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.
I'm the same way. More of a leader than a follower. But I'm like that most of the time anyway.
Feminists have pretty much ruined this country in my opinion. They only want equality when it suits them.
Have fun living with your cats.
The rules . . . oh the horror . . . the rules! The dowdy one has been mentioned, where are the CZJ pictures? ;-)
Best Regards
Sergio
No,
Bro was ducking (and b!tching) while holding up the cabinet.
My cabinets were at funky heights so blocking wasn't an option (I think I know what I'm talking about ;) )
I know... I'm just playing with you. Besides... I wanted Fierce to know that I knew more than what color plastic laminate was on the front
Oh, she's definitely insecure. Only an insecure woman would spend as much time as she does tooting her own horn. Makes one wonder who she's really trying to convince.
2x4, 16" OC. repeat
Harvest gold toilet & tub, make fridge match.
Pink wilsonart laminate
That was tough. Woo Hoo, I are a qualifried Archtek.
< hehehe >
i wonder if the reviewer actually read Dowd. I have listened to her and I agree with almost everything that she says. The problem isn't smarts, necessarily, it is success. Get into the personals and find men expect women to be smaller, younger and less succssful than they are. She complains that this is partly because some men like Rush Limbaugh marry their massage therapists instead of matching up with her to be a power couple. I have never even heard her consider that she could find a personal trainer appealing. so part of her problem is that she is a snob, and she way overestimates her own importance. That doesn't change the facr that most successful women remain single but successful men enjoy the perks of marriage.
You guys are too funny...
Quit it, PaulaB! Hubby's off today. Keep it up and I'm gonna head for the house.
Oh crap, I forgot to specify this:
"Spackle" the boo-boos.
Joint compound - one size fits all!
Here comes them onkey in the loader pic!
Nice to hear all of you say it!
If I can put it into words both sexes can use:
He/She drives me crazy.
Sometimes,I cannot fathom where He/She is coming from.
Sometimes I think His/Her faults are too numerous to count.
The things that interest Him/Her are beyond me sometimes.
The things He/She finds funny are totally beyond my comprehension. He/She drives too fast/slow or recklessly/conservatively.
Sometimes I just want to scream at Him/Her.
With all His/Her faults, He/She is the most fascinating, loved and wanted person in the world, bar none.
I cannot for the life of me imagine a world without Men/Women.
Life without Men/Women would just be plain, boring and suck.
Men/Women are the true spice of life because they are so different from me that emotionally they give me what my life misses.
BTW, how long HAVE you been married?
2006 ...will be 17 years
I swear... a monkey could do it.
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