Posted on 10/30/2005 6:14:25 AM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Mo might be better served by examining those women who are successful in both career and marriage. Catherine Zeta-Jones comes to mind.
it is not fair....
The women of my and her age, who are married are witty, smart and happy, the single, divorced ones are bitter, snarly and complainers just like her. Dowd and her sisters want to be married without giving up their single lifestyle.
Guess it depends on how these women want to define success. If they define success as being childless, loveless, bitter, and angry, then I think they need to re-think their priorities a bit. If not, they can live like Maureen Dowd, with a bottle of scotch in one hand and a duracell-powered lover in the other- blaming everyone else but themselves for the predicament they're in.
This was a fun line I thought.
She is simply whining the whine of the aging and unindulged feminazi. Why would any man who is a man be caught dead being involved with, much less married to, the likes of Dowd. Would any man have any reason to imagine that the inconvenience of pregnancy for Dowd would not be likely to lead to the death by dismemberment in the womb of his offspring by her.
There is probably a class of men developing and burgeoning out there who have the attitude that feminazis are for casual and (highly protected) sexual use and real women are for marrying. Such men are certainly not ideal husbands (they think little of themselves, their casually used and usable women, or the roles of actual sexuality within human relationships) and they will have to compete for real women with the men who would not come within forty feet of Dowd with someone else's, ummmmm, boat oar.
You miss her point: Men don't want relationships with smart, successful women. Too much of a threat to what's below their belts.
I suspect I speak for most men when I say we're trying to find women who respect men in general. Too many women (Dowd is a primary example) constantly demean men and assume they carry the worst intentions, then can't understand why no man would put up with that BS. Men - just like women - expect to be treated with a modicum of decency. Yet there is a subset of the female population who thinks men should grovel for the chance to have a relationship with them, even in the face of repeated insults.
These problems persist across both genders, and the Mo Dowds and Carrie Bradshaws of the world are the tiny minority, but they do exist. Lucky for me, I've already found a good partner, and married her. I'm sorry to say that people like Dowd are unlikely to experience the same.
If Maureen Dowd had continued her attack on Bill Xlintoon after she started screwing Michael Douglas, then we would consider her a "high-achieving women". But she didn't.
That's not the the main point. A man wants to feel that he can make a difference in a woman's life, that he can bring things that she would otherwise be without. One of these things is the role of (main) provider. If a woman has that covered, a man's reaction is typically "what does she need me for?"
And it's not just the man. The woman in the picture thinks that way also: if she is making $200k a year, she will not consider seriously a man who is 'only' making $100K.
And I have always wondered about this "frail male ego" stuff. Most women I know can be very hurt by a rude or cutting remark by the man in their life; why would men be any different?
Well, a modern girl like Maureen Dowd could always get elected as a Democrat legislator, become a meth freak, and then whore around with various reporters and janitors. Of course, the modern girl should always take care that she doesn't get run over by a car driven by the jealous girlfriend of the janitor.
Democrat Legislator Kelley Wirth
It's not that they are smart, successful or whatever, it is simply a matter of undesirable return on investment.
Better to go through life wanting something you don't have than having something you don't want.
The '60s and '70s did open up a lot of choices for women. A generation later, today's women see the consequences of those choices, and can make their own choices based on the new information. The women who would rather succeed in business than in childbearing can still make that choice, but now they know that it's more of an either-or (at least during the childbearing years) than a "have it all".
Fortunately, for women, they live longer than men, so they can start a brand-new life after having children, and still have 20, 30, or more years for a serious career. Nowadays, life really can begin (again) at 50.
...There...that's better.
....Actress Gene Tierney ,,,circa 1945.
Many, many "smart, successful women" have become so by being competitors to men. They give off a vibe that triggers the competitive instinct in men around them...the same way another man would. He may treat her like one of his business associates or friends: joke around with her, tease her, maybe even go so far as to have sex with her - but he has an instinctive wariness about trusting that competitor with anything important, like his personal feelings.
There are good historical, biological, evolutionary reasons why we don't "communicate". Men never tell other men what they are feeling because they would be exposing a weakness to a potential competitor. When a woman puts herself within that competitor frame, he isn't going to tell her, either. And he's not likely to even consider marrying her - instead, he'll marry the non-competitive, supportive woman who may not be as successful, but who doesn't trigger that competitive instinct when he gets home after a full day of dealing with the same thing at the office.
I love Ayn Rand, too, BTW. ;)
Being the Mo, of course, means looking a life in a rear view mirror, because you never see the real life going on around you because it's outside your bubble of think-alikes.
Menopause is cruel.
MO needs a double dose of Tom Sizemore. At least it would shut her yapper for a day or two...
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