When the Tea Party was red hot and the Birther movement was at its peak, an Esquire interviewer asked Chris Rock if he thought racism was returning–or had never declined–in America. He was undisturbed. “When I see the Tea Party and all this stuff,” Rock answered, “it actually feels like racism’s almost over. Because this is the last — this is the act up before the sleep.”

I think this national contraception brouhaha may be saying the same thing about sexism. On one level, it’s a just an awkward and desperate act of pandering to an extremist base by opportunistic politicians in the year of election. But there may be something more fundamental about it. Over the last decade, women have embraced higher education as men have fallen from it, and while education is no longer the definite path to success and power it once was, you would have to assume the numbers say women will be ascendant in business and politics in America for the next couple of decades.

And that shift may be disconcerting to some who still cling to a paternalistic vision of America. But those who feel this way tend to be on the higher end of the age scale and their numbers continue to thin.

Political power doesn’t shift quietly or easily, but the big picture tells us it’s going to shift in the favor of women in the near fiuture. That doesn’t mean there will never be sexism (or racism) any more, but that its viability as a means of political control is all but over. The clamor over reproductive rights sounds less like a clarion call than a death rattle.•