Posted on 11/15/2005 7:32:36 AM PST by Millee
I was reading "Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide" last week on the stationary bike at the Y, and the men around me were sweating even more than usual. "So what's the answer?" one said nervously.
Maureen Dowd scares guys, so my familiar comrade in cardio wasn't exactly comfortable with me multitasking with the ultimate alpha female. "I'll let you know next week," I told him.
Sure, Dowd and I have a few things in common. We both grew up in working- class families with lots of brothers. We both started college in 1969 and have careers in the newspaper business.
There the similarities end, however, so reading her sly, dishy, cynical take on gender relations was like poring through a Lonely Planet guide to Bangkok.
I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to live in such an odd place.
I mean, really, I was working a 6 a.m. shift at a newspaper in Portland, Ore., and rearing two kids when Dowd was sharpening her stilettos - and her wit - at GQ, Cosmo and the Washington Star. She was dating Michael Douglas and Aaron Sorkin in New York while I was arguing with a belligerent teenager in Denver. While I was worrying about paying for new snow tires, she was buying $100-an-ounce wrinkle creme. No wonder we have such different perspectives.
The premise of "Are Men Necessary?" - oversimplified - is that Dowd thinks men don't like smart, successful women, and smart women are so demoralized by this rejection, they resort to slutty clothes, Botox and plastic surgery in a desperate attempt to land a husband the sleazy, cunning, prefeminist way.
Honestly, I think she needs to turn off "Sex and the City" and get out more.
Since I haven't exactly been immersed in the singles scene, I called several smart Colorado women to find out what it's like out there.
"What a hilarious question," said state Rep. Morgan Carroll, an Aurora lawyer, who thinks Dowd is seriously behind the curve. "I'm actually seeing a resurgence of men who are growing bored with the counter-feminist culture."
There definitely are media pressures "to doll us up" and sell us beauty products, Carroll said, "but I'm seeing the pendulum move the other way. There are more men who are bored with empty women. They're much more intrigued with smart, independent women."
Chris Watney agreed.
A graduate student who has worked in the U.S. Justice Department, on Tom Strickland's Senate campaign and at the Colorado Children's Campaign, Watney said the whole notion of smart women buying "The Rules" and getting boob jobs to land a mate is ridiculous.
"If we were to use those tactics to get a date, the guy would surely be gone by the second date," which in Watney's case might be climbing a fourteener "with no makeup and my hair in a ponytail."
Still, in Colorado a woman can be too smart, even for fellas who give every indication they are secure about their manhood.
Amy Slothower and Jennifer Winther said the fastest way to scare away a man is to mention Harvard. Slothower calls it "dropping the H-bomb."
"I lived in New York for a while, and most of the men I encountered there had similar educational experiences and were successful in their own right," she said. If they asked her where she went to college, she didn't hesitate to drop the H-bomb. They didn't duck and cover.
In Denver, however, she saves that information until at least the second date.
Winther, who has a Ph.D. in biology and is heading to Harvard for a post-doc, said she rarely brings it up. "It's a turnoff," she said. Heck, for most guys, "just being in science is intimidating."
The whole topic is a minefield, for sure, but if there's anything on which smart women seem to agree, it's the answer to Dowd's provocative rhetorical question. It's definitely no. In post-
feminist America, men are not necessary.
But once they learn to cope with their insecurities and their chromosomal inadequacies, they can be a whole lot of fun.
We love our fellas ping....
Dowd deserves to be old and alone.
Feminists have ruined women now they blame us men.
I need a man twice a year:
December 1 to put the tree up, and
December 31 to take the tree down.
Just kidding, ya'll.
But not for the reason the author thinks. ;)
Betting that "the Dowdy one" still sits up at night writing angry letters to Michael Douglas....he's lucky she didn't take any cues from "Fatal Attraction"
Feminists would be a lot cuter if they weren't so damn bitchy.
Since when and on what planet is Maureen Dowd "the ultimate alpha female"? PLEASE! And I sure as hell don't know any men she makes "nervous" - "laugh like hyenas" is another matter altogether. Author is clearly in need of a clue, not to mention better reading material.
**************
Oh, come on. Let's not go over the edge.
... I need to get my mind back on work...
Doesn't this need a "mega-barf alert"?
Thanks for the ping.
I don't believe a single word the dowd says... not about politics or dating or even if the sun is going to rise tomorrow. To have her say that men are afraid of smart women is bs. I think that men don't like her for a wide range of reasons... and her education and her job are not among the reasons. She is simply trying to find someone to blame for the fact that she is repulsive.
Typical dimorat gameplan... "It can't be MY fault"
LOL!
Maureen Dowd finds men unnecessary because she is too bitter to hold on to one.
There is a joke there somewhere.
Without men. . .
Who would women fuss at?
Who would women blame for ruining their lives?
Where would women get the extra money they need?
Who would women dress up for and put on make-up for and diet for, etc.?
Why would there be a Cosmo magazine, with its monthly sex-secrets article?
Without men it would be a sad world for women. They would have to rely on their brains and work ability instead of their looks. They would have to change their own flat tires.
parsy, who loves women but, like John Donne, hopes not for reason from them.
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