The XX Factor: What women really think.

How Progress Happens

Back in the late 1980s, there was a moment when British newspapers suddenly started hiring women—columnists, editors, whatever—en masse. The explanation for this change was not that Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black, or the other British press barons had somehow become feminists: The explanation was that the newspaper market had suddenly become unbelievably competitive, and some marketing genius had worked out that women like to read articles which are written by other women. Women readers being just as good as male readers—better, even, since advertisers reckon they are in charge of household budgets—the British press fell about itself trying to hire women who would entice other women to buy newspapers. The job market for women in journalism exploded.

Seems to me that with the nomination of Sarah Palin we are witnessing a similar phenomenon. Hillary didn't get the presidential nomination herself, but her primary campaign did demonstrate something that the political marketing geniuses had hitherto denied: Women, at least some of them, will vote for other women. Neither John McCain nor the Republican Party had to be converted to feminism in order to draw the next obvious conclusion: If women vote for women, and women's votes are just as good as men's votes, then a female vice president could be a hugely important addition to the ticket.

The point here, of course, is that a thousand speeches about women's rights couldn't achieve what John McCain's cold calculation of his political interests managed to achieve. Women make progress in today's world because they are needed and wanted, not because they can succesfully pass equal-rights legislation or stage a protest march. Perhaps the job market for women in politics will now explode, too.