redirect our dissection of Sarah Palin's wardrobe—to see whether men pay as much attention to male candidates' clothes as we were paying to Palin's. The unscientific answer is: yes. (Of course, this has nothing to do with what one feels about the sticker price of Palin's wardrobe. Not to mention the cost of her makeup artist.) Most of you thought Biden's suit probably cost about $1,000, observing that it was not a "bespoke" suit and that similar suits at Brooks Brothers cost a grand or so. But many of you pointed out, too, that it could easily be in the upper end of that range, costing as much as $5,000.

Some pointed observations along the way: One reader wrote that he found the cost of Palin's wardrobe shocking because he "expected that, as governor, she would already have some clothes that were acceptable for the campaign trail." Another thought the fuss over Palin wasn't particularly gendered; just think of the hoopla over John Edwards' $400 haircut. (Great comparison: He noted that if you got a $400 haircut every day for a year you'd still be about two weeks shy of spending $150,000. It sure can cost a lot to dress yourself as a woman—but sheesh, you gotta work to spend $150,000.)

A third reader said he didn't think that we'd ever spend this much time thinking about a man's wardrobe because we're "culturally conditioned to almost instinctively believe certain things about people based on their gender." And we pay more attention to women's clothes: Even places like Target and so on have more big-label names designing down-market fashion for women than they have for men. Yet another reader took this point even further, noting that men can wear a suit over and over where women can't. He calculated that Biden's outfit would cost $2,500 or so from Hickey Freeman (where Biden has said he likes to shop). But he noted that it can be worn over and over as a "uniform," where Palin's dresses can't. Ah, well. Did Hillary solve this all with the pantsuit, yet another wondered. What seemed frumpy now looks pragmatic. 

Many thanks to all who wrote in. I know much more about men's clothes than I did five days ago. 

What She Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Her

I agree it would be terrible if Sarah Palin, despite being an avid reader of newspapers, really couldn't name a single Supreme Court case besides Roe with which she disagreed.  

But what if she's bluffing?

The woman vehemently criticizing Exxon v. Baker in this footage bares a striking resemblance to Palin and is, in fact, the Alaskan governor herself.  So if Palin chokes tonight and garners pity from the audience, does that mean she's remarkably forgetful, an amnesiac, or, as the prevailing theory suggests, entirely conscious of her sympathy-vote potential? 

Perhaps it is more likely that Palin is choosing not to mention this case to stay on message. In the case of Exxon v. Baker, Palin was pro-plaintiff and ran up against the Republican stance on trial lawyers and "frivolous lawsuits that threaten jobs across America." Either way, she seems to be better at manipulating her audience than we give her credit for. I'm beginning to think that win or lose tonight, Palin will still walk away the victor.

The Contender?

Last night I watched The Contender, a movie about the nomination of a female vice-president. It's mostly concerned with post-Lewinsky prurience and takes sexual politics to an absurd level to make that point (gang-bang allegations? Really?) but left me thinking about Kathleen Sebelius (and no, I'm not revealing anything scandalous here). Like Joan Allen's character, she's a delicately featured, centrist Democrat who's the daughter of an Ohio governor. Sebelius has made it to lots of shortlists for Obama's veep, but seems to be forever the bridesmaid. The reasons for her rejection are wide-ranging: She's too nice. She's an uninspired speaker. She's not Catholic enough. She's too pretty, so she'll remind voters of their deep-seated fear of miscegenation standing on the podium next to Obama. She's a female whose birth certificate fails to read "Hillary Rodham."

These arguments against Sebelius are usually preceded by the bullet points in her favor. But the oddest endorsement of Sebelius came from Hillary-hater extraordinaire Camille Paglia, who wrote that Obama will need someone with Sebelius' "blandly generic WASPiness that has persistently defined the American power structure in business and government and that has weirdly resisted wave after wave of immigration since the mid-19th century." Paglia's backward semi-compliment streamlines all the other complaints into one smooth peg: a boring identity is the ultimate sin in this election cycle. But is she really so inoffensive as to be offensive? Consider—she's just a year younger than Hillary, meaning she would have faced those same glass ceilings in her political rise—more, perhaps, since she ran for office earlier. And she might not be considered Catholic enough now for purposes of the veep slot, but I would imagine it didn't do her any favors in the Kansas of 30 years ago, where WASP probably wasn't the first dismissal that came to mind for her. (She may not wear her Catholicism on her sleeve, but I actually think that's something that might appeal to a lot of moderate Catholics, who don't tend to be a Bible-thumping group—as for the single-issue voters who're peeved about her abortion record, well, they probably weren't sniffing near the Democratic ticket anyhow.)

So it's not hard to imagine she threw some ‘bows along the way, but like Nancy Pelosi, smoothed her scars into a public persona and cloaked her chutzpah in pearls, pantsuits, and a picture-perfect home life. They both worked within, and rose to the top of, the existing power structure—something about flies, honey, and vinegar, maybe. (Pelosi and Sebelius, by the way, both went to the same all-women's Catholic college that my mother attended for a time. From what I gather, social life there often alternated between dates with Georgetown guys and girls sitting around a dorm common room with their hair in curlers, chain-smoking and playing intense games of bridge—if that isn't training for navigating Washington's smoke-filled back rooms and cliquish power circles, I don't know what is.)

Maybe I'm just rooting for a nice Irish-Catholic girl from Ohio to make it big for my own selfish reasons, and maybe her undefined national image lets me project whatever I want to on her. But I kinda bet Sebelius has a hell of a story and somewhere along the line decided it wasn't in her best interest to tell the gory details. She's a feminist and a trailblazer, but in what now sticks out as an oddly old-fashioned way. She doesn't seem to want to be anyone's lightning rod, which is perhaps what really bugs hard-core Hillaryites. And maybe they're right—in our ultra-confessional era, can someone truly become a feminist icon who's not willing to mine her identity politics and shout her personal history from the podium? Or, perhaps more pointedly, does a woman have to be a feminist icon before she can be on a national ticket?

A Very Brady Election

Emily, you and Michelle Obama aren't the only ones who love The Brady Bunch. As I read that nugget in Jodi Kantor's New York Times story this morning, I couldn't help thinking about another politician with a Brady connection.

Allow me to quote from that oracle of our modern age, Wikipedia. This is from the entry on Louisiana's current governor:

According to family lore, Jindal adopted the name "Bobby" from the character Bobby Brady after watching The Brady Bunch television series at age four. He has been known by that name ever since-as a civil servant, politician, student,and writer--though legally his name remains Piyush Jindal.

C'mon, John McCain, please name Gov. Bobby Jindal to be your running mate!