The XX Factor: What women really think.

CNN's Unilluminating Gender Gap

During the vice-presidential debate, I had to keep tearing my gaze away from the CNN ticker with the reactions of undecided voters, which was tracking men separately from women. The sexual politics of politics—how could it not be riveting? Except that, after about five minutes, it wasn't. All it led me to was the basic and obvious observation that women seemed to be higher on the + scale than men, over and over again. They also seemed to dislike hearing the Republican line on the Iraq war more.

Tonight the male/female split tracker was back. And again, women seemed more positive, more excited, more supportive of Barack Obama. And they seemed to twist the dial harder toward disapproval when the topic was the Bush administration's record. Men, meanwhile, seemed to stick closer to the middle of the dial. Because they were more cautious? Less excitable? More bored? Less interested?

Who knows. And maybe I missed some moments in which women thrilled to John McCain, or men did, because I confess that I myself was close to flatlining. But I've decided that I think this men/women ticker is merely reductionist. There's no context, no way of understanding what the differences mean. The separate lines are presented as if they have significance without any way of discerning what that significance could be. Men are from campaign Mars, and Women are from electoral Venus, with no insight about what it's like on either planet.