I Need a Husband!
About six months after I continued to remain happy and childless, I saw a woman sitting with her son on a blanket. Her name, I later discovered, was Lori and she was there with her friend Caitlin. It was a sunny summer weekend, and there were parents and kids picnicking nearby.
The day had been going fine, until Lori started checking out my ass in a really intense way. Which was odd, because I have an okay ass. Nothing to write home about. I guess it was an ass you could settle for. Of course, when pressed, I can shake my booty as well as anybody else. Still, it was somewhat disheartening to have someone checking out my ass without even having the courtesy to introduce herself.
“Excuse me,” said Lori. “Are you married?”
“What? Why, no,” I said.
“Do you shout ‘Bravo!’ in movie theaters?”
“Sometimes. When it’s an action movie.”
She introduced herself. She then asked if she could smell my breath. I told her that I needed one minute to suck on a breath mint. She told me that breath mints weren’t necessary. I informed her that her request was quite unusual. And she then grabbed the roll of BreathSavers out of my hand and stomped my mints into chalky powder. She insisted that I had halitosis. This was not true.
“Hey, you owe me a buck for those BreathSavers!”
“I want a husband,” she said.
“What for? What do you really long for?”
“An angle for this Atlantic article I’m writing. Well, actually, a husband. I’m very worried about that. Every single woman I know feels panic about this. I need to marry and reproduce.”
I then noticed that she was taking notes.
“You know, you don’t need a husband to be happy,” I said. “Mr. Right often comes along when you least expect it.”
“I need a husband now.”
Lori didn’t blink as she said this. I was starting to get an Ira Levin vibe.
“Yeah, and I’d love to write for The New Yorker. It’ll probably never happen. But that doesn’t stop me from writing or living.”
“You don’t understand. I need a husband now.”
“Well, if that’s the case, go get one.”
I started to walk away. I considered calling 911. Lori was starting to give me the creeps. There was a wild look in her eyes.
“Will you be my husband?”
I was unnerved by Lori. I knew many well-adjusted single women in their thirties and forties who were living fantastic lives. And they were doing this entirely without partners.
“Are you The One?”
“No!” I shouted.
She then consulted a complicated Powerpoint presentation on her laptop. There was a red text box with the words MUST MARRY MAN NOW! flashing in bright white text.
“Are you my soul mate?”
“Look, Lori, I don’t know you, but I think you need help.”
“I need to marry somebody. Someone who can help me pop out 1.2 children from my uterus. Will you marry me and help me pop out 1.2 children? I have one son. I need 1.2 more so that I can live the perfect dream. Are you Mr. Good Enough?”
“I’m Mr. Champion.”
Lori then complained to her friend Caitlin that I wasn’t cooperating. Caitlin suggested that they should go home and watch the final episode of Friends to get some additional ideas for Lori’s article. And that was the last I saw of them.
I didn’t understand Lori’s problem. If only she would stop with the whole “I need a husband” nonsense and accept that life happens when you make other plans, maybe she might get her wish.
But it was good to meet someone who wrote for The Atlantic. I was pretty sure that Lori would read a few books on the subject, talk to some noted experts on relationships and human behavior, cite a few studies, and write a very thoughtful article without a single generalization about gender. After all, The Atlantic was a respected magazine that attracted only the best writers.
Watson, Can You Smear Me?
Many things have been written about James Watson’s inglorious Imus homage, but for my money, Annalee’s column, pointing out the remarkable arrogance and needless associations with race and gender, is one of the few that consider the expansive context.
Sam Tanenhaus: Let the Cheap Sensationalism Continue
Have you heard the latest from Sam Tanenhaus’s dismal literary tabloid? Writers should be pilloried for writing the sentence “Men are rats.” It’s an absolute scandal. Toni Bentley, presumably recruited because this offered the boys another opportunity to pump her for more thoughts on posterior probings, proceeds to characterize Katha Pollitt’s latest book as another volume in “[g]roaning and moaning from clever, sassy women.” After spending three paragraphs attacking the right of intelligent women to write about being burned by men (in a remarkably sexist term of art, Bentley characterizes these women as “vagina dentata intellectualis”), while failing to point out precisely where Pollitt went wrong in her work. Four paragraphs into the review, we still have no explicit quote from the book that will support Bentley’s thesis, but we do have this extraordinary sentence:
It’s hard to tell if she’s coming into her own, trying to sell more books or has lost it entirely.
I don’t see how speculating upon the mental health or financial motivations of a writer offers any thoughtful insight into a book. It’s clear enough that Bentley hated the book. I get that. Pollitt is a polarizing figure. But as a reviewer, does not Bentley have the obligation to tell us why specific passages reflect what she perceives as inadequacies? Instead, Bentley merely summarizes some of the essays and spends most of her review offering limp wisecracks. (”Not being in drowning mode, I, for one, am bringing a cliché-proof life jacket to the party.”)
It is stupendously irresponsible to take a sentence like “Men are rats” and not provide any additional journalistic context to offer us a few clues about what Pollitt was writing about. In publishing such a piece, it seems evidently clear that Sam Tanenhaus has no interest in examining social issues with any degree of maturity. It is bad enough that he would resort to cheap sensationalism. But it is the act of a thug to permit a piece that would attack Pollitt’s character rather than her words.
Unnamed “Surveys” That I Pulled Out of My Ass Confirm That NPR is Full of Shit
NPR: “McEwan’s prognosis is surely hyperbole, but only slightly. Surveys consistently find that women read more books than men, especially fiction. Explanations abound, from the biological differences between the male and female brains, to the way that boys and girls are introduced to reading at a young age.”
Apparently, David Remnick Also Thinks Women Aren’t Funny
Benjamin Cohen has a gender breakdown of contributors to the New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” section. The results are extremely troubling. It seems that only 17 of the 133 authors who have appeared in “Shouts & Murmurs” since 1992 have been women. Patricia Marx is the female author who has appeared most, at seven times, but her work is occluded by Steve Martin’s 29 appearances.
So does Remnick subscribe to the Christopher Hitchens hard line? (It’s interesting to note that Hitchens’s essay also appeared in a Conde Nast magazine.) Why haven’t women been assigned to this section? And while I’m on the subject, why does Steve Martin get an interview slot at the New Yorker Festival, but not Marx? Okay, so some chick named Susan Morrison is interviewing him, because this is the 21st century and some faces have to be saved. But I’m truly astonished that the magazine which frequently published Dorothy Parker, an inarguably funny woman, seems to have reverted to some backwards 19th century idea about gender on this subject.
Roy Den Hollander: A Man of Limitations, A Man of Principle
Several groups of men have, at long last, discovered the true evil that lurks beneath the nightlife underbelly and have initiated the appropriate legislation to exact justice for the greatest threat to equality since they bussed in those dark-skinned kids into schools some decades ago. It turns out that those goddam women, who continue to complain about the apparent injustice of a woman making two thirds the annual income that a man makes, have now spawned a grand plan in collusion with nightclub owners to disrupt the natural patriarchal order. Not only do these women have the temerity to order drinks at a price lesser than that of a man, but they often get into these nightclubs for free! FOR FREE! Doesn’t a woman know that her only role in life is to a man’s pliable arm candy? Doesn’t a woman know that she must abstain from pursuing a career and do nothing more in life than cook, clean and reproduce?
Thankfully, there are brave men like Roy Den Hollander, who has tired of “being treated as a second-class citizen.” It’s bad enough that Mr. Hollander’s penis size is smaller than the norm. To dwell upon this personal topic is to open up a healing wound. But now Mr. Hollander has to suffer the indignity of paying one or two more dollars for a drink than a woman! Well, enough is enough. If you ask me, the only real solution here is to castrate Mr. Hollander and begin the appropriate court-enforced pre-op transexual procedures. It’s the only way to be sure. As a woman, only then will Mr. Hollander understand the gender chasm. As a woman, only then will Mr. — make that Ms. Hollander know the meaning of “second-class citizen.”
(via Jason Pinter)
“Unlike a Lot of Women, I Like Beer!”
Well, who knew that there weren’t a lot of women who imbibed beer in the 1970s? That is, if we believe Michelob.
There are important questions that must be answered:
1. Who determined that “a lot of women” didn’t like beer? (And this stereotype, despite some progress, has remained a problem in recent years.)
2. How did they decide upon the seven ounce bottle? (And why seven? I mean, if these domestic women drinkers were ostensibly dainty, why not settle for four or five?)
3. Considering that the first shot is very careful to include a gesture of this woman putting down her purse, was this beer an attempt to market to the professional woman? Or the more civilized housewife trying to create a more level gender playing field? (Sentence in this commercial to support the latter rhetorical question: “And he likes it too!” So is the husband the one here making the compromise? Or is MICH VII intended to be the compromise to maintain happy marriages?)
I can find no trace of what happened to MICH VII, although several vintage mirrors seem to be available on eBay.
Screenwriters: All White, All Male, All the Time
Hollywood Reporter: “With the exception of female TV writers, women and minority scribes have made little progress of late in seeking fair employment and earnings in Hollywood, according to a report commissioned by the WGA West released Tuesday.”
The report does not appear to be available online, but I certainly hope that the WGA follows up with these claims by releasing these regrettable income disparities to the public.
Garrison Keillor: Spokesman for Sexist Hunter-Gathering Revival Movement?
Garrison Keillor: “It’s a guy thing, shoveling snow. It’s a form of marking. You shovel the walk to show other males that you’re on the scene and operating at full capacity lest they think about stealing your woman, though ironically your shoveling has made it easier for them to reach your house.”
You know, the last time I checked, chicks shoveled show too.
Comedy: Rated XX
Christopher Hitchens: “If I am correct about this, which I am, then the explanation for the superior funniness of men is much the same as for the inferior funniness of women. Men have to pretend, to themselves as well as to women, that they are not the servants and supplicants. Women, cunning minxes that they are, have to affect not to be the potentates. This is the unspoken compromise.”
From Dana Goodyear’s profile on Sarah Silverman: “Several years ago, Jerry Lewis, then in his early seventies, reportedly told an audience at the Aspen Comedy Festival that he didn’t much care for female comedians and couldn’t think of one who was any good. Lewis’s views were criticized in public but upheld by some, in modified form, in private. ‘When you went home alone and did the math, he was just kind of right,’ Penn Jillette, the magician-comedian, says.”
Michael Williams: “All the funniest comedians are male, in every media — stand-up, TV shows, movies, books, you name it. When women are in the comedy genre, they usually play the straight ‘man,’ putting up with the male comedians’ nonsense with a sigh and a shrug. Furthermore, most comedies are aimed at men, and those demographers know what they’re doing; I bet that female-targeted comedies bomb in the box office.”
One might presume that laughter’s universal palliative would have rendered gender distinctions null and void and that the issue of whether a comedian is funny would rest upon a joke’s qualities, its delivery and its impeccable associations, rather than the comedian’s gender. But there remains a palpable stink in the air that must be examined. Women, say these pundits, are not funny. Or if they are funny, they are somehow lesser to men.
The comedy scene, despite advances in recent years, is dominated by men. And it’s interesting that many comediennes must employ shock value in order to be noticed. Consider Sandra Bernhard’s sexual candor or Sarah Silverman’s comic experiments with racism. Margaret Cho, who I believe to be very funny, has developed a loyal gay following. But why is Cho, because she is a self-avowed “fag hag,” lesser to Silverman because Silverman is, according to Goodyear, “approachable though deranged.”
Let’s consider Goodyear’s modifier: “approachable.” This suggests then that if a woman is funny, by the logic employed by The New Yorker, discounting the requirements of audience appeal, she must somehow stifle her comic impulses rather than greet the audience in her naturally tailored persona. And even when she’s a comic as successful as Silverman, there’s still the troubling problem of coming across as “deranged,” as if comedy, a science often rooted in madness, is a loony byway as closed off to women as the Herbertstraße.
Perhaps this is because humor is associated with intelligence and some men, terrified by the notion of a level playing field among genders, view the advent of funny females as a threat.
Which brings us to Hitchens’ article, as true a confession of Hitchens’ gender fears as it is a regrettable surrender of hearty logic. Relying upon an absurd array of generalizations, Hitchens first claims that women have no need to appeal to men in a humorous manner. And then, relying upon a Stanford University School of Medicine study, Hitchens views women’s “greater emphasis on language and executive processing” as the apparent smoking gun that women are “slower to get it.” But one might just as easily adduce that this uptake in brain activity involves women processing the jokes in a more holistic manner, paying more attention to the semantics and the environment in which the joke was delivered than their male counterparts. Hitchens also pooh-poohs women who were “swift to locate the unfunny.” Could not this cerebral celerity mean that women might just be better attuned to ferret out humor by way of identifying it?
If we infer that women are more mentally equipped to deliver the goods, why then is there a stigma? A Psychology Today article attempted to examine this issue, suggesting that men and women use humor differently, with men using humor to compete and women using humor to bond. While this assertion by no means foolproof and cannot account for humor’s rich complexities, perhaps it is this competitive urge that causes funny women to be marginalized and Christopher Hitchens to have a severe lapse in judgment.
Erma Bombeck once observed, “When humor goes, there goes civilization.” If women cannot be accepted for their humorous contributions (too great and numerous to list), then what hope civilization?
[UPDATE: Apparently, if you are a woman who expresses a serious disagreement with Hitchens' piece or asks why it was published without being looked at, you've just another humorless bitch, as imputed by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. More from Sklar at the Huffington Post. (via Maud)]
The Same Way You “Cure” an Agoraphobic By Dropping Him Off Into an Iowa Cornfield and Driving Off
UPI: “Women with allergic symptoms after intercourse may be allergic to their partner’s semen, but the cure for some is more sex, say U.S. researchers.”
Maryland Appellate Court to Women: “Shut Up, Bitch! He Said You Said Yes!”
WBAL: “An appellate court said Maryland’s rape law is clear — no doesn’t mean no when it follows a yes and intercourse has begun.”
This is utterly appalling and utterly inhuman.
Credibility Gap
New York Times: “The panel dismissed the idea, notably advanced last year by Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, that the relative dearth of women in the upper ranks of science might be the result of ‘innate’ intellectual deficiencies, particularly in mathematics. If there are cognitive differences, the report says, they are small and irrelevant. In any event, the much-studied gender gap in math performance has all but disappeared as more girls enroll in demanding classes. Even among very high achievers, the gap is narrowing, the panelists said.”
I Assume This Has Something to Do With the Invite She Got to the Flanagan Barbeque
Guardian: “Telling women not to expect orgasms but to fake them, and to praise their partner lavishly afterwards, is not advice normally associated with a woman who has been in the vanguard of feminism for four decades. Nevertheless, Fay Weldon gives short shrift to the views for which feminists have fought so bitterly over the years. In her latest book, she not only warns high-flying women that they should expect to end up single, she also suggests that sexual pleasure may be incompatible with high-powered careers and that women should simply accept they are less capable of being happy than men.” (via Booksquare)
Boys Will Be Boys
Harlan Ellison: The Norman Mailer of Speculative Fiction
[Photo removed at the request of Keith Stokes. Offending image available here.]
[UPDATE: Keith Stokes continues to play a game of cultural revisionism, regularly changing the filenames of his photographs to prevent people from seeing what happened for themselves. The photo, as of Tuesday, can be found on this page.]
Unpardonable.
This is not just a matter of “Harlan being Harlan,” as Ellison’s defenders will likely phrase it. This is not a matter of being politically correct. These are the actions of a boorish pig. It is unacceptable for anyone to get away with this. And the almost total silence of the science fiction community on this is appalling.
It’s one thing to goof around at a party — when the people know the other people involved and a little bit of this kind of nonsense sometimes occurs.
But when a woman goes up on stage and cannot be respected as a writer, particularly a writer who’s as great as Connie Willis, when she must be groped and demeaned as a sex object in front of an audience, then the time has come to re-evaluate the merits of the organization that hosts the awards ceremony, as well as the has-been “legends” who go up to claim and present awards.
Likely, speculative fiction writers will remain silent about Ellison’s groping. After all, Harlan Ellison will go after them or make phone calls or engage in sociopathic behavior or essentially intimidate anyone who disagrees with him. His loyal cadre of sycophants, who accept his every word and action without question, will stand back in awe as the man that they have inflated beyond belief continues to walk mighty and unquestionable steps.
If the SFWA has any balls, they will demand a censure. If Connie Willis has any dignity, she will demand a public apology. If Harlan Ellison has any honor, he will atone for his despicable conduct rather than revel in it.
If Harlan paralyzed a writer for life, would it be a case of Harlan “just being Harlan?” How does one writer stand so above the pale?
MORE REACTIONS:
Goblin Mercantiel Exchange: “The difference, then, is quite stark: it’s between dead-enders and people who actually have some kind of connection to the 21st century world at large–you know? The 21st century? Where shit like this shouldn’t happen?”
Gavin Grant: “What’s up with these dirty old men? They’re taking all the fun out of being in the genre and not inspiring anyone with anything but horror and the urge to vomit and throw out their books.”
Catherine Morrison: “So Harlan Ellison. What to do with him? The even more sad part of all this is that I don’t think people will particularly remember this in a year or two except as part of Ellison’s general assiness. Because groping a woman without permission doesn’t get you shunned in this world.”
Laurie Mann: “Connie is a much better role model for writers than Harlan Ellison.”
Lis Riba: “What does a woman have to do to get a little respect in this industry?”
And as of Monday night, there has been nothing about the groping from Neil Gaiman, John Scalzi, Bonig Boing, Rick Kleffel, and of course Harlan himself.
UPDATE: From Come Love Sleep on Gaiman: “(he basically says, he’s not gonna touch this situation with a ten-foot barge-pole, and other woman have been accusing him of being “complicit by [my] silence” in Harlan’s “public attempt to rape Connie Willis”, which is pretty stupid. Under those circumstances I’d find it pretty hard not to be really pissed off.)”
Meanwhile, Lis Riba suggests that “we can channel this energy into something positive,” while Ian McDonald notes that he found the grope “entertaining.”
UPDATE 2: Greg Frost talked with Connie Willis. (via Gwenda)
UPDATE 3: As reported by C. Billings in the thread, Harlan is now claiming that he did not grope, grab or fondle Connie Willis: “Would you, and the ten thousand maggots who have blown this up into a cause celebre, be even the least bit abashed to know that I apologized WAY BEYOND what the “crime” required, on the off chance that I HAD offended?” (The full response is in the thread.) Further, on the Harlan Ellison message board, messages criticizing the grope are being removed and IP addresses are being banned.
UPDATE 4: The thread has turned into what Ron has correctly styled “a shit-flinging contest” (and I am just as guilty). I have disabled comments. I suggest full contact jujitsu at your local gym as a surrogate.
UPDATE 5: Video and screenshot.
Otto Peltzer Gets Cozy
[EDITOR'S NOTE: This post, as you've probably already gathered, is a parody of Otto Penzler's New York Sun column. But since Mr. Penzler has threatened me by email, I have added this note to state that THIS POST IS A PARODY, and it is reflective of a character named "Otto Peltzer," not Penzler.]
It was just after I duct-taped my lover to the concrete slab I keep in my study and caused her a considerable amount of discomfort that I realized she was better that way and that this was probably much better for our relationship. It’s sometimes the only way I can obtain an erection. When you’re a man like me who hasn’t laughed once since 1992, it’s easy to give into this kind of passive-aggressive violence. Bitter New York Sun columns simply aren’t enough for a man with my hopeless desperation.
But I thought I’d extend this metaphor further and apply it to all the bitches who are out to get me. By bitches, I refer to those base mystery writers who lack the grand grace of a Y chromosome. Who are these women and why do they think they can write? If they’re going to write cozies, should they not be shackled to the kitchen, preparing our meals and otherwise agreeing with every single one of our commands?
Call me cynical, but the time has come for the publishing industry to stop using these terms. Mysteries are mysteries, and anything less is folly. Who knew that these bitches would dare to adopt terms of reference? This feminist axis of evil hopes to communicate to the world ideas of what they call mysteries and I call poppycock. In fact, I’ll simply call it poppy, since I’m the one with the cock around here and they aren’t.
Now excuse me while I ignite the stack of feminist propaganda (read “cozies”) into a cozy conflagration.
But It’s a Different Kind of Sexist Assumption. It Comes from a Television-Obsessed Yokel at the Kansas City Star.
Aaron Barnhart really should know better: “But she’s a different kind of nerd. Brainy, pretty and ironic, Wagner blows away the stereotype of the pasty-skinned white male with a closet full of comic books that once defined this convention that is expected to draw 100,000 over its four days.”
This Week in Gilead Watch
Houston Chronicle: “Under the bill, anyone who helps a pregnant minor cross state lines to obtain an abortion without parental knowledge could be punished by unspecified fines and up to a year in prison. The girl and her parents would not be vulnerable to criminal penalties.”
PBS is Sexist and Spineless
PBS has fired Melanie Martinez, host of The Good Night Show. Her crime? Appearing in this amusing thirty-second video, which doesn’t feature Ms. Martinez naked but has her making fun of “technical virginity.” If this Puritanical move is what it takes to get fired, to (in PBS’s words) “undermine her character’s credibility with our audience,” current American society is about as unenlightened as the Dark Ages. Not only was Ms. Martinez fired, but, in a Stalinistic move, her segments are being replaced by “short-form content.” It will be as if Melanie Martinez never appeared on PBS.
Here’s the question: if a male children’s television host had mentioned some passing remark about oral sex ten years ago, would he be let go like this?
Why Boris Johnson Won’t Get Laid Any Time Soon
Boris Johnson suggests that the world can be described as one involving women who read and men who don’t. Actually, it can be divided as follows: people who think, people who don’t, and lower life forms who have just discovered that they can use their opposable thumbs for masturbation purposes and who are inexplicably hired by The Telegraph to write foolish articles. (via Bookslut)
One Step Closer to Gilead
Washington Post: “New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves — and to be treated by the health care system — as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.” (Emphasis added)
Who Knew the Male Book Reviewers of New York Were So Sexist?
New York Press: “Who knew the women of public radio were so attractive?”
A Nation of Forensic Vagina Inspectors
New York Times: “There are other countries in the world that, like El Salvador, completely ban abortion, including Malta, Chile and Colombia. El Salvador, however, has not only a total ban on abortion but also an active law-enforcement apparatus — the police, investigators, medical spies, forensic vagina inspectors and a special division of the prosecutor’s office responsible for Crimes Against Minors and Women, a unit charged with capturing, trying and incarcerating an unusual kind of criminal.”
Tell Caitlin What You Think
It looks like Caitlin Flanagan is scheduled to guest blog at the Powell’s blog next week. But here’s the important thing: the Powell’s blog has comments.
What does this mean? The opportunity for readers to respond to Ms. Flanagan’s Eisenhower nostalgia and specious logic.
Since Ms. Flanagan is apparently very careful about who she talks to and won’t even talk with the likes of Bat Segundo (we’ve asked multiple times, in an effort to challenge Ms. Flanagan one-on-one on her points, but we were told by a representative who we shall not name that “she doesn’t talk to lefties like you”), this may represent the only opportunity for readers to introduce Ms. Flanagan to a democratic idea she may not be aware of: being exposed to dissenting opinions.
So do check in at the Powell’s blog next week and do tell Mr. Flanagan what you think.
Against Sexism
Sexism is a woman making two-thirds the salary that a man earns for the same position. Sexism is a man getting time off to be with his family, but a single mother having to work continuous overtime to prove that she’s a team player, hoping to hell that the kids are all right. Or the troubling statistic that a woman is paid 30% less because she is too scared to ask for a pay raise.
Sexism is the fact that there aren’t nearly as many restrooms for women as there are for men. Sexism is any number of architectural sleights that don’t take into account a woman’s physiology.
Sexism is any government that would exert control over a woman’s uterus. Sexism is our society not providing for the realities of sexual intercourse, of letting a man walk away while a woman must scrape together hard-earned dollars to either raise or not have the kid. Sexism is a conservative family that will not support a pregnant teenager facing such a predicament.
Sexism is Frank Capra showing Donna Reed to be a freakish old maid in the Pottersville parallel universe. Or Sharon Stone getting $15 million for Basic Instinct 2 to take off her clothes and simulate sex and $2.5 million for Casino to deliver a performance. Or the fact that most film directors are male.
Sexism is a woman being unable to fuck whoever she wants and however she wants without being called a slut, while a man can be polymorphously perverse without reproach. Sexism is also the idea that an older woman can’t be sexy, while such dinosaurs as Jack Nicholson (and even Woody Allen) are given carte blanche. Sexism is the denied orgasm, or a woman going down on a man, but a man too lazy for cunnilingus. Sexism is a woman being considered unattractive for being at least ten pounds overweight, while a man’s prominent paunch goes unremarked upon. Sexism is a man being able to wear the same suit to two different social affairs, where a woman who wears the same dress or the same shoes is considered cheap or a tramp.
Sexism sometimes comes down to a gender chasm of maintenance. The billion-dollar makeup industry, the pressure to squeeze into a tight skirt, the unseen efforts to hide wrinkles or crow’s feet or sagging breasts.
We know all these things. Or we should know them. And yet all of the silent heartbreak that have resulted because of these mentalities could have been avoided with consideration or a few simple choices. If not through a piece of legislation like the Equal Rights Amendment, which has been in limbo now for over eighty years, then perhaps through a wholesale rejection of the consumerist and cultural forces that continue to tell women that they are second-class citizens. Those who would dismiss a women’s-centric film, even a skillfully made one, as a “chick flick” or a book “chick lit.” Those who would declare a particular talking point “too girly.” Those who would declare a reactionary like Caitlin Flanagan as the major female voice in one of our most distinguished weekly magazines or who would keep a major Sunday book review section almost the exclusive territory of white males.
It is now the 21st century. Women, in fact, outnumber male college graduates. And yet where is their presence? According to the American Association of University Professors, in 2003-2004, 38% of all faculity are women and women professors earn 80% of their male counterparts. There has never been a woman presiding over the White House, unless you count Geena Davis. Only 14 out of 100 U.S. Senators are women. Only 59 (a mere 11%) of 435 Representatives are women.
One doesn’t even have to be a feminist to pay attention to these things. And yet we allow these discrepancies to linger, hoping that some elusive force will figure this all out. But as long as we remain silent and as long as we look the other way hoping that the problem will rectify itself, we contribute to the horrible divide. We become sexists, men and women, in our own quiet and comfortable way. And isn’t that a pity. Because we can do so much better.
March 8, 2006: Blog Against Sexism Day
I’m participating and I’ll offer a post or two. Will you?
How to Make a Caitlin Flanagan
Take:
One jigger of Anita Bryant
One jigger of Jane Russell
One jigger of Ann Coulter
A dash of pretentious language (for faux sophistication and New Yorker credentials)
One quart of self-entitlement
An expendable income
Mix. Serves establishment.
