The National Organization of Women is fighting to block a tax on cosmetic surgery. Because while it would be nice if women's pay didn't correlate with their looks, it does. Which raises the question of where feminism has gone.
It seems clear to me, mirrored by our presidential choices, that sexism is still widely acceptable in our culture, while racism is taboo. Yes, there's plenty of racism in our nation. Yes, there are lots of racists. But President George W. Bush had only black secretaries of state. He did give speeches at segregated colleges, and made other winking gestures towards racism, but could not openly say he thought black people were inferior.
But it's open to discussion whether women should have careers or be mothers. If you're the president of Harvard, it'll get you fired to suggest that women are inherently inferior, but a large portion of our society believes that it's God's will that men be in charge of their wives. Medicine, the workplace and the political world are all defined in male terms of success and worth and value.
I think one factor in gender being harder to crack than race is that gender is partly biological. While there appear to be physical racial traits, genetics has revealed race to be an illusion - constructed totally by society to reinforce political power structures. While there is a huge social dimension to gender identity, there is also the fact that men and women are different. Not only in our genitals and statistically in our musculature, but there are real differences in the ways we think and what we find interesting and valuable.
Conservatives can see those differences and use them as an excuse to keep women down. Liberals can fear them as a barrier to equality. But I hope that one day we'll see it as part of the rich diversity that is us. And we'll value and respect women for qualities that aren't physical.
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