Why Women Back Obama

Especially younger ones. This is extremely well said, and captures something that resonates with me—I like the way he treats women. The Clintons seem to come from another generation, when men sh!t all over their families, and their wives blink lovingly back at them, no matter what. And, as the writer points out, Obama promises change on so many levels—from the personal to the most public. And that's what so much of the American public craves. Money quotes:

Perhaps what many women find attractive about Barack Obama is a freshness of interpersonal expression in the way he treats his wife and daughters.

Rather than some kind of disdain for the crow’s feet critics love to point out on Hillary, or school-girl attraction to Obama’s chiseled cheekbones, what is driving more and more women toward the male candidate is rooted in Obama’s promise for change – of the way politicians treat their wives, and the respect they show their children by not engaging in any “family business.”

The cynics (myself included) who have thought “He’s pretty, but can he lead?” should remember that “the issues” were not all that mattered to Americans 10 years ago, as even the biggest Clinton supporters were disheartened by his personal behavior. As much as we may want to “focus on the issues,” somehow the Clinton candidacy too often feels like a consolation prize for the years of hell Bill put the women in his life through.

Women who feel like they are selling out the sisterhood and setting gender relations back by voting for Obama should extend their peripheral vision to examine the personal gender relations of each of the candidates. They are far more indicative of what the future of America will be.