The XX Factor: What women really think.

Politico Says the Press Was Sexist? Great!

Poring through Michael Calderone's "Top Ten Media Blunders of 2008" in the Politico, it was hard not to notice how many of his favorite Fourth Estate screw-ups had to do, in some obvious or oblique way, with sexism purportedly making its way into the press. You've got the whole Hillary-in-New-Hampshire episode, in which Hillary wept and the media's subsequent mockery mobilized women voters on her behalf (or so the mythology goes); you've got MSNBC's choice to hand its election coverage over to Chris "She-Devil" Matthews; you've got the "Obama's baby mama" Chyron on Fox; and you've got the David Shuster pimp-Chelsea Clinton thing—along with the questionable coverage of two alleged Big Macher mistresses, Vicki Iseman and Rielle Hunter.

You could make the case that all the media's stumbles over sexism should alarm women, but I wonder if the opposite isn't the case. It shows how sensitive we've become to the various pitfalls inherent in covering women. (And, well, maybe too sensitive, but that's another debate.)

Maddow About You

So a little over a month ago in this space, a few of us wished Rachel Maddow luck with her new MSNBC nightly talk show. And boy, has she had luck, or made her own. Today’s NYT reports that in the 25 days her show has been on the air, it’s doubled viewership in that 9 p.m. time slot. She’s keeping 90 percent of Keith Olbermann’s audience from the previous slot—and he has the second-biggest audience in cable news.

Speaking for myself, I can say that in the few weeks it’s been on the air, Maddow’s show has quietly become a staple of my unwholesomely large media diet. I put my kid to bed, make dinner, and watch Rachel Maddow (or at least have her on in the background while surfing the Web for more political news. Like an addict knowing I’ll be forced into rehab come Nov. 4, I’ve just given in at this point.) Her show still has some kinks to work out. It’s too indebted to airheaded cable-news conventions like the spin-doctor interview (who cares what paid campaign flacks have to say on either side?) and the dreaded celebrity-gossip “expert” (both Olbermann and Matthews regularly host these types, and both visibly recoil from them. Just kill the segment!). But as Maddow settles in, she’s quickly evolving into the liveliest voice of the left-leaning media, as well as the only major cable-news host who doesn't seem constantly on the brink of an apoplectic fit.

I think I’m not alone in Maddow love. Profiles of her are appearing everywhere, like this interview with GQ, in which she cheerfully identifies herself as “a big lesbian who looks like a man,” and this "Domains" piece from the last NYT Sunday magazine. I usually hate “Domains”—a weekly feature about the living space of a famous person that seems designed to incite lifestyle envy among readers—but I genuinely wanted to pull a chair up to Maddow’s kitchen table in Northampton, Mass., right next to the reflector-holding garden squirrel, and have old-school mixed drinks with her and her girlfriend. And mind you, I’m straight (though seeing RM in her cute civilian duds on The Tonight Show, I sort of wonder why …).

The Contendah

No, Emily, we should not judge Sarah Palin as a mother, no matter how beguilingly she and her impulsive soulmate invite us to do so. Remember when the Earth was young, 10 days ago, and we were still wondering about the Hillary Holdouts? If they haven't been scared straight by now, they aren't coming back. But one thing I hope we learned from them is that sexist attacks helped Hillary more than they hurt her, energizing her supporters and winning her some converts, too, among women who weren't totally sold until they saw her criticized in ways a man wouldn't be. Every sexist shot not only boomeranged, but was held against Barack Obama. Which is why everyone who wants him to win should mind Dahlia's advice to Joe Biden and avoid certain modes of attack altogether.

This is especially critical given the latest polling, which suggests that many women really are switching from Obama to McCain because he's chosen a female running mate: According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, "white women shifted from an 8-point pre-convention edge for Obama to a 12-point McCain advantage now.''

Like Hillary Clinton and every Republican in my lifetime—with the exception of Sen. Soulmate, before he got religion and lost our phone number—Palin is running against the media. So our sins will be held against the Obama-Biden ticket, too. With time so short, she did not even wait to be attacked before throwing down the victim cards of gender, class, and media bias: "I've learned quickly, these past few days,'' she said in her convention speech, "that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.'' (Are these the same "some'' who want us to make nice with terrorists? Or the "they'' who hate us because we're free?) Sure, but then why bring the straw man to life by lunging for the bait? Mike Barnicle played right into her hands, worrying on MSNBC about who'd be minding little Trig if Mummy was off working in the Executive Office Building.

And the more Democrats rant about God, guns, babies, and Sarah P., the better for McCain, who must have been doing the happy dance after Harry Reid described her tone as shrill, and when Biden joked that one big diff between them was that she was better lookin'.  I was in Toledo for that one; that is what he said, and Obama was just as casual with his words that day, repeatedly addressing older women in the audience as "young lady.'' :( 

This past weekend, my 12-year-old son, who totally knows how to work me, suggested that we celebrate my return from the Sarah Palin Party Convention in St. Paul by watching The Contender in her honor. I'd forgotten, but it's one of those heavy-handed, here-comes-the-crowbar and there-goes-your-cranium liberal morality tales about a Sen. Laine Hanson, played by Joan Allen, who's tapped to become the vice president after the guy in office dies. Her top adviser is her husband, but that's about all Hanson and Palin have in common. Early in the movie, we see the Clinton-ish president, played by Jeff Bridges, wondering whether a woman who has served only a decade in the U.S. Senate will be seen as experienced enough to handle the job, especially on the foreign-policy front.

Only oops, he was so busy trying to stump the White House chef that, just like John McCain, he seems to have neglected to vet his pick, whose past is more exciting than he might have hoped. For one thing, though it has somehow previously escaped the nation's notice, she appropriated her best friend's husband while he was managing her first campaign. A story that she had sex with a bunch of guys at a drunken college party turns out not to be true. Hanson would rather withdraw her name than dignify her accusers with a denial, but Bubba convinces the country that we're better than that, too, and don't need to know. So yay, she's in, and sex scandals are out! 

There is one scene relevant to life on this planet, however: When consultants advise Hanson's craven shell of a formerly good-guy rival to "gut the bitch,'' he winces but goes along, and is ruined in the end. Though part of me is looking for a reason to wag my finger and say, "Let that be a lesson to you, young man," it's not really Obama or jaw-flappin' Joe that I worry about getting carried away like that; it's the rest of us I'm not so sure of.

Gay for Rachel