Now Who’s Being Pushy?

Picking up from yesterday’s post, “Not Equal” — another early controversy of feminism was over job requirement exams, such as strength tests for firefighters, that eliminated women. People asked: Should the exams be “dumbed down”? Should women be given separate tests so they could pass?

I believe the majority of feminists argued that if the ability being tested was one that truly might be required to do the job, then the test should be the same for men and women. However, it was argued, strength or height requirements for some jobs were purely arbitrary and had nothing to do with performing the job. On the other hand, a minority of feminists did argue that women should be given separate tests that would be easier for them to pass. Anti-feminists, of course, picked up the latter argument and said allowing women to be firefighters or police officers meant relaxing standards on the tests, which would lead to fire and police departments going to hell.

Lanny Davis’s latest screed against the Obama campaign reminds me of the separate standards argument. In “Four Things the Obama Campaign Couldn’t Resist Doing To Anger Clinton Supporters,” Davis lists these as unforgivable sins committed by Obama:

1. He announced the John Edwards endorsement the day after Clinton’s West Virginia win.

2. The evening of Clinton’s Kentucky win, Obama gave a speech reminding everyone he had a majority of pledged delegates.

3. The Obama campaign has hired someone to vet veep candidates.

4. Obama is considering Bill Richardson as veep.

In other words, the Clinton campaign is furious that Obama executed some smart political maneuvering to prevent Clinton from building momentum (#1 and #2), is not waiting to begin preparation for the general election campaign in deference to the tender sensibilities of Clinton supporters (#3), and is friends with somebody the Clintons don’t like any more (#4).

Basically, Clinton supporters don’t think Senator Clinton should have to take the same tests as the guys to get the job. They want Obama to dumb down his campaign so Senator Clinton can catch up. Otherwise, he’s not being fair.

The irony is that, in some ways, Obama has done just that. Chuck Todd pointed out on Hardball last night that Obama stopped running a campaign against Senator Clinton about three weeks ago. This has allowed some of Clinton’s numbers to improve a bit vis à vis Obama, since she’s still campaigning against Obama. Yet the Clintonistas still think Obama isn’t playing fair.

You can’t please some people.

See also Steve M. and Bang the Drum.