Searching for Eleanor Roosevelt . . .
Ten Op-eds in two days and every blessed last one of them authored by a man. And we're not talking about some hick newspaper in some backward southern town. Yesterday, Media Matters' Jamison Foser complained that out of ten Washington Post Op-eds, only "One is by a liberal":
Yesterday's Washington Post featured op-eds by Henry Kissinger, David Broder, Bill Kristol, David Ignatius, and George Will. Today's brings op-eds from George Will, Michael Gerson, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Kinsley, and Eugene Robinson.
One might think that at some post-adolescent point, the extremely male-dominated nature of the national discourse would become painfully embarrassing to the perpetrators. One would be wrong. And I base that conclusion on my many years of watching absolutely nothing change.
Whether the national debate is the 1990s discussion about all those lazy women on welfare or President Obama's stimulus package or all the many things wrong with Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sarah Palin, the people talking the loudest, the people dominating the conversation are always and forever men.
Back in the bad old days when women were oppressed, Eleanor Roosevelt's solution to the problem of men dominating the conversation was to talk only to women reporters. Eleanor barred male reporters from her press conferences. Since she talked only to women reporters, newspapers had to, um, hire women. Thanks to Eleanor, the guardians of male supremacy were actually forced to permit women to cover politics instead of fashion and food.
But those were the bad old conservative days. Today we have 3rd wave feminism. Today we are so freaking liberated that no one would dream of emulating Eleanor. Would they?
Photo: Eleanor Roosevelt holds a press conference.
Feminist Politics Gender Male Dominated Media News Women's History Eleanor Roosevelt Women Reporters
