What if Hillary gave a "gender speech"? Ha, ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha. No seriously, this is what some pundits are asking, so think about it for a second. What if? Could a speech ever begin to heal the battle of the sexes? Um, a speech of "talking"? But really, what if? What would she say? What would you say? Where would you begin? Don't you want to change the subject? Yes please, puppies! What are you afraid of? Your hormones? Your innate humility and the grasp of nuance that enables you to forgive the fact that they don't now nor will they ever probably be able to get it? LOOK MOTHERFUCKERS, IF YOU DON'T GET IT NOW AFTER MILLIONS OF YEARS OF FUCKING US, WE SHOULD PROBABLY JUST DROP IT. MMMKAY?
Shut up! I'm not mad. Okay, maybe I am!
Yeah, sorry, I just don't think it's possible. I don't think Hillary or Michelle or Nancy Pelosi or Samantha Power or Oprah Fuckin Almighty could give this speech.
We are 3.6 billion of us, trapped in a weird new paradigm in which we are trying to figure out what the hell our role in the modern universe is. We're disdainful of other women who feel differently about the question than we do. We're disdainful of other women who don't give it enough thought. Either that, or we try not to give it thought, because all the disdain flies in the face of what I think may be an innate predisposition towards harmony and calm and understanding that you can't ever really know what's going on with someone else; that the only good option is to try and treat people how you think they want to be treated. There are gonads and biological imperatives and hormones to be dealt with here. Otherwise, would anyone ever feel comfortable drawing the generalizations about race that they do about gender? Blacks are better at sales and marketing; or Jews are great at strategy; they're just not intuitive enough sometimes.
Shit, of course, for all I know, men talk like this — I mean, Nixon did, right? — they just wouldn't talk like this to me because I would freak the fuck out and call the Bonerkiller Squad. Still, unlike the cultures and races, breeding a little compassion — Obama has a racist white grandma! Just like Us! — isn't going to work. We've been breeding since time immemorial. We've been studying one another for millennia upon millennia! And we still don't fucking get one another. I mean, unless I do get them, and then...even more fucking hopeless.
So anyway...you thought Obama's speech was a downer?
What If Hillary Clinton Gave A 'Gender Speech'? (And Why She Won't) [Slate]
Related: A Vote Of Allegiance [Washington Post]