The Other Charlotte and I have blogged on Maureen Dowd’s recent column, “Are Men Necessary?”
(The headline comes from the New York Times diva’s forthcoming book of that title.)
Columnist Kathleen Parker also responds to Dowd: :
“Entertaining as usual, Dowd explored her premise that many women end up unmarried and childless because they’re successful by reviewing women’s evolution since her college days, which happen to have coincided with my own. We both came of age as women’s lib was being midwifed into the culture by a generation of women who felt enslaved by homemaking and childbearing.”
But that’s simply not true, according to Parker:
“Men haven’t turned away from smart, successful women because they’re smart and successful. More likely they’ve turned away because the feminist movement that encouraged women to be smart and successful also encouraged them to be hostile and demeaning to men….
“[W]hen we’re not bashing men, we’re diminishing manhood. Look around at entertainment and other cultural signposts and you see a feminized culture that prefers sanitized men – hairless, coiffed, buffed and, if possible, gay. Men don’t know whether to be ’metrosexuals’ getting pedicures, or ’groomzillas’ obsessing about wedding favors, or the latest, ’ubersexuals’ – yes to the coif, no to androgyny.
“As far as I can tell, real men don’t have a problem with smart, successful women. But they do mind being castrated. It’s a guy thing. They do mind being told in so many ways that they are superfluous.”