Politicians are increasingly using religion and gender to manipulate their public images and win voter support, Wendy Kaminer, a fellow at the Radcliffe Public Policy Center, told a gathering of 20 people in an address Wednesday afternoon at the center.

Kaminer, a contributing editor at The Atlantic Monthly and a commentator for NPR's "Morning Edition," began her talk with a discussion of the role of religion in politics, expressing strong displeasure with the presence of "god-talk" in the race for president.

Kaminer said the level of religiosity in America has never been greater but argued against the widespread belief that religiosity is essential to political virtue. Candidates do not have to be devout to be moral, she said.

She highlighted several examples of candidates who are "eager to advertise their own closeness to God," pointing specifically to Texas Governor and Republican candidate George W. Bush as well as Vice President Al Gore '69.

"Only Bill Bradley has had the dignity to keep his religiosity to himself," Kaminer said, calling upon voters to judge candidates by standards of virtue other than traditional religious morality.

From religious concerns, Kaminer moved on to discuss gender politics, in front of the mostly female audience.

"In an ideal world, we would examine candidates as individuals rather than as members of a racial, ethnic or gender group," Kaminer said.

She criticized many groups--including the White House Project, which aims to elect a female president by 2008--that Kaminer said justify their plans to elect women politicians by stressing 19th-century feminine stereotypes of female gentleness as well as their ability to resolve conflicts and cooperate.