BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — There are nonreductionist ways of looking at modern women. One is to view them as Warrior Queens. These women do not deny their biology or ignore its potentials but equip themselves to play ball with the big boys on a playing field that has grown more level by the decade.

Last week the Democratic National Convention, while nominating Barack Obama as its candidate for the White House, impressively put on stage women whose natural talents and educational achievements put them on equal ground with any man: Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, for example. Both gave superb speeches. Both received superb educations. Hillary did her undergraduate work at Wellesley College, a top-flight undergraduate institution founded for women, and then graduated from Yale Law School.

Mrs. Obama is no slouch either, to say the least. First it was Princeton, for an honors degree in Sociology and African Studies, and then off to another pretty good law school — Harvard.