What's a Modern Girl to Do?

New York Times ^ | 30 October 2005 | Maureen Dowd

[shrinkermd]

When I entered college in 1969, women were bursting out of theirs 50's chrysalis, shedding girdles, padded bras and conventions. The Jazz Age spirit flared in the Age of Aquarius. Women were once again imitating men and acting all independent: smoking, drinking, wanting to earn money and thinking they had the right to be sexual, this time protected by the pill. I didn't fit in with the brazen new world of hard-charging feminists. I was more of a fun-loving (if chaste) type who would decades later come to life in Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw. I hated the grubby, unisex jeans and no-makeup look and drugs that zoned you out, and I couldn't understand the appeal of dances that didn't involve touching your partner. In the universe of Eros, I longed for style and wit. I loved the Art Deco glamour of 30's movies. I wanted to dance the Continental like Fred and Ginger in white hotel suites; drink martinis like Myrna Loy and William Powell; live the life of a screwball heroine like Katharine Hepburn, wearing a gold lamé gown cut on the bias, cavorting with Cary Grant, strolling along Fifth Avenue with my pet leopard.

[longtermmemmory]

Dowd is a fruitloop. This is in the NYT and therefore irrelevant.

[bill1952]

I'm not sure I see any point here.

What exactly is her point?

[qam1]

I didn't make it all the way to the end. But I kept waiting for the liberal/radical-feminist counterpunch to the basic theme - that women are becoming more traditional - and surprisingly, it never came!

Skip down to the last 2 paragraphs about the future, it's there

[John Scopes]

Dowd is a very average talent who has nothing original to say, except for her original lies stemming from her hatred of truth.

Anything she has ever said that made any sense was something that she had heard from a conservative 10 to 25 years ago when she rejected that same truth like any truth denying liberal.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

She was miserable. She's still miserable. She wants you to be in the same boat.

[Cicero]

Brief translation of this and the rest of her columns: "I'm frustrated in love, so I'm going to spend the rest of my life ranting and whining and bashing Republicans. Also, I slept with the boss, so they can't fire me."

[shrinkermd]

I always enjoy your posts Congressman Billybob; however, I think your take on Dowd is unfair. Actually, her effort at describing what is necessary for a SCOTUS nominee to say (Janice Rogers Brown)seems mature and on target.

I suppose we are free to disagree, but this Maureen is very good at observation, describing what is really happening and, then, placing a view on it you may not like at all. We call that a provocative thinker.

I was not surprised to see the pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones. Yes, she is younger and prettier. Yes, she is the masturbatory fantasy of many deprived, adolescent and not so adolescent males. But the issue is for Dowd and most very capable, intelligent and successful women is this the male measure of marriage material.

A long time ago, the late, great Alfred Adler said what brings men and women together is chemistry but what keeps them together is cooperation. I would submit most mature people in every age would agree with this assertion.

If Maureen is deficient in anything, it is in her inability to convince others she can and will cooperate the business of life. Alternatively, she is wasting her time with powerful men with big egos and little maturity who are interested in sexual conquest and variety. If the later is the case, she should (as can many others) look elsewhere.

Maureen has revealed a great deal about herself in a way that opens her to criticism. She has also revealed, in the past, her disappointments and problems of life. In this she shows considerable courage since it takes courage to make mistakes. And, even more courage to be open in discussing these mistakes with others.

[Congressman Billybob]

While I agree with what you have written about the nature of mature relationships, that does not validate Maureen Dowd. She is 60, but IMHO writes and thinks in a childish way. She is not, and never will be, a grown-up.

Does she turn a good phrase? Absolutely. But can she think her way through a coherent political philosophy. Cute and clever is not a substitute for competent.

John / Billybob

[Mr Rogers]

I'm going to have to go with Congressman Billybob on this one -

Why does Dowd write this drivel?

[labette]

A vanity about vanity? heh, heh.

[BadAndy]

"What's a Modern Girl to Do? "

Poor Maureen, it must be very difficult for her coming to grips with being a dried up spinster that no one loves, that will never have a child, a husband, or a sexlife. That she has chosen to waste her life in a career that consists of making snide comments about people who matter. She sees where it is going, she is alone and rapidly aging, with only her cats to keep her company. Pathetic.

[John Scopes]

Maureen Dowd is a chronic liar just like Clinton. You keep leaving that part out, for convenience of course.

Her blatant frenzied lying about Ken Starr demonstrated that she was certifiably an unrepentant lying propagandist.

[John Valentine]

I'm with Billybob.

As I read Dowd's piece I was struck by her unbounded narcissism and complete disconnect from any form of objective reality. Yet you see maturity and astute observation. It sure beats me.

I can see that you are infatuated, but I can't for the life of me see why. I guess that's what makes the world go round. Maybe it's a girl thing.

[Tench_Coxe]

"Maureen has revealed a great deal about herself in a way that opens her to criticism. She has also revealed, in the past, her disappointments and problems of life. In this she shows considerable courage since it takes courage to make mistakes. And, even more courage to be open in discussing these mistakes with others."

Or, she's too cheap to see a psychiatrist and has to work her problems out in her articles. Embarassing, really.
Many things she writes are better suited to be discussed with a counselor, not to be printed for the declining readership of the NYT.

[Cicero]

Are you serious?

Yes, there's something sad about the immaturity of "modern love" today, and feminism hasn't helped. But frankly folks like Mo Dowd are a major part of the problem. Everything she works for politically is only helping to make the situation she complains about worse.

But more important, is moaning about the difficulty of establishing relationships a proper concern of serious Op Eds? Does the New York Times, supposedly our country's most serious and dignified newspaper, give her this bully pulpit to moan about her hormones and her love life, in between her more usual Bush-bashing activities?

One is tempted to say to her, "Quit your job, find something useful to do, and get a life."

[IronJack]

Much too much MODO for this early on a Sunday. But what I could struggle through sounded exactly like what she claims to hate so badly: coy and giddy yet pretentious and condescending at the same time.

I guess I can sum up my response by saying that feminism turned out to be a chimera because its thesis is a lie. Men and women, while they may be equal, are not the same. And it shouldn't take 5,000 words to express that.

[Tench_Coxe]

"I was not surprised to see the pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones. Yes, she is younger and prettier. Yes, she is the masturbatory fantasy of many deprived, adolescent and not so adolescent males. But the issue is for Dowd and most very capable, intelligent and successful women is this the male measure of marriage material."

You are aware ( looking at your sign on date ) of the reasons for posting CZJ pictures on a Maureen Dowd related thread?
AKA: Being bought off with a Michael Douglas date to get her to cease writing damaging articles about Bill Clinton, only to be dumped for ( yes ) a pretty young thing in vacuous Hollywood.

[shrinkermd]

Yes, and I recall Michael Douglas also told Catherine that if he sexually transgressed he would give her 1 million each time. I also note, they did have children which may have been his secret goal all the time. Many bon vivants in late middle age discover they want what ordinary people wanted when they were young.

So, Douglas may have had more than one reason for dumping Dowd for Jones.

[wouldntbprudent]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

There is much here that Her Dowdiness is right about.

One thing she leaves completely out of the equation, however, is true love.

[ladiesview61]

Dowd is full of crap.. What young woman, no matter what era, wouldn't want to be like the women she so "elequantly" decribes.(unless they were men at heart) The ones who rebelled didn't have a chance of living the fantasy lifestyle she describes... Dowd can go to he**. She a self righteous, full of herself wench.