Steinem says, "ladies first, Obama!"

Don Surber semi-fisks a NYTimes op-ed piece by a pissed-off-sounding Gloria Steinem (she’s in italics):

Steinem tells Obama to give up his seat to Miss Hillary.

In analyzing Iowa’s caucuses, I said the winners were Huckabee, followed by Obama. Hold on there, came a reader comment. You overlooked the historic significance of the first black man to carry a white state in presidential politics.

Good point.

It just never occurred to me that his skin color is all that important. But it is. And I see where his sex also matters.

On the New York Times opinion pages today, Gloria Steinem chastised Obama for not being a girl:

“The woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.

“Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?”

Well, when pitted against another lawyer who is in her 8th year in the Senate and a third lawyer who served one term in the Senate, mine answer is sure. Why not?

Because he’s not a girl, said Steinem.

“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.”

Ah, and there is the clue: He’s charismatic.

Hillary ain’t.

My Li’l Bro Thom read the Steinem piece and reminded me that CBS has played the same sexism card over Katie Couric’s failures, about which I wrote last May:

We do women in general no favors, at this point, by continuing an “affirmative action” mindset that says, “aw, she’s a woman, and it’s a man’s world, so she gets extra forbearance.” That’s nonsense. Once you’ve reached a pinnacle, you can’t keep whining that you’re only teetering because you’re a woman. You’re teetering because the pinnacle is slim, sharp and lonely, and you can only remain there if you belong there, or if you have one hell of a safety belt supporting you. Those that belong there make the pinnacle look easy, the rest impale themselves or fall. Or they loll about in the safety belt, and stagnate.

The “inherent sexism” cry is becoming vapid and intellectually dishonest. Even these “gender experts concede that Hillary is not in trouble because of sexism. And that makes sense. Men on the left can’t be sexists, because, hey, they’re liberals, right? And men on the right for the most part adore Margaret Thatcher. So…really…perhaps at this point the only “sexists” left are the ones who reduce everything to damn gender issues.

Fausta says there is something pathetic and embarrassing about it all.