You could call it a series of feel-good events: lists and "summits" of the world's most powerful and best-paid women. Forbes did it, Fortune did it, Bloomberg promoted the Forbes list, Warren Buffett spoke at a "women's summit" and so on.

This stuff just compares women with women, marginalizes women, and ultimately keeps them down by placing them in an artificially separate category.

It's difficult enough for women to be paid as much as men (which they aren't) and to have an equal shot at attaining power. Giving them a separate list is condescending and irrelevant. It's like the Negro League and the major leagues. Not to mention that the business press regularly ignores most women execs (except when writing about them as women execs) and focuses on the testosterone-laced guys.

In any case, how many average Americans know who Safra Catz is? In Fortune's eyes, she's the top-paid female exec and the 12th most powerful woman. Catz is the president of Oracle and her 2008 compensation totaled $42.4 million. Check out the list of the 25 highest-paid corporate women and compare it with the list of the 25 highest-paid men. Catz made $42.4 million, and the No. 1 guy, Aubrey McClendon, chief of Chesapeake Energy, raked in $112.5 million. If I were Safra Catz, I'd be pissed off.

Then there's Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld, who's directing the assault on Cadbury. Not exactly a household name, Rosenfeld would be if much of the business press didn't have blinders on when it comes to female execs.

At least the Forbes "Top 100 Most Powerful Women" list includes politicians and so on, which means the likes of Angela Merkel, chief of the world's fourth-largest economy, make it. But, talk about segregation. The staffers who put together that list are entirely, 100 percent all women. Aren't we past Helen Reddy yet? That aside, it's an interesting list.

Most of these other lists, the ones focused only on the business world, are just identity politics and identity business, and luckily it's just a phase the world has to go through on the way to equal opportunity. Maybe.