Who's sexist now?

So here's the latest mystery media meme: If Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn't become the Democratic presidential nominee, "women" will be upset.

Women?

Yeah, you know, "women."

The idea has been building. In January, Gloria Steinem wrote a New York Times Op-Ed article complaining that "gender is probably the most restricting force in American life. ... Black men were given the vote a half-century before women ... and generally have ascended to positions of power ... before any women." In other words: Support Clinton, or ally yourself with the forces of sexist oppression. Later that month, ABC News reported: "Women Angry ... Some Say Oprah Is a 'Traitor' for Endorsing Obama and not Clinton." It was "Obama versus the sisterhood" in a March article in this paper.

By mid-May, as Clinton's odds of gaining the nomination dwindled, the assertion that "women" were getting upset became ever more common. "Women Threaten Obama Boycott," screamed ABC's Political Punch blog. Ouch! From as far away as Australia, headlines pondered the "backlash from women to Hillary Clinton's almost certain defeat."

It's a compelling story line -- and it's also wrong. It's wrong for assuming that women, as a group, share a unified set of political views, and doubly wrong for the underlying assumption that women should automatically favor female political candidates.

First, the headlines notwithstanding, Democratic "women" are quite unlikely to boycott Barack Obama in November. According to a May 16-18 Gallup poll, women, as a group, prefer Obama to Clinton by a margin of 49% to 46%.

Is it possible that some female Clinton supporters will boycott Obama if he's the nominee? Sure. Some male Clinton supporters may do the same. There will always be voters who are loyal to a candidate rather than to a party. Yet no one's writing headlines that read "Men Anguished by Likely Clinton Defeat," though surely some men out there are shedding a hormonal tear or two. (Bill, we feel your pain!)

But behind the obvious empirical falsehood -- the lingering myth that women as a group favor Clinton over Obama -- lies a deeper and more troubling assumption: that women should favor Clinton over Obama. Because she's a woman. Because we live in a sexist world. Because women are better than men, more nurturing, less aggressive and warlike.

Uh, well. ... That last bit, a cherished delusion long shared both by feminists and male romantics, has been punctured by harsh reality more than a few times. Think Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady.