The XX Factor: XXclusive or XXcluding?

HuffPo's own Jessica Wakeman encapsulated it here:

Separating the gender implies there is, or should be, a separation of both interests and opinions. I don't like thinking that my opinions are a different take, or that my political interests, like reproductive rights, equal pay, and representations of women in the media, are separate from the main part of anything. Or the implication that what men write about and do is what's normative, and when women do the same thing, it's somehow special.

I agree with Jessica — what makes me uncomfortable about The XX Factor is the implication that these issues are significant only to women. I don't love ghettoizing voices because it leads to ghettoizing issues, and I worry that knowing that, say , access to abortion or birth control is being comprehensively covered on the XX Factor might mean that Slate doesn't bother covering it on its main page. These aren't only women's political issues, they are political issues, period. Branding them as niche does not exactly underscore that point.

The notion of excluding men from the discussion implies that these are issues in which they are not naturally invested, which I actually think is incorrect. I was very excited when Farhad Manjoo started contributing to Salon's Broadsheet blog (about which I expressed similar concerns when it launched, but ended up positively loving). Not just because Farhad's a smart writer, but because he's a guy, and I liked the idea of a guy's voice in there but also of a guy blogging about reproductive rights and human rights abuses overseas and stories of the day that struck him as important. This was not me being excited to turn the reins of a woman-powered initiative over to the patriarchy, by the way, just that these issues wouldn't be dismissed (or at least compartmentalized) as only being important to women. Similarly when John Neffinger wrote about the Supreme Court decision on partial-birth abortions earlier this year, I recognized that it served the overall issue well to have a man write about — saying, "Hey, this is important to guys, too." (Somewhere, there is someone who thinks that I am saying that women's issues are only valid when they're valid by the patriarchy. I'm not, dude! And by "dude" I mean, "person!")

The jury is out, though, on the XX Factor because as mentioned, I quickly learned to be grateful for Broadsheet and because so far I've enjoyed the XX musings (even if I do disagree with Anne Applebaum's swipe at Hillary for not being an utterly disinterested First Lady. You've come a long, way, baby, indeed if that is the gold standard for feminist self-actualizaion). And also, Dahlia Lithwick is Canadian. And Canadians are people, too! But we can't vote, but women can — which brings us back to the above clip: The wonderful Glynis Johns singing "Sister Suffragette" in Mary Poppins, that absolute meaty feast of gender roles and stereotypes that we won't be getting into just now. There's a line in the song that is apropos here or for an episode of "Girlfriends": "Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they're rather stupid..." Ha ha funny, right? Except reverse that, and you've got the attitude men had back in Mary P's time — they genuinely loved the women in their lives, no doubt, but the thought of giving them the right to vote seemed preposterous. Well, we have come a long way baby, but maybe not far enough yet to have women's issues commingling in the political arena with the same ease as women and men do at the polls. So maybe we do need this blog, now, so that such blogs will not be needed in the future. It's possible. I'll leave the wrap-up to Mrs. Banks:

Our daughter's daughter will adore us
And they'll sing in grateful chorus...
Well done! Sister Suffragette.

The XX Factor [Slate]
No Boys Allowed? [HuffPo]

Related:
"Sister Suffragette" in Russian [YouTube]