WASHINGTON — IT’S a tough call to figure out which place is more benighted: Hollywood or Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia was pulling ahead with all its beheadings and its top cleric’s fatwa on chess as “the work of Satan.”

But then Hollywood took the lead with its Jim Crow Oscars, Scully being offered half of Mulder’s pay for the “X-Files” reboot, and its second-class treatment of Rey — the scrappy heroine of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, embodies the awakening Force. Yet even the director, J.J. Abrams, called it “preposterous and wrong” that Rey’s action figure was missing in action from some game and toy tie-ins — a traditionally male realm.

And Lucasfilm is run by a girl action figure, Kathleen Kennedy, so go figure.

That is why it’s so inspiring to see a woman out on the campaign trail who has had such a historic impact on feminism, helping to recast outmoded assumptions about women.