"The sexes have always lived together, but the races have not."

Good op-ed today by Lorrie Moore, one of my favorite fiction writers. I disagree with her conclusions--that it's rather late in our history of gender relations to be super excited about the prospect of a female president for its own sake, and that electing Clinton would necessarily mean more of the mediocrity of the 90s. I actually think that electing a female president would be a huge accomplishment, very exciting in and of itself. But I believe the same thing about electing a black president, and I like Obama better on most of the issues AND think he has a far better chance of winning the general election. So, while I don't think the identity politics element of this race should be downplayed or disparaged, I'm grateful that, for me and my vote, the race and gender questions are mutually neutralized. Obviously, that's easy for me to say, as a member of neither group.

I tend to think that arguments that either racism or sexism is the bigger problem today and/or that one candidate or the other represents the bigger triumph over bigotry are fairly pointless--they're fundamentally arbitrary and impossible to prove. (Though when such an argument is made by a black woman, it does offer some valuable experiential insight.) But I'm interested in Moore's piece, as it makes such an argument in reverse--i.e., she's a white woman arguing that race matters more.

My interest in the piece is also writerly--check out this fantastic lede:

When most of us first laid eyes on Hillary Clinton, it was during “60 Minutes,” and she was sitting by her man saying she was not one of those women who would stand by him. Not long after that, she told us she didn’t make cookies. At that remark I thought I heard the cheering of nonbaking working women everywhere, but apparently I was wrong, and quickly we the people were favored with Mrs. Clinton’s own contrite cookie recipe, which I have not yet had time to try.

Hardly an unprecedented idea, but how often do you get to read prose like that in the opinion pages?