Will a Clinton Administration Usher in a Battle Between the Sexes?

Oprah Winfrey is excited about the election: "I see that we're about to have a woman president," she told talk-show host T.D. Jakes. And that's important not just for the mundane matters of governance—for finding someone competent to sit in the big chair—but for the larger impact it has on society: "When you can look at somebody who has done something like what Hillary is about to do, that is extraordinary," Oprah said. "She will stand forever as this beacon of possibility for all women." With Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, the "glass ceiling has been shattered for all time for other women to rise."

Oprah didn't always put such an emphasis on the importance of breaking the "glass ceiling." She took no little grief, it will be remembered, for choosing to back Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. Some of the women in her (almost exclusively female) audience declared her to be a traitor to her sex. There's no such clash of loyalties this time around, and Oprah has had no discomfort energetically backing Hillary.

It might be possible to share in Oprah's excitement if there were any prospect that a Clinton presidency would somehow transform the state of debate on gender and fairness in America. But one has to ask: If there is a Clinton presidency, will we hear less or more about the patriarchal oppression of women? Will a woman president promote good will between the sexes, or just more grievance?

If Oprah's own politics in the Era of Obama are any guide, get ready for new and more aggressive grievances.

Americans of all races bought into the hope that Mr. Obama would change race-relations for the better. A USA Today/Gallup poll in the wake of the 2008 election found that nearly 70 percent of Americans expected that relations between blacks and whites "will eventually be worked out." Those numbers may have been overly optimistic, but they represented something positive and admirable in American society—a widespread desire to overcome racial divides. Many acted on that desire, putting aside partisan and policy preferences and voting in good will for a candidate of color in hopes of reconciliation.