South Carolina and The Gender Vs. Race Debate

At last night's speech in South Carolina, Obama showed the effects of the accelerated learning process that primaries are. I found his comment about "change is difficult" and about us having to overcome our "own doubts, fears, and cynicism" to be somewhat of a coming-of-age comment for the coalition that he has pulled together. And as expected, the only thing more rousing than his win last night was his victory speech. This guy can inspire with his words.

In reading some of the news articles this morning I came across an article by Jessica Reaves (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-obama_thinkjan27,0,1870901.story) of the Chicago Tribune. Let me start by saying she actually quotes Gloria Steinem's NY Times article as positive evidence for her case. Ms. Steinem exhibited an unfortunate sense of timing by publishing an article on why women are never the front-runners just 2 days before the New Hampshire vote. Now if Ms. Steinem had published that same article in the months before Iowa, she would command our attention and respect. Coming at the time it did, it was more of an apologist's tribute to the slipping Mrs. Clinton.

The Steinem article also reeked badly of an entitlement attitude - this is supposed to be Mrs. Clinton's turn; she endured all that humiliation and shame in return for this payback; she is the only woman of our generation who has a chance; a young, hopeful, inspiring upstart has no right to take it all away simply because he has a powerful personal story, has worked his heart out on the south side of Chicago helping the underprivileged, was successful at Harvard and Stanford, etc.

Ms. Reaves takes the Steinem hypothesis and builds upon it. A collection of 3 or 4 comments by folks like Chris Matthews and John Edwards is used as the basis for a sweeiping assertion of an imagined backlash against a successful woman. She uses an old journalistic trick by providing the only examples she can find to boost her hypothesis, makes a list, and adds an etc. at the end to make it look like there are more to add if only there were the time and space to do so. What is most telling is the irrational conclusion at the end of Ms. Reaves' article - if Obama wins then everyone will have to concede the point that in politics "gender remains a more profound obstacle than race." Apart from wanting to say "tell that to Jesse Jackson," isn't it appalling that journalists sometimes suffer from the same disease that politicians suffer from? If someone opposes or rejects their pet idea, it is obviously not because the idea isn't a good one but because there is a "vast _insert_your_favorite_category conspiracy" against the idea. Ergo, if Obama were to win then "Gender is a more profound obstacle in politics than Race." Would Ms. Reaves concede the opposite were Mrs. Clinton to win? That the results prove that Ms. Steinem was entirely wrong in her assertions and that, in fact, "Race remains a more profound obstacle than Gender?" Intellectual honesty and integrity would demand that she accept the challenge. But wait, the need for honest and integrity might in fact be the most profound obstacle to meaningful debate in the public sphere.