By Linda Staten, Midwest Voices panelist 2008

Oooooh noooooh. I had a “Mr. Bill moment” recently when I opened the paper to yet another barb-fest sparked by the ongoing girl-fight between white feminists and feminists of color.

Mary Curtis asked why feminists weren’t rushing to the defense of Michelle Obama, who is now high-profile enough to be an easy target for pundit potshots.

The answer Curtis seeks is easy to come by, but it may not be what she’s hoping to hear.

Here’s the back story. This all took off when Gloria Steinem wrote a New York Times op-ed piece in January in which the feminist icon said that gender was more restrictive than race, seeming to intimate that sexism was worse than racism.
Steinem landed in hot water. No, make that boiling.

Then in February, feminist scholar Robin Morgan did a retake on a classic essay she’d written in 1970, “Goodbye to All That #2.” The kind of thing you either loved or hated, it circulated widely on the Internet, and the feminist division deepened.

Within days Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a Princeton professor of African-American studies, came out with an insightful online article that compared Hillary Clinton to Scarlett O’Hara, and asserted that black women refused to play mammy to her by supporting her campaign.

I must confess, though, that it gave me nightmares.

Since then debates, zingers and commentaries have kept the issue at simmer.

But let’s get real. You don’t need a Mensa membership to know that women have been kept down in one way and that blacks have been kept down in quite another.

White women have benefited by the latter, even when they did not seek to benefit. They can’t change it since they can’t change history, and this makes them just as “stuck” in one sense as minority women.

But don’t some black women have it better than some white women? Of course. But when you’re talking about society, you’re talking about institutions, groups, classes.

So ask yourself this. If white women as a class could trade places today with black women as a class, would they? I’m guessing we know the answer to that one.

Meanwhile, women of color, the experts on juggling racial and gender prejudice on a daily basis, wait for a more inclusive feminism, a more inclusive political reality.
How tiresome, insulting and wasteful.

Even if we get past the notion that we’re competing in some kind of Oppression Olympics, however, there is one event in which all women get the gold.

They’re much easier to abuse with sexist language than minorities are with racist comments. In the media and politics, it’s simple to slip trivializing or denigrating comments against a woman into the public dialogue.

Marie Wilson, president of the White House Project, which encourages women’s political participation, has said: “With women you can get away with it. With race, you can hardly say anything at all.” And she’s right.

Hillary Clinton experienced blatant and explicit sexism to a degree that no one would dare try with race against Barack Obama. The repercussions would be stunning and immediate.

Refusal to acknowledge this double standard fuels frustration among Hillary’s supporters. Most will ultimately vote for Obama, but a swig of that political folk medicine, Payback, could be the tonic that makes the outcome a tad easier to swallow in the interim.

As for the problems Michelle Obama’s having: Some of it is racism (“baby mama”?). Some of it’s political hardball. Not fair, but not sexist either.

But here’s the bigger thing. We can’t have it both ways.

Expect feminists to defend someone just because she’s a woman but not to vote for someone just because she’s a woman. Anyway, does Michelle Obama need Gloria Steinem to defend her honor? Betcha not.

Women of all races and ages better find a way to understand one another and move ahead together as genuine equals.

Why? Because there’s work to do and because someday, two smart, committed women of who-cares-what-colors will face off as nominees for the presidency of this country.

And that, folks, will be a girlfight worth seeing.

Linda Staten of Kansas City is a professional writer and former college instructor of ethics and comparative religion.
To reach Midwest Voices columnists, write to the author c/o Editorial Page, The Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108. Or send e-mail to .