I never liked the idea of the XX blog because, once again, women were being relegated to the ladies pages. In the beginning, I still read it sometimes, but I increasingly found the tone to be shrill and noticed that most of the posters had joined the fanatical Obama wagon. There are obviously a lot of people who have jumped on that wagon, too, so I wasn't surprised. What surprised me was the vituperation against Hillary Clinton. I don't love Hillary Clinton, but I thought the comments were oddly nasty.

My daughter and most of her friends were Hillary supporters. These are first time voters and some of them won't even be old enough to vote in November. My younger female colleagues at work were also Hillary supporters. So I haven't seen this age divide at all. In fact, the people I know who were fanatic Obama supporters from the beginning were white people in their 40s and 50s.

So I was surprised that the argument is perceived as being between old and young feminists. The divide I think I see is between the people who think symbols are as important as actions and those for whom symbols are a good deal less powerful than actions. I have discovered during this primary process that I am very much in the latter camp, which is why this infatuation with Obama is perplexing to me. I can tell that he and his campaign are powerful for a lot of people, but I struggle to understand why.

For these people, voting for a black man is a powerful symbol of their lack of racism. Insisting that we leave Iraq now symbolizes their objection to the initial invasion. Driving a Prius symbolizes their concern about global warming. But the danger in valuing symbols so highly is that it can lead to substituting symbols for action. And sadly, I see that substitution all the time.

The people who operate at the symbolic level have a much harder time addressing sexism because that would require that they make some actual changes in their work and most especially their home lives. Their wives--or the women themselves--still do the lion's share of the housework and child raising, even though now she works because they are "equals." And of course, everyone in the most senior positions at work are men--sort of like slate.com (and I really like David Plotz, it's just not surprising that even at slate.com, the editor job goes from one man to another).

These same symbol-driven people don't acknowledge that everyone has racial prejudices that they need to recognize and deal with when they encounter them because they believe they have proven their complete absence of racism by voting for Obama.

These same people won't consider that the decision about the war in Iraq, while almost certainly unjustified, has already been made, so that all we can decide is whether pulling out now is the right thing. It's hard work to figure out what to do and risk deciding to put the lives of soldiers and civilians at risk. It's much easier to insist that you never wanted to be there in the first place. I can't ever have a discussion with anyone who is not a conservative about the war without having it rapidly turn to how it was a mistake in the first place. I think that's true, too (sorry, Christopher Hitchens), but so what? That's as helpful as emphasizing that you never wanted a third child in the first place while trying to decide what to do when that third child turns into a juvenile delinquent.

They are smug in their Priuses, but haven't made any of the really difficult changes in their lives to address their concern about their carbon footprints. They still live in far-flung suburbs in relatively large homes with huge air-conditioning bills.

My ex-church is full of these kinds of liberals (the church even has a Prius rally where all the Prius drivers get to park in the front of the church, by a busy road, so everyone can see how superior they are). They mob any unsuspecting black person who visits the church because they would be thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to have black people attend and wring their hands over why more don't, thereby placing each black person they encounter in the position of being a symbol to prove their non-racism. The church has been extremely open and welcoming to homosexuals and fought the denomination to try and change the church rules to allow homosexuals to be fully a part of the denomination. In many ways, they have been very courageous on the issue. The pastors regularly take off their stoles and fold them on the lectern because to wear a stole when others are denied it would be wrong. That's a powerful symbolic act. But when they had the big opening ceremony for the new church building and wanted to have a row of all of the clergy who had ever worked at or who currently attended the church, they excluded the woman who had graduated with honors from a respected seminary but was refused ordination solely because she is a lesbian. It was a horrible, hurtful experience for her that occurred while she attended the church and is exactly the kind of exclusion the church purports to be fighting. Yet they hadn't even considered including her and, when asked about it, explained that the reason they didn't even consider her was that she wasn't ordained. They loved the symbolic act, but couldn't bring themselves to actually include one of these excluded persons in a way that would have antagonized some of the representatives of the denomination that attended the ceremony. A symbol doesn't cost anything, but an action does.

How does this relate to Obama? He hits me as exactly the same kind of person. His liberalness is designed to get him elected, not to transform society. Of course he had to make a speech about race--he was getting hammered by the Jeremiah Wright tapes. That wasn't brave. Brave would be making a speech about fighting sexism--especially while Hillary Clinton was still in the primary race--or homophobia. Those issues don't resonate with him because they aren't about him. Anyone whose liberalism is designed solely for his own benefit is a politician who wants to be elected, not the greatest leader of our time. That's fine with me--I think that's what all politicians are like. What's surprising to me is all the people who adore him as if he were something different.

Wow - so I guess when Barack chose to work as a community organizer in the Southside of Chicago, instead of, say clerking on a Circuit Court, or the Supreme Court, and eventually earning millions as a partner in a white-shoe Chicago law firm, as former Harvard Law Review editors typically do, he was just kidding, huh?

And, I suppose, in your eyes, Hillary has never done anything for the sake of pure politics ... because someone as sharp as she is, who understands economics no doubt, would never pander on matters such as, for example, the gas tax holiday.

You know, you don't have to demean Barack to lift up Hillary. They both are impressive - and, alas, neither are perfect.

You said that making a speech about sexism while HRC was still in the race would have been brave--so why didn't HRC make it?

I wish you were a Slate columnist.

The most astute and penetrating post on this topic that I've read. You nailed it. Obama is a tremendously smart and shrewd politician who knows how to make good use of the guilt of white liberals. Of course, he's had plenty of practice doing this, having done so all his life. I don't mean to say that he's not also a very talented man. He clearly is that, too. And, though he is also inexperienced and untried by adversity, I hope that he is elected because McCain, who is highly experienced and has been tempered by suffering, has all the wrong values. And I hope that Obama is up to the job when he gets it. I expect that his hot air about new politics and such will dissipate, and he'll be as thin on achievement as "charismatic" politicians usually are. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I doubt it.

By the way, Obama isn't a great orator either. Churchill was a great orator. Obama is a politician who knows how to give a stem-winder, and use whole sentences doing that. After 8 years of Bush, that's enough for a lot of people too young to have heard great oratory. But I hope he's successful anyway, because he's all we have--if we're lucky.

he comminity organized HIMSELF into office... registering voters to get him elected and then ...taking that the knowledge he gain to force him demo challengers off the ballot. poleeze. all she is saying is stop drinking the cool aid..this guy is a mean hard ass pol doing bareboned work to get HIMSELF elected. show me the work that has benefited others!

Bravo Binker!

Bravo!

-From a 30 year old woman who voted for HRC.

Afia:

Clinton did make that speech, every day she campaigned for the Dem nomination

I have to echo the earlier commenter who said that they wished you were a regular columnist...

The discussion on symbolism is important because it helps us realize that we are not in a post-anything phase in this nation, yet. We are certainly not post-sexism, nor are we post-racism.

Exactly how is a vote for HC not a vote for a symbol? You could see a vote for either candidate as a vote for a symbol, and indeed, both HC and BA are powerful symbols, and both of them have taken action in different ways.

As a New Yorker, (who does not own a car, by the way) I cannot condone the action that HC has taken by voting her into the White House. It's true that BA's inexperience may be his saving grace, but I see no point in condoning irresponsible voting, particularly when I was one of 250,000 of her constituents who rallied in the streets of NYC, who begged her to listen to us, who were never even addressed. 250,000 people! Old women and young children were being trampled by police horses, and our Senator on the Hill did not even address our complaint. You simply can't ignore the anti-war movement and then expect them to vote for you.

My favorite BA action is his insistence that his campaign contributions come in small increments, from everyday people. This is both an effective action and a powerful symbol. HC chose to take campaign contributions from lobbyist groups who have a vested interest in keeping our healthcare system as messed up and problematic as it is right now because they make their profits that way.BA's choice to act differently DOES make him different. No politician has done this before.

Also, Obama has spent his public life transforming society little by little. He writes books. This is transformative. He organizes communities. This is transformative. He encourages dignity and respect within his campaign and among the general citizenry of the United States. This is transformative. He also knows he can have the most transformative effect once he's in the White House, and I respect the shrewdness that allows him to understand what he will be able to address before he gets there and what he will not. We NEED a shrewd politician on the left!