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Is Maureen Dowd necessary? [Book Review]
National Post [Canada] ^ | Saturday November 5, 2005 | Robert Fulford

Posted on 11/06/2005 9:51:22 AM PST by canuck_conservative

Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, while turning herself into a caricature of Maureen Dowd, has lately pushed pop-culture references and amateur psychology to previously unimagined levels of absurdity. She began the process in the 1980s when she became a reporter in Washington, discovered that issues of government bored her and determined to get the politics out of politics.

Her strategy was to cast politicians in cultural fantasies. During the 1992 primaries she said that one now-forgotten Democrat was enacting a scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; later she said the same guy sounded like Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. That was also the year she called Hillary Clinton "Lady Macbeth in a black preppy headband."

In those days she provided relief from the relentlessly flat prose of the Times. But what the readers need now is relief from Dowd and her psychologizing. As her dislike for George W. Bush congeals into hatred, she imagines him simultaneously as the puppet of various father figures and the dependent son of mothering women.

This week the bookstores put on sale perhaps the least impressive work of her career, Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide (Putnam), a wretchedly written, poorly considered and cliche-ridden whine about the dubious effects of feminist victories on women's lives.

While her column has always been a cluttered garage-sale of famous names and jarring images, her book makes the column seem by comparison almost dour. On one page she finds a way to mention Oscar de la Renta, The Matrix, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Maverick, Kathleen Turner in Body Heat -- as well as Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.

"My thesis is that feminism is dead," Dowd says. "That it's been trumped by narcissism and materialism, which are much more important 'isms' in the 21st century." As a self-defined feminist, she feels betrayed. Apparently feminists of 25 years ago failed to mention that all social change brings surprising consequences. Titanic gains made by women in the professions have (Dowd believes) doomed them to failure in their private lives. She quotes a friend who won the Pulitzer and predicted it would keep her from getting dates. Dowd has never had trouble getting dates but, unmarried and childless at 53, she seems to blame her situation on historic forces and the pathetically timid preferences of men. She suggests at one point in the book that she would have had a better chance of getting married if she had been a maid.

These notions have appeared prominently in her column, usually when she's eagerly bought and passed on some outrageously distorted social science. Typically, Dowd finds a shred of evidence that supports her prejudice and ignores everything else.

Last March the Times reported on a study by two psychologists that seemed to say men prefer mates of lower achievement -- "Glass Ceilings at Altar as Well as Boardroom," said the headline. Dowd paraphrased this as "the more women achieve, the less desirable they are." Perhaps, she said, feminism had turned out to be a cruel hoax. Dowd depicted herself and other high-achieving women as pathetic losers.

But in this case the cruel hoax was the Times story. Only 120 males had participated in the study, all of them college students, most in first year; in other words, teenaged boys. More thorough research suggests a radically different conclusion. Valerie Oppenheimer, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley, has reviewed 80 surveys and decided that the more education a woman has, the more likely she is to marry. That wouldn't interest Dowd. She loves spreading ironic stories of despair and sexist oppression, even when the facts are fragmentary.

Long ago she discovered that she could be noticed if she said as little as possible as amusingly as possible. In her recent columns, and even more in her new book, she continues to say nothing but no longer amuses.

© National Post 2005


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: bushhater; dowd; liberal; maureendowd; modo
Ouch! That's gotta hurt.
1 posted on 11/06/2005 9:51:23 AM PST by canuck_conservative
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To: canuck_conservative
MoDowd has hit, IMHO, an age -- a time-- in her life of reflection. Who knows but that she might be able to put all the pieces together, and come out understanding herself, finally. I hope she does. And she understands then how mighty can be the pen to not only harm others, but to harm one's self.

It's fun to be witty, ascerbic. But graciousness is a rare commodity which stretches a long ways whenever it is applied.

2 posted on 11/06/2005 9:57:47 AM PST by Alia
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To: canuck_conservative

3 posted on 11/06/2005 10:01:54 AM PST by ABG(anybody but Gore) (This tagline is under remodeling, thank you for your patience...)
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To: canuck_conservative

Anybody got a ball gag?


4 posted on 11/06/2005 10:04:29 AM PST by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ("Don't touch that thing")
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To: canuck_conservative

Super achieving women are a losing proposition for any man not comitted to staying on the fast track merely to keep up with them. The converse can be said for those men who exhibit the same qualities as eventually they are likely to tire of their women and trade them in for newer and sleeker models, much like car buying.


5 posted on 11/06/2005 10:05:55 AM PST by misterrob
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To: canuck_conservative

Is that a rhetorical question?


6 posted on 11/06/2005 10:06:19 AM PST by streetpreacher (If at the end of the day, 100% of both sides are not angry with me, I've failed.)
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To: canuck_conservative
Post #1 - NO!

Post #3 YES!.

7 posted on 11/06/2005 10:15:38 AM PST by Paladin2 (If the political indictment's from Fitz, the jury always acquits.)
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To: canuck_conservative

Maybe MO-DO should call up Molly Ivans down in TX and have a pitty-party with her. They might even hit it off and get married or something...


8 posted on 11/06/2005 10:31:55 AM PST by el_texicano (Liberals, Socialist, DemocRATS, all touchy, feely, mind numbed robots, useless idiots all)
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To: canuck_conservative
This quote comes to mind....

Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.
9 posted on 11/06/2005 10:40:19 AM PST by LA Woman3 ("If you're constantly being mistreated, you're cooperating with the treatment.")
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To: canuck_conservative

No she is not necessary.


10 posted on 11/06/2005 11:01:46 AM PST by freekitty
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To: Miss Marple

Mo Dowd Ping!


11 posted on 11/06/2005 11:16:47 AM PST by ABG(anybody but Gore) (This tagline is under remodeling, thank you for your patience...)
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To: ABG(anybody but Gore)

Ha! Thanks for the ping!


12 posted on 11/06/2005 11:38:24 AM PST by Miss Marple (Lord, please look after Mozart Lover's son and keep him strong.)
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To: canuck_conservative

Twit. You can substitute your own vowel.


13 posted on 11/06/2005 11:41:32 AM PST by satchmodog9 ( Seventy million spent on the lefts Christmas present and all they got was a Scooter)
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To: el_texicano
...unmarried and childless at 53....

No wonder the modo is extinct.

14 posted on 11/06/2005 11:42:13 AM PST by Socratic (Liberal's motto: Capio ergo sum.)
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To: el_texicano

And Helen can fly in (on her broom) to make it a threesome.


15 posted on 11/06/2005 11:43:58 AM PST by litehaus
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To: canuck_conservative
Yeah, Mo Do is necessary. How else can we identify Lib stupidity AND get CZJ pics at the same time?


16 posted on 11/06/2005 11:50:26 AM PST by JRios1968 ("Cogito, ergo FReep": I think, therefore I FReep.)
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