Does a woman need to show more experience than a man when running for President?

[Jo]

Tavis Smiley interviewed Dee Dee Myers who was the first female White House Press Secretary under Bill Clinton. She said the following about the difference in how Barack Obama as a man and Hillary Clinton are judged relative to their experience:

I think that there - and I have nothing but great respect for Senator Obama. I haven't endorsed either candidate, although I am greatly sympathetic to both of them. But I think there's a different threshold just for getting into the race for men and women. I think one of the things women always have to do is they have to prove they're qualified.

I think it's easier for men. People sort of assume that men are qualified a lot of times. I don't think a woman with Senator Obama's credentials - eight years in the Illinois state legislature and two years in the United States Senate before he announced his candidacy for president - would have been taken seriously. And I think it would have been very - I think she would have been treated like a nut job, to tell you the truth. But that's not true for men.

Entire Transcript (http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200802/20080225_myers.html)

[gr8mommy]

I don't agree. When taken on that face, what experience does Hillary Clinton have? She's been in the Senate, that's it. Eight years as First Lady counts for little if anything in my book. It gives her experience in the protocol of meeting dignitaries, but nothing else.