Mick Hartley

Condoleezza Rice is publicising her autobiography, and to that end she's interviewed today in the Times (£). In the paper the interview is headlined with the quote, splashed across the page, "If people treat you badly for being a woman, that's your fault". Which might, I suppose, be seen as just the kind of anti-feminist line you'd expect from someone who served in the administration of the right-wing Republican George W Bush and, to the interviewer's obvious incredulity, still thinks that overthrowing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do.

Except that's not what she says. From the interview itself:

Does she believe that her colleagues ever treated her differently because she was a woman? “You know, I can’t actually do the social experiment, right? And become a man. So, how do I know?”

She must have an inkling? “If by the time you’re National Security Advisor or Secretary of State you’re still letting people treat you badly because you’re a woman then it’s your fault, not theirs.”

Which is something altogether different. As, of course, the Times editors must know.