One Way or Another, Women Will Decide It

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Clementine Coffee Bar, East Austin -- N'Yoka Coleman's 2-year-old son, Miles, climbed her back as she sipped green tea in a coffeehouse. She was talking, as she has so often lately, about the Democratic primary, even though she had already voted for Obama in early balloting.

"When Hillary Clinton announced she was running, I was like, hands down, that's it. I'm voting for her. Then I see that stream of light that is Barack Obama and at first I was like, what, is he crazy? I felt pressure on both sides," said Coleman, 36, a stay-at-home mom who works part time as a wedding planner. "She's a woman -- how could I not support her? He's a black man -- how could you not support him?"

Coleman, who is African American, pondered the Clinton-Obama question after church every Sunday for weeks with her husband, brother and sister-in-law. Their talks usually came to a single question: Is sexism or racism the bigger issue in America?

For Coleman, the answer was pretty easy. It took her a full day to think of an instance when she had faced sexism, finally recalling a time when she managed men who had difficulty taking direction from a woman.

But she didn't have any trouble remembering stinging encounters with racism. "Even now, I can have both kids, be wearing a fabulous outfit and carrying a gorgeous purse, and be in an elevator and someone will still clutch their purse," she said.

And that is a big part of the reason she voted for the black man instead of the white woman.

"She is still breaking barriers, and her inability to win the nomination is not a result of her hitting the glass ceiling, so to speak, but more of, maybe this time the needs of the people were met with another candidate," Coleman said.

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Shaman Modifications Tattoo and Body Piercing, South Austin -- The tattoo gun vibrated in Wendi Ramirez's hand as she leaned over the man's arm, gracefully etching the outline of a woman's torso onto his skin. For 18 years she has worked in this male-dominated field, having to endure such comments as "Little girl, you don't know what you're doing."

In the world beyond the tattoo and piercing studio, Ramirez said she "knows the game."

"This country is run by the white corporate male," said Ramirez, a partner in the studio.