What can I tell you?” So said Barack Obama during a May 14, 2012, appearance on The View, a daytime talk show hosted by women for a female audience. It was the president’s fourth time on the program, and he was clearly in his element as he gabbed about his marriage and his recently announced support for same-sex marriage. Obama was in the middle of a series of events designed to reassure women that, despite the poor economy, he hadn’t forgotten about them. Earlier that day, he had accepted an award from and delivered the commencement address at Barnard College, a prominent women’s college. But for all his feminist talk, there is an unmistakable air of condescension whenever Obama addresses women. As former CNN and NBC News anchor Campbell Brown put it in a May New York Times op-ed:When I listen to President Obama speak to and about women, he sometimes sounds too paternalistic for my taste. In numerous appearances over the years—most recently at the Barnard graduation—he has made reference to how women are smarter than men.
