How About a Sex Speech, Obama?

Candidate should do for gender what he did for race

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 12, 2008 8:27 AM CDT

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How About a Sex Speech, Obama? — Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., bottom, is applauded as he prepares to speak at a Women for Obama event in San Francisco, Friday, Sept. 7, 2007. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

It’s a shame that Hillary Clinton never gave a speech about gender to match Barack Obama’s speech about race, writes Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. So why not make that speech yourself, Barack? Kristof even has the talking points for you:

Racism is deeper, but sexism may be wider. More Americans say they’d vote for a black man than a woman.
Biases are stealthy. Americans don’t mean to discriminate based on gender; but the subconscious harbors stereotypes.

A conservative may well be the first woman president. The first Catholic president wasn’t “very Catholic” so don’t expect the glass-ceiling-breaker to be a women’s movement alum.
Women haven't been powerful as a voting bloc. Party and home state say more about politicians, and voters, than their gender.
But politics could make a big difference for women. Obama could champion the neglected cause of maternal mortality—the stunning 1-in-10 chance African women have of dying in childbirth.

(More sexism stories.)

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