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> But she wasn't really criticized for being a woman

Nobody is saying she was criticised for being a woman, though. What they are observing is that it was the basis of and the tenor of attacks on her character, intelligence, certainty etc.

It was nasty and it really happened, is all I'm saying. Are we better? I hope so. But I don't know that I think so.

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Exactly. Would the tone of the letters been different if the column was said to be have written by a man? Likely they would be different.

This is what makes discussions about discrimination so hard- it can be very subtle. And it can include situations like this one, where we don’t have a test environment where we can compare responses to the article written by a woman to the one written by a man.

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