Maureen Dowd Gets Rejected, But It's Not Her Fault, Really..

I completely disagreed with many statements that Dowd made in the article.

Among them:





And many others...

I probably won't be able to put together a good summary of my thinking -- things are a bit crazy around casa del soz (see "I'm not cold!!" thread for details.)

Of responses so far, Thomas' is closest to my own. The article felt like a collection of anecdotes that don't actually mean that much, just bolster a personal opinion. That is somewhat mitigated by responses here, though, plus the fact that when I looked for it online I saw that it was the most emailed article. If she collects anecdotes that actually resonate with people, I guess that's something. It didn't resonate with me.

Some of my scribbled notes:

How can "the Rules" be cited with any seriousness to support any thesis about feminism in 2005? It was published ten years ago and was as soundly reviled as it was actually followed. There is always going to be a market for "how to get a man"/ "how to get a woman" (and the preponderance of the latter is conveniently left out), and that was, briefly, the next big thing. As of 10 years on, it's a joke, not to mention 10 years on! Isn't she supposed to be saying something about today?

The 50's fashions are neither here nor there, not to mention also ephemerial if she is saying something about today. The same issue of the NYT had two different features on Goth chic -- lots of black. As anti-Stepford as it gets. Does that mean anything to her? It's emblematic of the cherry-picking that annoys me about the article.

I really think this is the center of the whole article:



I think the victim mentality and abdication of responsibility here is appalling. It could well be a different worlds thing, but I don't know men like that. And as a center of a thesis, it's not very trustworthy. How many people say "It's not you, it's me" and mean it? The "why I don't want to be with you" excuse is probably the most dishonest category of excuses anywhere. Maybe he just didn't like HER. (I've mentioned that I know someone who worked for her and who indicated there were many, many reasons that could be true.)

Another margin note, about this:



She assumes a cause and effect that is not there in other reeports I have seen on these issues. Does every single woman in the workforce want a child? Lots of studies show that people who are childless tend to do better professionally. That makes sense.

Note that she says nothing about incomes. That could be because a recent study that was discussed probably right next to her column (in the NYT) shows that when you take children out of the equation, women tend to make MORE than men. That is, a childless woman tends to make more than a childless man. The thing is, a lot of women decide to make the decision to forgo a certain amount of monetary success and prestige to have more balance in their lives. And it also showed that men would love to have that balance if they thought they could -- if society viewed staying home with kids as a more valid option, if they could afford it, etc.

This is where I think feminism should be heading, acknowledging that both genders can parent and making things more possible for both to participate in child-rearing, instead of this boring retro men are bad stuff.

Same idea for IQ -- could it be that a woman with a higher IQ has more chances for personal success, and less of a "need" to marry? Perhaps she is less likely to be married by choice, more picky about potential mates?

More notes:



Well, yeah. And? Is there something wrong with wanting more balance, with not working 60 hours a week and kissing your kid after he or she has been put to bed by the babysitter?



Evidence? Again, there doesn't seem to be room for three ideas; 1) some women don't want kids, 2) some women can have a career while the husband watches the kids, 3) some women WANT balance and don't necessarily aspire to the ideal she seems to take for granted. (High-powered career of some kind.) There is not necessarily anything wrong with that.

The "Ms." and hyphen stuff is just stupid. They were symbols and had their use, but didn't change much in and of themselves. If people realized that if Patty Smith-Hawken married Gordon Williams-Sonoma that their kid would have to be named Chester Smith-Hawken-Williams-Sonoma or else the hyphen thing would have to be trashed, it doesn't necessarily have any wide-ranging implications for the state of feminism today.

Well, that's some of what got me sputtering. Overall, I think an interesting subject has been trivialized to death in this article, with no provisions made for what I think are the really important things (but they can't necessarily be blamed on men, so that's not as fun) like getting some more balance into the American workplace. That means allowing men and women to care for their children in a reasonable way while having careers before, after, and sometimes during the childcare years, but also just generally doing something about workaholic culture and how that hurts everyone.

Totally on those two, mac, yep.

Hey, quit dissing her! I, for one, am in AWE of her critical faculties. I mean, how many people would have the analytical skill to analyze the statement of ONE MAN and generalize to ALL men?!?!?!?

GENIUS!

I just read most of a l-o-n-g profile of Dowd in NY Magazine. Here are a few facts: She's 53 and has a number of relationships of highly successful men. These aren't nasty secrets, by the way.

I have to wonder if she ever really wanted to be married. She's doesn't ever say she did. I think we may be generalizing about her based on her own generalizations about the contemporary scene.

She makes her money by being provocative, and she surely succeeded with her article. More power to her!

Yet another successful 50 + woman who is trying to justify
why she is not married yet and doesn't have a family.
How cliche to speak of men rather marrying their
secretaries as opposed to a smart, challenging woman with a career.

At the end of the day, Dowd is just like the rest of us:
a woman who is being loved, resp. wants to be loved.

Burning our bra and keeping our birthname doesn't make
us feminists, nor are we Stepford wives if we cook a decent
meal and dress feminine. Cliches again.

The dating rules, and who is responsible for paying
the meals has always amused me here in the United States.
Even a hardcore feminist will draw the line there, and
should he ever utter the dreaded phrase of "let's go dutch"
he is history, no matter how much potential he could have.

As long as women abide by all these self-imposed rules,
they are restricting themselves to a limited dating world,
and should they - God forbid - end up without a man, as
a result thereof, than they push off the blame to them.

I see where you're coming from and I agree that she makes too many generalizations but I don't think her article is supposed to be some big sociological study but an opinion piece.

I see where she's coming from too, though. I got married when I was 29 and became a parent when I was 42 -- neither from some buring desire to be a wife or mother. I have a good career ONLY because I do what I love. If I'd had to settle for something else I would have just been a little happy worker bee.

I have known girls who were desperate to get married. I do know 30 year old women who consider plastic surgery merely upkeep. I do know women whose desire to give birth superceeds her own health and finances.

I have known girls who, like me, are at the exact opposite end of the spectrum.

I agree completely that the workaholic culture is bad for everyone. We are being sold a bill of goods -- that we have to have the perfect stuff or we can't have a perfectly happy life. I think men and women share equal blame for that.

Through her rampant use of meaningless cliches she doesn't say everything and states her opinion which is one of understanding. This is the sort of touch on a subject which is something that has illuded my entire being is something I have only been able to view in curiosity

It was actually quite okay for a bad one.


Are you referring to where she quotes the study on taking their husband's family name instead of keeping their own? My reaction was that once it became a free choice, keeping the woman's family name lost its value as a symbol. So they started choosing what was most convenient, which often was to keep with tradition. I know a class of women for whom it is most convenient to keep their name, namely the scientists I know. (The Science citation index, which calculates a scientist's impact on the community and serves as a basis for universities hiring decisions, has no way of knowing that "Emma Maidenname" and "Emma Husbandsname" are the same persons. So they often retain their maiden name. For all I can tell, this got none of them into trouble finding a mate. The biggest single issue for them is crazy work hours, just as it is for the male scientists.)

Another point I found striking, not just about Dowd but about the issue in general, is how the name thing focuses on political, as opposed to social victories of feminism. Case in point: In the early 70s, my parents moved to a (very liberal) Californian university town. Something about social intercourse in that city irked my mother, and it wasn't the family name issue but the first name issue. Back then, even in that very liberal town, your standard introduction would have been "Hi, I'm Mrs. Evil Genius", as opposed to "Sozobe Genius", with an optional "Mrs." in front as was customary in Germany at the time. But the women she met weren't much concerned with losing their first names, and I'm not aware that the feminist movement ever made a big issue of it. I also notice that Maureen Dowd doesn't mention it anywhere. It seems to me as if the activism was mostly about scoring points in the political system (which regulated the last-name-issue) rather than changing attitudes in society (which regulated the first-name-issue.) Strange.


Any ideas which feminist who could have written this article the right way? My view of American feminism is dominated by figures like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, who get on my nerves so much I can't retain much of what they say. But I understand they are both somewhat dated models of feminism, and I don't know feminist authors about our age who would write about Maureen Dowd's subject.

I think she did that on purpose. If you write your article in a tone that can be read both in a harmless, chatty way and as a serious analysis of what's wrong with the world. That way, if someone criticises on the chatty level, she can be insulted for not being taken seriously. And if the someone responds with serious counter-arguments, she can respond "You're not getting it: I was being chatty. Don't be such a nerd!" Kind of like those mothers who buy you two T-shirts, and when you put on one of them make a sad face and say "So you didn't like the other?" (Ahem.)

Dowd is a writer, not a sociologist. Though she does cite my statistics, most of what she writes is anecdotal in nature. In other words, it's interesting, sure, but it's not scientific.

I feel the same, by the way, about Malcolm Gladwell, who writes these grand theoretical books on how we think and act. The dude's a writer, not a scientist.

I'm not denying that validity of some of what Dowd writes, but it's an opinion piece. Fun to argue about!

Hmm, interesting question about who I think would write a better version. Susan Faludi, maybe -- she's one of the best at not discounting real challenges that women have (her "Backlash" was huge in early-90's feminism) but also recognizing that just the "women have it so hard/ men have it so easy" thing is unproductive.

When I looked her up to find the title of her book about men ("Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man"), I found a quote from her that indiates what I like about her thinking:

A couple of ideas keep banging around in my head...

I think that a lot of women in the 50s and 60s feel that the strides they made are unrecognized by the younger generations -- and make no mistake, they made huge strides.

The fact that women now even grapple with the concept of chosing career or family points to one stride. The fact that we are trying to learn how to blend them, or space them, or what the husband/father's role in all this points to it too.

When I was a kid very few mothers worked. If they did it was mostly because they were divorced. Middle class women didn't put their kids in daycare to give them a headstart in learning and social skills. The fact that we can make that choice now and think that we're doing our kids a favor points to it too.

The whole ambivalence of young women in the pro-choice camp clearly points to the taking for grantedness of strides women have made.

It's like what Thomas is saying about things losing their power as symbols.

Mentoring is another idea shaking around....

Women used to help women along. Now they seem intent on cutting them off at the knees.

Still thinking...

I agree there have been huge strides. But from observing my two sisters, a lot of "not recognizing" the strides rests on a misconception on the part of the elderly feminists. It's a bit like in that old anecdote where a communist agitator boasts "After the revolution, all proletarians shall eat strawberries with cream". Interjection from the audience: "But I don't like strawberries!" Agitator responds: "After the revolution, all proletarians shall all eat strawberries with cream -- and like it."

Feminists in their 60s often seem to have that kind of disagreement with women in their 20s and 30s. For example, just because women can now retain their maiden names if they want to, that doesn't mean they have to want to. In many cases they don't. For another example, after my mother finished her Ph.D in Chemistry, she decided not to get a job but to raise her two children (later to be three). She received poisonous reactions from two directions. One was the conservative family members: "We told you you'd marry anyway, so why study in the first place?" The other was her feminist friends: "You've come so far, and now you throw it all away?"

Come to think of it, this seems to be the core of why Dowd gets on my nerves in this article. She observes, perhaps correctly, that young women often don't honor the ideals of the women's movement; she then concludes that they have somehow failed feminism, and doesn't spend even a paragraph discussing that maybe feminism failed them.


I didn't understand that one. Could you explain which ambivalence you mean?


Maybe mentoring was one of those ideas that were made obsolete by their own success. I can see that it's a good idea for getting started towards equality. But once a certain level is achieved, helping a fellow woman just because she's a woman becomes just another form of cronyism.

***

On a totally unrelated note, am I the only one who has trouble with the new "can't correct your embarrassing typos once someone has responded to them" feature? Typos seem to hide at the edge of the editing window, then jump into my texts as soon as I hit the "Submit" button. It's very embarrassing, and it doesn't seem to happen to anybody else.

Own your typos. That way they're not typos, but personality quireks.

I think that's a pretty petty consideration . . . personally, i never make mitsakes . . .

Well, that's exactly what I was talking about. But don't worry, it was just false modesty.

I thought the article was utter fluff.
Why is this woman writing for the New York Times? It made me gag.
She should be writing for one of 'women's magasines'.

Basically my opinion is: Ms. Dowd sucks.

Here's what I said about Dowd's columns in 2003 -
LINK

Yikes. I like Maureen's column sometimes, and think this one was in jest to some extent, but it caused me to frown severely. Agreed immediately with dlowan's yecccch. Maybe Maureen likes to stir up flame and discussion to watch the results, but it seems more like a quick and easy take to get a column out.

I am not too keen on writing that diminishes either males or females by any of the means I see it done, including this one...that is why the yeccch. I have no idea if Maureen Dowd personally wants to diminish human males, or if she couldn't resist the chance to tease, but it fell flat.




(I wonder what I was talking about; haven't reviewed the link further.)


Still, I have had glimmers myself of many of her thoughts presented in this recent article, albeit not in as complete a scenario as she has seemed to do. I'll try and explain more fully, but not now. First of all, I already deleted the article from my desk top (consideration pool) and emptied the trash; second, today I had forty real estate agents nosing around my house, more appointments scheduled. I'm not in the mood to write up my own complex set of observations.
Perhaps I'll get going on it with some red wine and chocolate on what looks might be a cold and rainy evening later on.

I completely agree with what you're saying, Thomas. Just because someone kicked the door open for you doesn't mean you have to use the door. But I do think it is sensable to recognize that all of their door-kicking-in is what allows younger women the luxury of choosing.

I fall right in the middle of the two generations. I was 13 when Roe v Wade was decided. Women my age didn't have to protest; getting an abortion could be our choice but most of us can remember the "Get the US out of my uterus" signs and women chanting in the street.

Another 13 years puts a lot of distance between women who kicked those doors and women growing up with choice being a given.

And that is what I mean about ambivilence. I think a majority of American women, young and old alike, are pro-choice. They are just out there quietly going about their business thinking this topic is of no concern to them but in maybe in another year they will have to start chanting and carrying signs and kicking down doors if they want their daughters to be able to have a choice for a safe and legal abortion.

I really do understand what you're saying. I agree that Dowd's editorial was lopsided, I'm not here trying to defend her (or her writing style, which, I think is beside the point here).

Sometimes I agree with her, sometimes I agree with George Will, sometimes I agree with.... whoever. Whether I agree or not I admire people who are willing to commit their thoughts to print if only because it sparks such interesting conversation.