&gt; what power they have is not just unearned but waning<p>That&#x27;s the interesting thing, though, isn&#x27;t it?  Leaving aside questions of &quot;earned,&quot; <i>is</i> their power waning?  Does it console Veronika Weiss or Katherine Cooper that we might have a woman as POTUS?  I know no one is crusading for it but I will: when will we see equality in mass shootings?  To put it in less obviously straw-man terms: why should women have to live in fear when men don&#x27;t?<p>My point is: the exceptionalism is apparently justified, because when it couldn&#x27;t be, <i>they went out and justified it.</i>  Got any breathless expose&#x27;s about <i>your</i> troubled writings?