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.
For real live women?
Yes.
For cold empty she-bot shrews who pay more attention to their "self fulfillment" and their matching handbags?
No.
And I wouldn't have it any other way. No man deserves to have to deal with heartless Shemales.
Steer clear of generalizations. I am a woman woman, an my husband would agree that I am not ruined.
..the ultimate alpha female...
**
Dowd? I don't think so. More accurate:
the ultimate awful female
I hate feminists! They forced me from my life of wife and motherhood, into the hard, steeley, stress-filled, work world. I in turn, taught my daughter that success means dollars....and now, even though she's successful in the work/business sense, she feels totally inadequate in the wife/mother sense.
DOWN WITH FEMINISM! We want men.
"Are Men Necessary?"
For real live women?
Yes.
For cold empty she-bot shrews who pay more attention to their "self fulfillment" and their matching handbags?
No.
And I wouldn't have it any other way. No man deserves to have to deal with heartless Shemales.
&&&
I was trying to think of a great answer, but yours says it all.
"Are Men Necessary?
Not in France or the US Congress
Not that so much as they like the extra income. More money is always good.
My man IS necessary...
I love AND **gasp** need him
these feminist need to get a grip
without men us gals would
have already driven each other insane
with PMS
I think men are very necessary! My husband and all the other men in my life. I enjoy them all.
Wow, I'm not that kind of woman. I don't need a man for money or to nag. I don't need a Cosmo mag for sex secrets either.
Hmm. Maybe we're not so essential after all.
I couldn't imagine a more dismal existence then life without hubby/father/brothers/friends/sons etc. The whole premise of this book is quite frankly, disgusting.
Now JUST WAIT A COTTON-PICKIN' MINUTE!!!
There's nothing wrong with boob jobs!
LOL...I'm sure you're kidding.
Paula, I couldnt agree with you more.
9 weeks of gender integrated training and I was darn thankful we had men keeping 60 females from killing each other. It's those damn pheremones.
I think any fear about a too smart/too successful woman is that they will be dissatisfied-- eventually, at least-- with a less smart/less successful man and cheat or otherwise treat him poorly and be antsy to leave the relationship. It's probably not just stupid paranoia on our parts, I bet.
She's a very insecure successful woman. It would be hard to be nervous or scared around her. You sort of pity her.
Only so much you can get out of something from a factory, eh?
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