My goodness, what a dilemma it is to be a feminist in these post-modern times! Ok, just tell yourself: "I'll choose the one who best EMBODIES my principles and what I stand for." Shouldn't be all that hard.

See Robin Morgan's "Goodbye to All That 2

After making lots of excellent points about the misogyny that has come out with Hillary's candidacy, she leaves me cold with her closing line:

"Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman—but because I am."

Huh? A friend to whom I sent this applied the following substitution test: "I'm not voting for Dukakis because he's Greek-American--but because I am."

Apart from that type of thinking not sitting well with me, it just sounds silly to me. If someone at, say, The National Review tried to caricature Robin Morgan or any other smart feminist with a satiric essay attributing that line to her, I'd cry foul.

The problem I see is the vitriol specifically targeting Hillary because of her gender. Bill Moyer featured this pretty well in his interview with Kathleen Hall Jamieson. The transcript is here.

No other candidate is receiving even close to the same amount of negative press, negative online attacks, and negative viral media than Hillary. And it seems the majority of these attacks are about her gender. Not only that, but the attacks are vicious, hateful, and crude to a level I've personally never seen. These attacks are coming from Democrats just as much as Republicans.

So here's a sincere question. Should there be an obligation for feminists to rally around Hillary and help defend these gender-biased attacks? Even if the individual feminist does not support Hillary's platform? In our seemingly divided Democratic electorate (although there seems to be some good indication the divide between Obama and Clinton aren't that extreme), can one defend a competitor, not based on identity politics, but based on feminist ideals?

We hear the protestations regarding the perceived racial attacks against Obama, but we hear nary a peep regarding the gender-bias against Clinton.

Why won't people research and read before they post? Nowhere in any statement released by NOW or NOW New York chapter does it insist that feminists must vote for Hillary Clinton. The statement castigates Kennedy for his endorsement of Obama. The statement clearly states that they found Kennedy's endorsement a betrayal, while NOW has issued a statement lauding Kennedy while endorsing Clinton. No one accused feminists of any kind of betrayal or traitorism.

You can infer anything you like from columns, articles and editorials written by women, but that doesn't make it true.

I just want to thank you very, very sincerely and from the bottom of my heart E.J. for writing the following which bears repeating and I hope everyone takes to heart. Yours are the words of genuine patriot and true American.

Again, my thanks. Here is what you wrote that I believe is sooooo important for every citizen to remember:

"But I am more than a little peeved at the proposed anatomical litmus test for feminism. It's flat-out cheating to demand that the belief that women are people (to quote the bumper sticker) can only be endorsed by voting for one of those people. We've had this debate before, and it is deadly. I reject the theology that feminism is a tribal religion, and that we can only trust the members of our own tribe. Identity politics is a stagnant pool, leading nowhere. I prefer to see feminism as just another current in the mainstream American belief in truth, fairness, and justice for all. I belong to too many groups -- some visible, some invisible, some intellectual -- to allocate my vote based on one membership. Who looks most like me? is not a good way to answer the big question: Who will be best for my country?"

Ms. Graff --

I don't care how elite and academic feminists vote, but I do care about what they believe they are voting for. If a vote for Obama is, as some suggest, a recognition and even a celebration of the fact that we now live in a "post feminist" world, then I suspect what's really being celebrated isn't feminism or post-feminism, but simple class advantage.

Because for working class and many middle class women gender issues are still vital economic issues. And there is no way to "turn the page" on those issues without turning the page on, or at least continuing to minimize serious discussion of, matters that in our modern economy can have immense impact on the economic success and survival of those women and their families. Matters like child care, pay equity, family leave, access to affordable training, re-training and education, Social Security and related retirement issues, and, of course, access to affordable health care.

42 years ago I was a working class teenager, a year out of high school, working in a low wage/no benefit clerical job at the Xerox Corporation in San Francisco. I had moved to California from New Jersey in the hope of establishing residency to take advantage of the ample ways of accessing low cost, higher education that California, rather uniquely among states at that time, offered its residents. One of my co-workers, a receptionist, was a recent Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Radcliff who had been denied access to Xerox's management training track because she was a woman. We would share coffee breaks and lunch, discuss books, our adventures in the city, and most of all, our frustrations with the limitations our gender, despite the differences between us in age, class and education, imposed equally on our ambitions.

Today, a young woman like my friend would have a straight shot from college to a corner office. But a young working class girl trying to support herself and finance her own education would be serving her coffee, rather than sharing it with her.

Plus, that ambitious girl would not share the fortunate conditions -- lower education costs, lower cost of living, greater availability of entry level jobs that could provide a step up the economic ladder -- that, along with feminist agitation, allowed my own rise, over two decades, from clerical worker to corner office to business owner.

It is this reality that will motivate my vote. I wish that it was one that feminist like you, who have some voice, if limited, in the public discussion would think about more deeply.

I don't see, and I don't think any of us can afford to see, this primary season as a choice between representatives of two formerly or currently victimized groups. Between an African American and a woman.

For me it is a choice between one candidate who has a long history of commitment and experience on issues that directly affect women, children and men, of all colors and walks of life -- the health of their families, their access to opportunities, their economic survival in the "new" economy -- and one who does not.

Remember Nona Gaprindashvili.

YOU NEVER HEARD OF NONA?

Shame on you.

Nona was a grandmaster chess player who was the equal of any man, including the most excellent World Chess Champion of her time, Mikhail Botvinnik.

There is an indelible stain on this magnificent lady's accomplishments. Nona was awarded the title of grandmaster as a woman player. There is little doubt Nona could have earned it without such condescension that is not only commonplace but even been nearly mandatory in the past. The older of three female Hungarian chess prodigies of more recent times never quite recovered from the indignities visited on her for refusing to even play women only chess tournaments.

Now imagine that Nona Gaprindashvili had been awarded the title of grandmaster because she was married to a grandmaster. Would anybody care what she did?

This is all not quite the minor matter that one might think in America. Chess players are heroic figures most everywhere but in America.

There has been enormous contention over whether women just don't have the "necssities" to play chess well. That is the conceit of wingers and religious fanatics. Pat Robertson has declared there has never been a woman chess master.

More intelligent discussion has revolved around whether it is male ego that shrinks from the horror of being beaten by a woman that dissuades women from playing well if they play chess at all or whether it is the female brain that is less likely to be attracted a lunatic world that drives many to madness.

Voting for Hillary because she suffers as a woman is equivalent to voting for George Romney because of the fanatical attacks on Mormonism. It would be great in my view if a woman or Mormon became president but to neglect all other considerations is obscene in my view.

I will vote for Hillary when hell freezes over. Has nothing to do with her being a woman but rather a winger.

Best, Terry

esmense, I'm not sure that Hillary Clinton deserves much credit for bringing economic opportunity to people. The economy did quite well during her husband's administration, but Newt Gingrich's contract with America did well too. The trouble with Clinton is that she's so polarizing, will progressive work get done? I hope that if she's elected she is able to build coalitions to make great things happen, but she hasn't shown much talent for it.

I agree with you, I burned my bra not my mind. Sometimes I wish I had my bra back. I am black and a woman. Go figure.

Okay, I'm with you. Concern about class, poverty, and opportunity is absolutely one of my "intellectual" group memberships and will always affect my vote.

Remember, I didn't say which one I voted for, or which one I wished I had voted for. I said: I do not want to be blackmailed into voting based on only one part of my makeup as a citizen. I reserve the right to take the whole package into account.

To BevD: I didn't mention anyone in particular, on purpose. Lotta implications have been made on a variety of listservs, blogs, and in other public fora, with very strong implications that a Real Feminist Will Vote For The Woman. No need to point fingers. It's out there. (Cue "Twilight Zone" music.)

Remember Nona Gaprindashvili.

YOU NEVER HEARD OF NONA?

Shame on you.

Nona was a grandmaster chess player who was the equal of any man, including the most excellent World Chess Champion of her time, Mikhail Botvinnik.

There is an indelible stain on this magnificent lady's accomplishments. Nona was awarded the title of grandmaster as a woman player. There is little doubt Nona could have earned it without such condescension that is not only commonplace but even been nearly mandatory in the past. The older of three female Hungarian chess prodigies of more recent times never quite recovered from the indignities visited on her for refusing to even play women only chess tournaments.

Now imagine that Nona Gaprindashvili had been awarded the title of grandmaster because she was married to a grandmaster. Would anybody care what she did?

This is all not quite the minor matter that one might think in America. Chess players are heroic figures most everywhere but in America.

There has been enormous contention over whether women just don't have the "necssities" to play chess well. That is the conceit of wingers and religious fanatics. Pat Robertson has declared there has never been a woman chess master.

More intelligent discussion has revolved around whether it is male ego that shrinks from the horror of being beaten by a woman that dissuades women from playing well if they play chess at all or whether it is the female brain that is less likely to be attracted a lunatic world that drives many to madness.

Voting for Hillary because she suffers as a woman is equivalent to voting for George Romney because of the fanatical attacks on Mormonism. It would be great in my view if a woman or Mormon became president but to neglect all other considerations is obscene in my view.

I will vote for Hillary when hell freezes over. Has nothing to do with her being a woman but rather a winger.

Best, Terry