In today’s NYT, Nicholas Kristof laments that Hillary didn’t deliver the gender equivalent of Obama’s race speech. She was wise not to. As Camille Paglia pointed out with trademark bite, Mr. Clinton’s wife didn’t exactly do feminism proud:

It wasn’t sexism that cost Hillary the nomination: It was her own misjudgments and mismanagement of a campaign that had the massive support of the nationwide party establishment, constructed by her husband—to whom she owes her entire career, which has thus far been dismayingly free of any significant, concrete achievement. What kind of feminism is this—all smiley show and no substance?

Far from being encumbered by the baggage Kristof bemoans—female under-representation in state legislatures, studies showing subconscious hiring bias—Hillary benefited from her glossy highlights and misty confessions. Paglia again:

What the media repeatedly claimed was her success in debate was predicated on her silencing of her male competitors, who were bullied into excess caution in dealing with a woman. … Hillary had to be coddled with elaborate deference—or the delicate little woman would squawk bloody murder (as she did when she petulantly complained about always being given the first debate question). All of this rubbish was resurrected last week in the thousand mawkish excuses found by the media and her crooning acolytes for “giving her time” to withdraw from the race. No man would have been treated in that overconcerned way—as a frail vessel of quivering emotion.

Kristoff writes that Hillary didn’t deliver The Sex Speech because “she didn’t want to be reduced to the ‘woman candidate.’” No, she wanted to derive all the benefits of being the ‘woman candidate’ while pretending she wasn’t. Smart strategy. Obama did the same until his radical pastor upset the balance.

But now the columnist believes Barack should go where Hillary feared to tread. He’s got a rosy speech half drafted and helpfully saves the best for last. (You know it’s going to be good when he urges the candidate to “embrace an issue that no president has ever shown interest in.” Gee, wonder why?) Kristof’s magic cause not only promises to warm disappointed Clinton supporters, it will do double duty as a major diplomatic initiative: “What better way to repair America’s standing in the world?” How can Obama resist a landmark address about … drumroll … Third World maternal mortality?

His numbers are grim: African women have a 1-in-10 chance of dying in childbirth. But tragic though that is, American women’s priority lists are already pretty full. They’re occupied by things like the economy and the Iraq War. Kind of like men. The gender gap is real but scarcely gaping: in the 2006 midterms, 4 percent more women than men cited healthcare and education as their top concern, and 4 percent more men than women cited immigration as their top issue. Equal percentages were concerned about the economy; men were slightly more interested in Iraq.

Turns out that alongside geography and education, income and philosophy, sex is a fairly narrow indicator of voting behavior. Narrower still is the notion that most women cast ballots solely on the basis of HeadStart funding or breast-cancer research or mothers dying in remote African villages. “One of the unfortunate side effects of being female is the constant marketing of products as specifically ‘for women’,” writes Jessa Crispin of Bookslut.com fame. “It’s not just deodorant and cheap pink razors.” It’s politics, too, and it’s profoundly sexist—a curious position for an enlightened New York Times columnist.