Additionally, let me point out the most asinine statement of all: Ferraro said she was shocked to hear Obama say that he'd heard racist comments from his own white grandmother because "that's my mother's generation". Whaaaaat?? Ferraro was born in 1935. So let's assume that means her mother was born in 1915. She expects us to believe that she's shocked to hear white people who came of age during the time of segregation would utter racist sentiments?

Geraldine Ferraro...providing ample fodder for my theory that she was the inspiration for Charlotte Allen's remarkably idiotic stabs at humor.

Legacies such as the New York Times and Washington Post should know better by now, and yet, they---like journalists from lesser-famed news sources and just as bloggers (both pajama-wearing and office-attired)---don't seem to have a compass of journalism principles to guide them.

Perhaps this is the Decline and Fall of 20th-Century Journalism, and we've just been experiencing media decadence, which will hasten the end of old-world journalism and usher in the dawn of a new era of information sharing.

Look no further than the past week to see the evidence of old-journalism decay:

• There was, of course, Charlotte Allen's editorial in the Washington Post on her distaste for certain women---as horrifying as it was error-riddled.
• Little defense has been offered against the accusation that American journalists tend to protect rather than expose the secrets of powerful people, a sharp contrast to The Scotsman printing the "monster" remark by Obama's aide, even though she tried to strike it from the record after saying it. MSNBC's Tucker Carlson magnified the apparent US media weakness when he had The Scotsman reporter on his show.
• Buy-out bids at the New York Times were due last week, but if those staff members who opted were too few to fill up the 100 newsroom cuts announced in late February, then the paper will have to resort to lay-offs. As one long-running writer at the Times put it, "People here are used to the idea that that doesn't happen here."
• Add to all of that the dubious media coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential nomination race, the frequent short-comings of the American press in international news, and not to mention the incessant celebrity gossip.

As the Washington Post's Jim Hoagland put it in his worthy piece, Long Winter for the Media,

Access to the Internet gives the generations living today the choice to be the best-informed, or the worst-informed, human beings in history -- but we will never be able to claim that we were the least-informed. Celebrity, slime and crude polemics pour from the electronic faucets as easily as high-minded exegeses.

Where are the leaders of the information and media revolution to guide the straying generations living today to ethical, interesting and correct information?

The Post ran some comments it received on the essay and plans to devote a portion of this week’s Outlook to response. They also ran one rebuttal written by their legal administrator and another D.C.-area woman writer and another written by Katha Pollitt. Allen herself participated in an infuriating online chat to discuss her essay, but her answers remained as flippant and illogical as those set forth in the opinion piece. Don’t give her any credit. She freely admits that, while she meant the article to be funny, she wasn’t kidding; she really does think women are dumb. (She also has a curious definition of the term “history.”)

We at AAUW discussed whether we should bother to dignify Allen’s blathering with a response. But it’s hard to ignore the fact that our hometown newspaper—which also happens to be one of the most prominent, respected papers in the country—would publish something so illogical, mean-spirited, and insulting to its readers. John Pomfret, the editor of the Post’s Outlook section says the essay was “tongue-in-cheek” and supposed to be thought-provoking. Which is one explanation—except the article isn’t funny, and since when is calling someone stupid a way to stimulate intelligent debate?

If, as Pomfret claims, Allen pitched it to him as Obama-mania vs. Beatle-mania, how did this article, which uses the Beatles only to segue into more random and outdated pop culture references and malicious generalizations, end up on the front page of the Sunday opinion section? It’s disgraceful, and Pomfret should be ashamed that he let his desire to sell newspapers and ad space outweigh his editorial judgment.

Charlotte Allen's article represents a new low in sexism. The Washington Post's recent response to the outpouring of well-deserved outrage over the piece, however, might actually be more insulting to women than Allen's ill-researched, specious and insulting piece.

Would The Washington Post publish an op-ed titled "African Americans Aren't Very Bright," "Immigrants Aren't Very Bright" or "Jews Aren't Very Bright"? Of course not. Any sentient editorial team would recognize that as a blatant statement of bigotry and hatred. So why are women not given the same consideration? Why does The Post feel free to baldly insult more than 50 percent of the population -- who probably make up more than 50 percent of The Post's readership? Either you share Allen's opinions, or you don't value equality. For a publication that has publicly stated that it wants to attract more female readers, either option seems like a losing strategy.

As a recent contributor to Outlook, I am ashamed to be associated with a publication that deems such blatant bigotry acceptable or even amusing. But as the co-founder and editor of a magazine that works constantly to point out that sexism exists and even thrives in the mainstream media, I suppose I should thank you -- you've made my job that much easier. In the future, whenever people suggest that sexism and bias against women are things of the past, this article will be my Exhibit A in demonstrating not only that sexism is still alive and well, but also that supposedly objective papers of record are the quickest to disseminate it.

ANDI ZEISLER

Bitch Magazine

The Washington Post's Ombudsman states that she found the piece to be insulting and not funny. But here's what Outlook staff members thought:

"[Allen] pitched the piece to Outlook assignment editor Zofia Smardz, who had worked with Allen before. Smardz thought the piece was "funny, clearly tongue-in-cheek and hyperbolic but with a serious point that provided food for thoughtat a time when the Clinton candidacy and some women's reactions to the Obama candidacy have put the subject of women and women's roles front and center. I thought her piece held up a mirror to some foibles so many women, including me, can recognize in themselves, even as we seek absolute equality and expect to be taken seriously."

Her questionable sense of humor not withstanding, what the hell has Zofia Smardz been reading lately that this was "food for thought" by comparison? "Cathy" comic strips?

Oh, but there is more:

Smardz thought American women "have come far enough to be able to laugh at ourselves and not feel threatened by some satirical self-criticism and self-examination."

Oh, we women are plenty capable of laughing at ourselves when the topic isn't a thinly veiled sexist diatribe and- well, you know, funny. That tends to help.

She "didn't anticipate the fury of the Internet and the blogosphere, much of which seems to me to have either overlooked or missed the humor I saw."

Yes, if a couple of thousand people find something to be without humor it is they who are missing a point- clearly not you.

Most women read it online. The version in the paper was edited extensively, but not all of the editing appeared in the version most people read online.

Unless the print edition just had a blank page, I'm pretty sure the reaction would be the same to either version.

Six other women, five at The Post, read the piece; five thought it was fine and one didn't, Smardz said. Outlook Editor John Pomfret, who has the last word, thought "it presented a different, albeit very non-PC take at a time when women and politics is a riveting topic in this country. I expected the piece to be controversial, but  did not expect the intensity of the reaction. It was a learning experience about the section, my job and our readership." Deputy Editor Warren Bass argued against it. "I wrote a fairly blunt e-mail arguing that it wasn't up to snuff and that the paper shouldn't run  glib, essentialist screed that insulted an entire gender."

It doesn't say what women at The Post Ms. Smardz asked about the piece but I'll be generous and assume it was other writers/editors. Not only does the Washington Post need to hire more women, they need to work on that screening process a bit more. Although Mr. Pomfret was the deciding voice, Ms. Smardz should have popped out of the woodwork earlier in the week and took some of the heat with him.

And everyone should buy Deputy Editor Warren Bass a drink. Or a cupcake, if he doesn't drink. Something nice to celebrate the fact that he works in a place where he probably wants to (or does) beat his head into his desk on a daily basis.

Ms. Allen,

This is a response to your article entitled "We Scream, We Swoon.  How Dumb Can We Get?" in the online version of the Sunday, March 2nd edition of the Washington Post.

My first question is: is this a serious article or some kind of satiric piece on the idea that women are naturally worth less than men because of their scientifically-proven smaller brains?  If it is the latter, I am not picking up the cues from your writing.  I'm going to assume that you, a woman, actually mean every word of what you say.

I think you're writing from the premise that women are essentially sentimental and are constantly consuming books and entertainment that is worth less than what men consume.  Since this is one of your assumptions, how can you possibly admit that you admire a woman such as Elizabeth I, who, according to you is naturally dumber than the men she was commanding?  These "outliers" you talk about were actually part of their culture, not monastics who could create their own reality by separating themselves from their peers and culture and pretending to be a man.  I think you need to look into your literary history a little more, especially when you talk about Richardson, who happened to be a man writing a sentimental piece which was read by men in clubs who cried over it.  Don't forget Dickens, who was also a man writing sentimental novels.  And who said that sentimentality has to be a bad thing?  Harriet Beecher Stowe got the United States to understand what slavery was like and she humanized the bodies being bought and sold.  She also created huge social and pragmatic change.

Also, you belittle your own academic career when you say that"I have coasted through life and academia on the basis of an excellent memory and superior verbal skills, two areas where, researchers agree, women consistently outpace men."  You don't think at all that you, as an individual, and not some evolutionary example of femaleness made your own way in your career?  If you think you should make a house a home, then why are you writing articles for the Washington Post?  Why do you even bother with a career at all?  Could you perhaps be using the idea that woman are naturally stupid as an excuse to publish a really awful article?  Even by admitting that there are some feminists who don't know what the Oprah Winfrey Show is, you admit that there are women out there, despite their mental incapacity, who don't go for the sentimental and generally stupid.  If you know who Mary Wollstonecraft is, you might understand that sometimes women's tendency toward the "dim" is because they are trained to be that way by their culture (by articles like yours) even when they could be better.  Your article is actually making more stupid women, not to mention justifying all the misogynistic tendencies of the men who think that women should stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

People have fainted at Hillary rallies, too, and I'm pretty sure the fainting at Obama rallies was because of the heat, not because of Obama worship.  Don't forget the 10-year-old child who fainted in California when Schwarzenegger was up front.

I support your effort as a woman to write and be heard in a nationally-recognized newspaper.  But, I do not support a poorly researched article which is counterproductive of your efforts and to all women with goals and with brains.

Here's a thought. Maybe there's another thing women can do besides fluff up their husbands' pillows: Fill more important jobs at The Washington Post. We should be half the assigning editors, half the writers, and half the regular columnists too (current roster of op-ed columnists: 16 men, two women). We've got those superior verbal skills, remember? Drastically increasing the presence of women isn't a foolproof recipe for gender fairness -- Allen is far from alone in her dislike of her sex -- but I have to believe a gender-balanced paper would reflect a broader view of women than The Post does at present.

A male editor with a lot of women colleagues on his level might think twice before proposing a sweeping denunciation, humorous or not, of "women." Ideally he would have come to respect women as equals from working with them -- but if he were just afraid of being seen as a total caveman, that would be okay too. And maybe this kind of editor would have flagged as tired cliches references to Oprah and Celine Dion; would have looked up the studies Allen claims prove women have the I.Q. of a bowl of cereal and found they don't say anything like that; would have wondered if more women bake doggy treats than subscribe to Scientific American or run marathons, and how does the treat-baker come to stand for all women?

And then, after all this, and seeing that Allen's piece still didn't ring even vaguely-kinda-sorta true, our imaginary editor would have asked a question. "You know what I think of this article?" a good editor would have said. "I think it's really stupid."

I believe that the Post is going to post (bit redundant there) more letters on their website and in their print edition on Sunday. I wouldn't be surprised to read some familiar (blogger) names in there.

Garber rolls her eyes at the New York Times' "proud tradition of publishing stories about Trends You Didn’t Realize Were Trends Until the Times Let You Know They Were."

Yesterday the Grey Lady cast her storied gaze on a trend of a More Serious Variety: drunkorexia. (No, not a typo: again, drunkorexia.) The “phenomenon” is exactly what the compound name implies: anorexics consuming alcohol—either “to calm down before eating or to ease the anxiety of having indulged in a meal.” Now, to be clear, “drunkorexia is not an official medical term,” the piece points out. “But it hints at a troubling phenomenon in addiction and eating disorders.”

Garber identifies the true trend at work here -- "trendinanity" -- although the scolding is a light as its subject matter.  She saves true vitriol for the classically poor-taste "Women Are Dim" article that the Washington Post featured last week.  Charlotte Allen's piece was apparently intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but Garber doesn't let even mild intentions slide.

Well, that explains it! Her piece isn’t pandering to silly stereotypes; it’s transcending them. But in such a cleverly subtle way as to be entirely undetectable: it’s so meta that you can’t even tell it’s meta! Allen’s tongue is so firmly in cheek, apparently, she could choke herself.

But irony’s a tricky little weapon; if you’re going to use it, of course, you have to brandish it brazenly enough for people to know it’s there. Allen, alas, did not. Believe me, I looked—Feminine Empathy and whatnot—for some hint of the sarcasm that would redeem both the article and its author. I found none.

Someone's got to the patrol the popular press, and I for one am glad we've got Megan Garber to do it.

-- Sloane 

The overall reaction? Most of the people were angered by the article and made valid, constructive points. One guy got in an irrelavent low blow that Ms. Allen doesn't deserve (I do have standards, damn it). Her comments about tone make it seem as though John Pomfret was covering his own ass with those "tongue in cheek" comments. She admits it was meant to be humorous but not to the extent that he implied.

If you want to read the full transcript, WaPo has it online here.

Washington: When I read this, I immediately thought it was written ironically. Were you surprised that so many people took it literally?

Charlotte Allen: I wouldn't quite use the word "ironic," but yes, I meant to be funny but with a serious point--that women want to be taken seriously but quite often don't act serious. Also, that women and men really are different.

Washington: You write that you doubt women's representation in such fields as law (the Supreme Court) and medicine (brain surgeons) will rise much in the 21st century. However more women than men currently are graduating from law school and medical school. Could you please comment on this apparent contradiction?

Charlotte Allen: That's absolutely true, but the proportion of women at the highest levels of these fields is going to remain relatively small, I predict.

Silver Spring, Md.: Yes, women's reasoning is sometimes clouded by emotion, but so is men's. Why is "swooning" so much worse than murderous rage? How are "Eat, Love, Pray" and "Grey's Anatomy" any more self-indulgent and fantastical than "On the Road" and James Bond movies? Are romance novels a less realistic picture of male-female relations than "Big Butt Sluts #23"? In short, why do you consider men's irrational distortions forgiveable, while women's are a sign of lower intelligence?

Charlotte Allen: I agree that men do many dumb things, and many men have dumb tastes.

(That was the end of her answer. She should've just added: "But my career excels when I judge women.")

Memphis, Tenn.: Ms. Allen, I am confused about The Post editors' "it was satire, stupid" defense of your article. Could you explain why (or how) you thought the reader could have (or should have) picked up on the satirical tone? I recognize that this question may provoke a response not unlike the Supreme Court's "I know it when I see it" approach to obscenity, but I have read a lot of satire, and I just don't see it in your article. Perhaps you could give me a quick and dirty review of my eighth-grade English class?

Charlotte Allen: I'm not sure whether I'd characterize the piece as satire, but I'd certainly characterize it as humor: my poking fun at the dumb things my sex does.

( A small subsection of a gender that wasn't even accurately represented)

Washington: Why did you write this piece?

Charlotte Allen: Totally for fun.

Washington: Do you believe caring for children, men and the weak is something that should be valued less in society? I ask because you seem to imply that they are tasks only fit for the dim, and unworthy of an intelligent mind. What do you think about men who are caregivers?

Charlotte Allen: Quite the opposite: I think that caring for children, men, and the weak are the most important things that can be done. It's women who have devalued them by mocking stay-at-home mothers, etc.

(Maybe her anger at the reaction of the Obama supporters stems from the fact that those women should be at home with their kids instead of getting all political?)

Alexandria, Va.: Loved your column -- you spoke honestly about things that most people are reluctant to discuss openly for fear of being labeled sexist or anti-feminist. I think most of the critics don't seem to realize that you were not saying that women were the only ones who could be stupid -- men can be just as clueless, but men and women are usually stupid in different ways, and you just happened to be discussing some of the congenital flaws of the fairer sex. Certainly there have been no shortage of columns in the past dissecting the shortcomings of men!

Charlotte Allen: Yes, men are fair game, and it's considered perfectly OK to make all the fun of them we want. But make a joke at a woman's expense, and--woo!

(Yes, your joke was hilarious. You should work for the Onion, your humor is so brilliant. And if men are fair game, why are most of your articles about demeaning women?)

West Lafayette, Ind.: Your idea of fun is to paint a (horribly inaccurate) picture of your sex as stupid?

Charlotte Allen: How about an accurate picture?

(Of an entire gender- to which you belong- being stupid? Great arguing tactic.)

Boston: Do you make any distinction between women (people who are biologically female) and women's culture (the books, TV shows, and products that are marketed to women)? It would seem to me that women are smart, and the stuff sold to women is stupid.

Charlotte Allen: My question then is: Why do women buy this stuff?

(Social conditioning, lack of available alternatives, men buy some "women stuff" too...)

Pittsburgh: You weren't "making a joke at the expense of women" or "poking fun" of our foibles. You wrote a mean-spirited, factually inaccurate, vicious diatribe against a majority of the world's population, and expect us not to be offended because you thought it was funny. Guess what: humor is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. You really must think us stupid not to realize that funny jokes don't call the listener out as "dim."

Charlotte Allen: You can't please everyone.

(Or, based on the reaction to the article, very many people at all. But you can piss off a lot of people of both genders and make a newspaper you are affiliated with look horrible.)

Woodbridge, Va.: Congratulations on a hilarious article. Do you think the hysterical response to it provides further proof that feminists have no sense of humor?

Charlotte Allen: Is the pope German?

(That's Charlotte Allen in a nutshell, right there. What about the men who were outraged? Are they just pussy whipped?)

Washington: Okay, you said you didn't see it as satire (and clearly you haven't written satire). Have you ever written humor before? Because you have written articles critical of women who don't fall lockstep into your idea of how women should act. Given your previous writings, why should anyone have thought "oh, now she's being funny"?

Charlotte Allen: I'm not sure which articles you're referring to. Isn't it obvious what's funny and what's not?

(It would take a serious step back from reality to not realize that the thousands of people that were offended by your article just missed a blatant fact. Obviously, your humor isn't obvious or you wouldn't be in this chat defending yourself.)

Unbelievable...: I am flabbergasted at your puzzlement regarding the outrage about your article. What would your reaction had been if a man wrote such an article? Would that have been okay? I'm guessing The Post wouldn't have published a male columnist writing that women are stupid. It's really easy to put out provocative, poorly supported idea,s and really hard to recover from the damage they do. Shame on both you and The Post!

Charlotte Allen: Why can't a woman make fun of women? Are women such a sacrosanct subject nowadays that they're off-limits for anyone to write about them except in a reverent portrayal of them as victims of men? I don't buy that.

(I'm going to mildly defend Ms. Allen here. The Post would have published a male writer saying women are stupid. Their editorial staff is laughable. Women can absolutely make fun of other women. They should not let it be classified as satire when it obviously wasn't and the article should be well written to begin with...but I digress.)

Knoxville, Tenn.: So, um, after skimming your previous responses, apparently you were somewhat serious in the overall point you were making about women's dumbness. Then my question is this -- how can you think this would be funny, when you're basically regurgitating all the old arguments for women's inferiority, with very little humorous spin at all? If someone were to write a piece like this about Afridan Americans, do you think they should consider it funny? Even something like this about men -- arguably the least repressed group of human beings throughout history -- would be in poor taste at best. So what made you think people would take the disparagement of women's intelligence lightly?

Charlotte Allen: People are always writing pieces just like mine about men. It's called feminist humor. As for African-Americans, for heaven's sake! Women aren't a historically oppressed minority; they're half the population or more! What--are we women always supposed to portray ourselves as victims of patriarchy? That's absurd in 2008 when we have every conceivable opportunity.

(Women aren't a historically oppressed minority? Are we talking the history of the human race here? I think there might have been one or two (or thousands) of examples otherwise.)

New York: In addition to writing here that women are "dim," at the Independent Women's Forum you've written that Hurricane Katrina might have been "the best thing" to happen to New Orleans, which is full of "whiners ... chiseling us taxpayers" out of money. Is that supposed to be satire too? Your sense of humor sure does seem hateful.

washingtonpost.com: What Really Happened After Hurricane Katrina (Independnet Women's Forum, Oct. 11, 2005)

Charlotte Allen: I said Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans because it finally opportunity to a huge number of New Orleans residents living in passive dependency on welfare to get out of New Orleans and change their lives for the better. Thousands of them did exactly that--which is why there hasn't exactly been a huge flood of those former residents flocking back to live in passive dependency and do just that. New Orleans itself now has a chance to change into a more self-reliant city. As for the "whiners...chiseling taxpayers out of money," I was referring specifically to the large number of fraudulent claims for Katrina relief--well documented in news stories.

(Because abject poverty is always a lifestyle choice made out of laziness and not a complex socioeconomic issue).

Washington: Women aren't a historically oppressed minority? Who are you, exactly?

Charlotte Allen: Huh? I'm a woman, part of a historically attested-to half of the human race.

(We're back to Charlotte Allen needing to buy a history book or five.)

New York: "Women aren't a historically oppressed minority." Really? So we've always had the right to vote, not to be raped and have control over our bodies? Can I have some of whatever wacky antifeminist weed you're smoking?

Charlotte Allen: Minority? Not when I last counted. And when did women get the vote--1921? 1923? Rape was a capital crime under Roman law. You know--the Romans, 2,000 years ago. As for "control over our bodies," I guess you mean abortion. Wasn't Roe vs. Wade decided in 1973?

(I'm guessing that the rest of the world doesn't count to Ms. Allen since there are still countries where rape is permitted and women can't vote. There are also thousands of people in the U.S. today who would very much like Roe vs. Wade to be destroyed.)

Washington: Were you trying to start a constructive debate with your opinion piece? Do you think that's happened? I think by concluding that women are "dumb" because of real sex differences that exist just pisses people off, and thus precludes any real debate on this issue -- and it's something I think should be explored openly. Name-calling doesn't get us anywhere.Charlotte Allen: I called no names, but to be quite honest, I wasn't trying to start a debate, constructive or otherwise. I was just expressing my views.

(Give her some points for honesty.)

Anywhere: Hey, Charlotte. Nice tits. Sincerely, a guy.

Charlotte Allen: Hey, Washington Post forum moderators: I thought obscene comments were supposed to be filtered out of this forum? How did this one get in?

(That "anonymous" comment was low, not funny and not helpful in anyway. I don't like Charlotte Allen's opinions but she doesn't deserve that.)

Washington: Can you please further explain your definition of "historical"? I understand that the feminism has made serious inroads in opportunities for women today, but what about 10 or 20 or 100 years ago?

Charlotte Allen: Women have been gaining equal rights since the 19th century, when laws were passed permitting them to hold and control their own property on marriage. The suffrage movement got started a century ago, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate against women in hiring, promotions, and pay. All good things. But it's now nearly 50 years since those landmark laws were passed, and it's time for women who want to get ahead to quit complaining that they can't get ahead.

(Slavery and segregation were outlawed awhile ago, too. Should black people stop complaining that they can't get ahead? No, gender and race are not equitable issues but I make the point regarding history and its correlation to the current culture.)

Washington: Neither the Post nor Charlotte Allen has, in either the original article or in this chat, explained who Charlotte Allen is. Could someone please give me a sense of her background so that I have at least a vague idea of the context in which to judge her work?

Charlotte Allen: Charlotte Allen's background? She was born in Pasadena, California to a struggling trial lawyer and his Peru-born wife who emigrated from New York in the lawyer's Packard when Charlotte's other was eight months and three weeks pregnant with Charlotte. They lived in a little rental cottage with a big fig tree in the back yard, and were so poor that baby Charlotte had to sleep in a dresser drawer for the first month of her life...

How much of this stuff do you want?

(I think they meant relevant biographical, educational and work experience- like mentioning the IWF and what it is.)

College Park, Md.: I'm interested to know how the piece ended up in The Post. Did they solicit it? Did Ms. Allen shop it around to different papers?

Charlotte Allen: The piece wasn't solicited. Ms. Allen shopped it to the Post alone.

(Her editor should be answering these questions beside her. He accepted the piece. It is rather low to shove her out front and center and deny any wrong doing.)

Washington: Your response to the person who asked about your background was evasive.

Charlotte Allen: Evasive? What do you want to know--whether I've been convicted of a felony? If you want to know more about my writing, Google me.

(No- the first time she was being a bit of a smartass. This time she's being evasive.)

Woodstock, Va.: Oh, come on. What are your credentials?

Charlotte Allen: My credentials? No, I didn't go to J-school. Last I heard, you don't need "credentials" in order to get published. Want to know where I went to college? Stanford University, where I graduated with honors in English and Classics. So there.

(Why so combative? No one asked you about "J-school". The Stanford part was relevent- a background in Classics shows in a lot of her writing. But she's still not answering the question of what her writing history is directly and I'm wondering why.)

Flushing, Mich.: Dear Ms. Allen: It's pretty clear you could have gotten away with a similar article demeaning men. It's done all the time and any who complain are dismissed easily. It has been pretty clear for some time that you cannot write such things about women. My question is why you thought you could get away with it. Do you have evidence that the taboo is weakening?

Charlotte Allen: I hope that articles like mine will weaken that taboo. But right now, just to hint that men and women as groups have different aptitudes is to risk the fate of Larry Summers. Fortunately, I'm not president of Harvard.

Just looked at my computer clock, and I see that I'm running overtime. Those of you who still want to chat, please send me an e-mail. I respond to all signed e-mails, although I give the rude and/or obscene ones short shrift. Thanks, all of you; this has been quite enjoyable for me.

(Larry Summers references are getting a bit outdated, aren't they?)

If you would like to contact Ms. Allen, her email address is charfleur@aol.com.

If I can't live blog it, there will definitely be a post later.

[via Feministing]

This paragraph, for example, grabs me by the balls:

"I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, 'we women,' of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women 'are only children of a larger growth,' wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?"

Go on, Charlotte.

"Then there's Clinton's nearly all-female staff, chosen for loyalty rather than, say, brains or political savvy. Clinton finally fired her daytime-soap-watching, self-styled 'Latina queena' campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, known for burning through campaign money and for her open contempt for the 'white boys' in the Clinton camp. But stupidly, she did it just in time to alienate the Hispanic voters she now desperately needs to win in Texas or Ohio to have any shot at the Democratic nomination."

Interesting... so she should have kept a staff member to appeal to a minority community and win votes? WWMD (What would a man do)?

"I swear no man watches 'Grey's Anatomy' unless his girlfriend forces him to. No man bakes cookies for his dog. No man feels blue and takes off work to spend the day in bed with a copy of 'The Friday Night Knitting Club.' No man contracts nebulous diseases whose existence is disputed by many if not all doctors, such as Morgellons (where you feel bugs crawling around under your skin). At least no man I know. Of course, not all women do these things, either -- although enough do to make one wonder whether there isn't some genetic aspect of the female brain, something evolutionarily connected to the fact that we live longer than men or go through childbirth, that turns the pre-frontal cortex into Cream of Wheat."

Read the rest of the article to read statistical evidence that women are bad drivers.

Charlotte Allen is a Harvard grad who was against Harvard opting to accept more women, and spoke up for a professor who was against it, claiming that "feminism" is an ideology that was a force-insert into the societal ebb and flow. Of course, I am referring to her piece in the Dallas Morning News where she discusses it. That piece is entitled, "Martyr or moron? He dared to question feminism's big lie."

Additionally, she is gal-pals with Ann Coulter--you might know her as "satan."

Word of advice to Charlotte: look between your legs. It's not there.

• NEW MARIAH NEW MARIAH NEW MARIAH
• A cool project my pals involved with Allston Rock City's DIY/hardcore scene are starting up: Boston Basement Brigade. My basement-show sensibilitied house will be hosting a show for this project on March 15th. Also on that day I will dance my tuchas off to Justice at the Paradise. This particular day might nicely, neatly sum up what my life is like outside of work and shopping.
• Google Reader!! I am aware that I am totally behind on this trend so SORRY but I am in love and I don't care who knows it. I love it more than I liked my LiveJournal FriendsList when I was 17 [and guys, I liked that FriendsList A LOT.]
• All the LadyBlogz that keep me angry have covered this to death by now, and I wasn't going to link to it, but Charlotte Allen is just too fucking douchey not to. I almost wrote her an email saying 'I am a dumb bitch? No, YOU are a dumb bitch' but that's immature and continuing to be part of the problem. Oh, and you all know it, but Bitch is the new Black! I hope [sincerely- and in politics I am rarely sincere] that this horrifying Dem race is at least establishing a new[er] discourse about gender and feminine/masculine binaries in America.
• Speaking of political issues that I am sincere about! SHIT. And for Bostonians, Harvard Hillel is doing a fantastic-looking exhibit called Breaking the Silence.
• Awesome news in the world of academia, namely successes in the Open Access Movement. This is something that my Anthropologist comrades and I talked about A LOT around this time last year [the move towards open-access publishing is, fortunately, open to all academic disciplines] but certain events like Harvard's move towards open-access publishing are really making it feel like it's gaining momentum. In the midst of this glorious momentum, there are way meta things like this, which is something that, were I prepared for it a year ago [see A World Among Worlds for our undergrad disaster and success], I would have been beyond psyched to read and write about.
• Books I have been reading. [Have you joined GoodReads yet? You're almost a year late.]
• JOVOVICH-HAWK FOR GO INTERNATIONAL [a caveat? The culottes gave me wicked cameltoe]! Also these disgustingly great shoes.

Depressing as it is, several of the supposed misogynist myths about female inferiority have been proven true. Women really are worse drivers than men, for example. A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women. The only good news was that women tended to take fewer driving risks than men, so their crashes were only a third as likely to be fatal. Those statistics were reinforced by a study released by the University of London in January showing that women and gay men perform more poorly than heterosexual men at tasks involving navigation and spatial awareness, both crucial to good driving.

And there's more here.

Among her arguments, we hear that men must be more intelligent since they have larger brains:

The theory that women are the dumber sex -- or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents -- is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Men's and women's brains not only look different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting for men's generally bigger body size).

Keep in mind that brain size does not correlate with intelligence any more than skull shape determines personality. She also argues that men are objectively better drivers:

A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women. The only good news was that women tended to take fewer driving risks than men, so their crashes were only a third as likely to be fatal.

Note that part of her argument for why men are better drivers hinges on women being less likely to get into fatal car accidents and that the difference she points in the overall rates by gender is miniscule. It also doesn't make any sense to point how many more miles men generally drive when quoting a rate per hundred miles.

It's not really worth taking the time to refute this kind of misogynistic idiocy point-by-point, especially when Jill at Feministe does it with more style than I could ever muster. I would like to reinforce what many others commenting on this article have pointed out, namely that had Charlotte Allen chosen to write about any group other than women, this article would never have made it to print.

Ohhhhhhhhh. My bad.

What Jeff said.... He has quite an illuminating post - don't miss it.

"If it insulted people, that was not the intent," Outlook editor John Pomfret told me this morning, calling the piece "tongue-in-cheek."

Pomfret said that Allen pitched the idea to him as a riff on women fainting at Obama rallies, and similarities with the Beatles.

Allen wrote:

"I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women- I shoud say "we women", of course- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailing and distraction by the superficial."

"She wanted to make fun of this issue," Pomfret said. "A lot of people have taken it very seriously."

But Allen didn't stop there. She continued on with countless stereotypes about how women are supposedly inferior to men. We're talking smaller brain, loving Grey's Anatomy and being bad at math and driving. Ugh.

...............................

Pomfret said that being an opinion article, he's not surprised readers reacted to it strongly. But added: "Perhaps it wasn't packaged well enough to make it clear that it was tongue-in-cheek."

As I wrote in the comments section of Will's post, I found the article to be poorly written in general when I thought she was being serious. The rating changes to abysmal knowing that it was meant to be satire. You also probably shouldn't allow someone with a past record of writing misogynistic articles to write feminist satire.

From a 2005 article Allen wrote for the Dallas Morning News regarding Lawrence Summers:

...The statements violated the central tenet of feminist ideology: that the two sexes are intrinsically identical except for a few superficial physical characteristics and that any perceived differences between them can be blamed on sex discrimination and social conditioning. Scientific evidence to the contrary be damned; a feminist professor in Mr. Summers' audience announced that his remarks made her feel as though she was "going to be sick."

Recently, Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed a vote of no confidence in Mr. Summers, the equivalent of demanding that he be fired. The measure carries no legal weight, but it is a damning indictment nonetheless. This despite the fact that Mr. Summers has apologized over and over for what he said. He's also set up two new "gender diversity" (that is, affirmative action) panels designed to boost the number of women on Harvard's science and engineering faculties.

In short, he's made like Galileo shown the instruments of torture, except that, unlike Galileo, he's not muttering "e pur se muove" (but it still moves) under his breath. The parallel is apt, however. Doctrine – in this case, feminist doctrine – has trumped the scientific data.

Radical feminism has somehow become modernity's sole triumphant totalitarian ideology, at least in the universities and other elite-culture hothouses where it counts (the vast majority of women shun the label "feminist," but they don't control public discourse).

As with the other leading totalitarian ideologies of our time, Marxism and National Socialism, the tenets of ideological feminism need not be argued but merely asserted – and then enforced by any means necessary. Critical examination of those tenets is not permitted, as Mr. Summers has learned to his detriment.

On a university campus or on the pages of The New York Times (or Time or Newsweek) you are not allowed to question the feminist dogma that "gender" – that is, the assertion of distinctive masculine and feminine traits – is merely a social construction, and that all such reflect nothing more than a patriarchal society's behavioral dicta designed to weaken women and reinforce male hegemony.

Was that supposed to be satire, too? How about this piece about feminists and the Teri Schiavo case (I am not responsible for what is behind that link)*?

That elite, of course, includes NOW, the Foundation for a Feminist Majority, and other feminist-establishment groups that are more devoted to their own abstract ideology  than to the plight of real women who are really abused by men. NOW and the rest of them didn't lift a finger on Laci Peterson's behalf because...she was pregnant when she was killed and NOW supports abortion rights. And they're not lifting a finger to interfere with Michael Schiavo, the slo-mo Scott Peterson who, like his California counterpart, seems to want to kill his wife because she's interfering with his lifestyle. If you look at the congressional debate over saving Terri, you'll see that it breaks down along the usual ideological and political lines: Republicans scrambling to put off her scheduled starvation, liberal Dems saying: Go Michael!

I...the...what? I understand that there is meant to be a bias in opinion articles. Hell, we're biased all over the place. The difference is that we admit it up front. If Ms. Allen intended the Post piece to be satire, it was of the most malicious "I actually really mean this but am going to hide behind a defense" sort.

A Modest Proposal was a brilliant piece of satire but if Jonathan Swift had really gone around eating babies, it wouldn't be taught in schools today. And Charlotte Allen is no Jonathan Swift.  

* The post referred to is no longer in the IWF archives. I read several of Allen's similar articles to confirm that the style matches but as it is a secondary source, I will state an apology if this page misquoted Ms. Allen.  

Shorter Daily Mail Washington Post (!): "Stupid and fickle, together at last."

Jill takes on stupid, Hilzoy tackles fickle and zuzu nails it:

...I’m sure the fact that these opinions are aired in mainstream outlets has nothing at all to do with the dearth of women on op-ed pages. Well, except for those engaged in the ignoble pursuit of tearing down other women.

Next week in Outlook: Negros--lazy and fleet footed (oh, wait--Black History Month was in February.)

Update: Outlook Editor John Pomfret is officially the dumbest motherfucker in journalism (except of course for all those stupid squealing wimmins who, apart from honourary men like Char, aren't being published in the WaPo opinion section because they're stupid and fickle). The only 'joke' I can glean is his lame attempt to deflect responsibility for enabling hate speech. And even that isn't funny.

h/t Jessica @ Feministing

Update 2: Well, Kieran Healy sure called it. Superlative NatSec correspondent Laura Rozen (who has been all over the Post for this) scores the following explanation from Pomfret, the dumbest motherfucker in journalism:

.. I ran Charlotte Allen's piece to provoke, but not to offend. I thought the parallel she drew between fainting Obama followers and Beatlemania was an interesting frame with which to analyze the Obama phenomenon. She went further, of course, to draw broader conclusions about the state of her gender highlighting women's interest in Gray's Anatomy and Eat, Pray, Love. But my reading of it was more a tongue-in-cheek screed borne from exasperation with her sisters than a mysoginist [sic] rant from a self-hating woman. Yes, she engaged in massive hyperbole but she did it to try to make a point. That said the piece obviously offended you and others and I regret that. But it was an opinion piece and that is what they sometimes do. ...

"Sorry I regret that you were offended." Well, ain't that mighty white o' Pomfret? Yes, John, Char did have a point, as Rozen's unnamed colleague notes: "That women are stupid."

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Please, someone (preferably a white male, since, as per 1337 satirist!!111 William Saletan, I'm just a dumb negro--hmm, Slate's owned by The Washington Post, innit?) show me how an avowed anti-feminist trafficking in mysoginy [sic--image=WIN] counts as "tongue in cheek" (ie, ironic).

Bueller? Bueller?

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

It's a truly delightful mess of anecdote, pop sociology, cherry-picked 'scientific surveys' and good old fashioned nastiness. Over at Obsidian Wings, Hilzoy provides the definitive take-down:

Note to Charlotte Allen: if you find yourself having to argue that you are an idiot in order to make your case, you might consider the possibility that an idiot like yourself is unlikely to get much right about women, or for that matter about anything. You might therefore ask yourself what earthly purpose it serves to have idiots like the one you take yourself to be publishing their thoughts. Is your gig at the Post noticeably different from those game shows in which we get to watch people humiliating themselves on national TV? If so, how?

"What is it about us women? Why do we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental?"

Her missive was inspired by the phenomenon of women swooning at Obama rallies and also by what she deems a poorly executed campaign by Hillary. Whether I agree with her on that last point is of another matter - but the reason I am posting a link here is that for a long time I have been put off by the two extreme (and extremely flat, non-descriptive) images of women focused media. The image seems to either be:

1. Feminazi, tough and somewhat angry
2. and on the other end of the spectrum 'girl power' or another more cozy Kleenex grabbing version of cutesy, juvenile, cloying, 'healing' and 'fixing' (read: victim mentality). Pink, cozy, and decidedly unserious.

What kind of ongoing effect can this have if we don't break the cycle and present an alternative? In the end, I think this article is wildly misogynistic.

She says:

"Depressing as it is, several of the supposed misogynist myths about female inferiority have been proven true " and ends with "So I don't understand why more women don't relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess ...and revel in the things at which ...we excel: tenderness ...the ability to make a house a home....Then we (can) shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim."

THIS makes me want to sit up and prove this (dimwitted) woman wrong.

"I'm not the only woman who's dumbfounded (as it were) by our sex, or rather, as we prefer to put it, by other members of our sex besides us. It's a frequent topic of lunch, phone and water-cooler conversations; even some feminists can't believe that there's this thing called "The Oprah Winfrey Show" or that Celine Dion actually sells CDs. A female friend of mine plans to write a horror novel titled "Office of Women," in which nothing ever gets done and everyone spends the day talking about Botox."

Obviously she lives in a different world than I or my friends and aquaintences. I wish I had time to stand around a water cooler in a high rise down-town chic office talking about Botox, fer crissake. Get freakin' real, lady.

Her comments just prove how out of step with today's women she is. If it's not 1955 neither is it 1972.

Can ya just move on, Ms. Allen? Get relevant.