The California chapter of the National Organization for Women opposes the recall, supports Gray Davis and hasn't taken a position on any of the replacement candidates. But if it were to do so, two things would matter: the candidate's record and the candidate's character. And in the eyes of NOW, the way a candidate talks about women can be an important element in judging the latter. "When somebody uses language that objectifies and sexualizes women, it's questionable how that person can effectively lead or seriously address the questions involved in promoting equality, justice and women's rights," says Rachel Allen, California NOW's public relations director.

In her bestselling book "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation," Georgetown University linguistics professor Deborah Tannen argues that men and women have different ways of talking. Women use conversation as "negotiations for closeness in which people try to seek and give confirmation and support and to reach consensus." Men use conversation to obtain and maintain social status, to get the upper hand and keep it.

There's some of that in Schwarzenegger's rough talk about women, Tannen says, especially when he's talking to male reporters. "It's pretty clear that his intended audience in all these remarks is men," she said. "He's talking like a guy might talk in a locker room or in an all-male backstage setting."

There's also probably an attempt -- common among politicians and business leaders -- to portray himself as "just folks." Tannen says that Schwarzenegger's wife, Georgetown alumna and Kennedy cousin Maria Shriver, once made a similar attempt to down-class herself during a speech to graduating seniors at Georgetown. During the speech, Tannen said, Shriver made several references to "boob jobs." Tannen remembers thinking that the comments were inappropriate and insensitive to the formality of the occasion. But they were nothing compared to Schwarzenegger's apparent glee in ramming the Terminatrix -- actress Kristanna Loken -- into a toilet bowl. "He's talking about how much fun he got out of humiliating a woman," Tannen says. "I don't know anything about what goes on in his head about his respect for women. But what his statement communicates to me is, at the very least, a public demeanor that is not appropriate for a public official."

At best, Tannen said, Schwarzenegger's rough talk shows that he lacks the "demeanor of a public official, even though some people might find that refreshing in some way." At worst, she said, it raises serious doubts about Schwarzenegger's real feelings. "When it comes to such crude language -- and not just crude language, but a crude perspective on half the human race -- it makes you wonder about his judgment in terms of changing his role from a thuggish movie icon to a public official."

But Schwarzenegger would surely say that people have underestimated him before. As he explained in a July 2003 interview in Esquire magazine, nobody thought a bodybuilder could speak in complete sentences or have the fine eye for art needed to help design a Humvee. Appearances, Schwarzenegger told Esquire, can be deceiving.

Esquire: [People] wouldn't expect such a tough guy to be an artsy guy, huh?

Schwarzenegger: Yeah, but I think that it's more probably unusual because of the physical development. I mean, the thing is, if you have a certain physical development and you come into the scene as Mr. Universe, as the guy that lifts 500 pounds and does all those things, with that comes a certain image, a baggage. As much as when you see a blond with great tits and a great ass, you say to yourself, 'Hey, she must be stupid or must have nothing else to offer,' which maybe is the case many times. But then again there is the one that is as smart as her breasts look, great as her face looks, beautiful as her whole body looks, gorgeous, you know, so people are shocked.

"The Amazing Ahhnold," Esquire, July 2003

Tannen is trying to be charitable now. She has just read Schwarzenegger's prognostications about the intelligence of attractive blonds, and she's trying to salvage something for him. "It definitely gives the impression that he's trying to be extreme [in order] to be amusing or to make an impression," she says. "But maybe the sentiment is that women can be as smart as men. This might be a way to say it to guys who wouldn't hear it coming from Betty Friedan but who might hear it clothed in this particular bikini."

Arianna Huffington doesn't see it so charitably. The only woman among the major candidates in the race, Huffington said she sees a connection between Schwarzenegger's comments about women and the dearth of women working in leadership positions in his campaign and the absence of women at the economic council meeting and photo op Schwarzenegger held with financier Warren Buffett and former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz. "In a state with two women senators and tens of thousands of successful women in business, academia, working as consumer advocates -- I just found that stunning," Huffington said.

And therein lies the puzzle about Schwarzenegger. As with the "compassionate conservative" in the White House, there are questions as to whether the Schwarzenegger who is running for office is the same Schwarzenegger who would serve in office. Is he the moderate Republican he claims to be in public, or is he the womanizing Neanderthal his comments to reporters make him seem to be? On a lot of levels, Schwarzenegger is a not-as-bad-as-he-could-be candidate for many women. He is generally pro-choice -- although he has announced his opposition to late-term abortions -- and he has middle-of-the-road views on other social issues. When compared to many of the candidates Republicans have run in California over the last decade, Schwarzenegger comes off as positively enlightened.

But for some, the divide between Schwarzenegger's moderate political views and his impolitic statements about women and sexuality only serves to sharpen those questions. "I guess Schwarzenegger can read the polls as well as anybody else, and he knows that in the state of California you've got to be pro-choice and you've got to be pro-civil rights to get elected," said the Feminist Majority's Katherine Spillar. "But these other comments betray his real attitudes about women. He's trying to play to women, going on 'Oprah' and saying he's pro-choice. But women have got to be skeptical."

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