WIP bashing of Clinton points up gender gap

Oh, the guys were going at her. The other morning on sports radio, the station that calls grown women "girls," they were talking about Hillary Clinton.

Specifically, how she didn't turn them on and, graphically, how a certain body part flatlined in response.

She's a United States senator. She's the first viable female presidential candidate. And the boys are talking about whether she's hot.

As if they would find any 60-year-old woman hot.

Or take a female politician seriously.

When Don Imus slimed the Rutgers basketball team racially and sexually, he lost his job - well, for eight months. When WIP's morning team denigrates Clinton sexually, no one notices.

Understandably, she didn't go on WIP's morning show, which Barack Obama has visited twice, resulting in the staff's major mancrush. Clinton spoke instead with afternoon jock Howard Eskin.

Hillary Clinton is right. She's been bashed harder. And some members of the media have been merciless.

Her figure has been ridiculed. Her clothing has been criticized for being too dark and serious - as if her male counterparts are partial to pastel frippery.

Her voice is deemed too shrill. It can "grate on some men when they listen to it," Chris Matthews once said, like "fingernails on a blackboard." She's been charged with having no sense of humor, which is absurd. If she cries, she's too weak. If she attacks, she's a shrew.

What's the male counterpart of shrew? Leader.

Clinton has plenty of experience, as a family and children's advocate before becoming first lady and as a senator afterward. But people would rather discuss her hair than her health-care plan, which calls for universal coverage at a cost that is far less than her rival's proposal.

It's also true that Barack Obama has been a better campaigner. He's a master orator. He's fresh, a break from the weight of the past. He didn't vote for the Iraq debacle. And his presence in the White House would send a vital message to countries that don't like America these days.

They're both serious, qualified candidates. You can like one without maligning the other. Still, people speak about Clinton in a way they never would about Obama. When voters say "not this woman," you have to wonder "well, then, which one?"

Pennsylvania is dreadful when it comes to electing women. Allyson Schwartz is the lone woman of 19 representatives in Washington. Despite an electorate that is 57 percent female, according to Franklin & Marshall's G. Terry Madonna, the commonwealth hasn't come close to electing a woman senator or governor.

"When I arrived in the state senate in 1991, we doubled the number of women - to four," Schwartz said. Then, Pennsylvania ranked 46th in the nation in electing women to the legislature. Today, it's advanced all the way to 43d. There are nine female senators out of 50.

Schwartz is none too happy with how Clinton has been treated. "There's been this willingness to blow up her comments while discounting those made by her male counterparts," said Schwartz, a Clinton supporter. "You hear people say her opponent is a brilliant lawyer who could have done anything. The same can be said for her. They keep pointing to his community service while discounting all her work for families and kids, which diminishes its importance."

To paraphrase Obama's speech in Philadelphia, gender is an issue that this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Again, I'm just paraphrasing, but it makes you think.