I find the article quite amusing.

Here is a generalization for you: generalizations are stupid. All generalizations, of course, except for the one that I just made, which, one must admit, is only an outlier and worth none of our attention. I don’t take offense easily and I am neither offended by your article nor your interview; I am, however, annoyed, so let’s dwell on that for a bit. If I was a quicker study, this is what I would have learned from you: women are silly, it’s in their nature, science has proven it, standardized test scores concur with both science and nature, women should not drive, science has proven it, it is because of their inability to refrain from putting on makeup while gossiping about the cute new boy at the office, if they had better spacial skills perhaps they would hunt, instead they just gather… clothes, they are so nice though, thus, they should be nice to men, and children, and the elderly, because their brains are smaller, but sort of equal at times. I am not a quick study though; your logic leaves me with some questions.

First: okay… why did you even write that article? Was it to affect a change and encourage women to remember the importance of being a wife and mother? It didn’t seem like that was your point. Over the course of your interview you criticize women for being ditsy, but then you un-criticize them because it’s not that they’re ditsy, they’re just… quirky and lovable? And as annoying as feminism is, it is great that we have made all this progress and that women can now get jobs that once only men could get? But never forget, if you do get those jobs, you are being masculine?

Need I say, “wtf?”I am curious where your certainty as to what is masculine and what is feminine comes from. If a baby girl is raised in a box (I know, I know… it’s horrible), is it a given that by the time she reaches her teens she will fashion a tube of lipstick out of a bed post in much the same way an adult male prisoner would fashion a shiv? I have my doubts. Fun though makeup very well may be, the desire to apply it (even at inopportune moments) is a socially conditioned one, as is the fact that it is, apparently, so inarguably fun to begin with. The question here is: if a woman is so hyper-concerned with her appearance that she is willing to risk her life by applying her makeup while driving to this office meeting or that ice cream social, can we honestly say that she is having fun? She sounds freaked out.

In fact, I would have a hard time thinking of any gendered action that is not essentially determined by peer pressure. Yes, sure, men are cut-throat business men who fight their way to the top and in doing so, occasionally, blow up one to several countries, but aren’t those men just petrified by the idea of not being the biggest and the bestest? How many times have you seen a guy look threatened out of his mind by the idea that he might have to admit he is wrong about something, no matter how inane that something is. We may term that masculine behavior, but it is really only men behaving as men are “supposed to behave.” Behaving in any other way would earn him the reputation of having undersized genitalia.

Here is the question I would most like to ask: if we accept that both our intelligent and dim-witted gendered behavior is the result of our fears of ridicule and rejection, is that okay? Should we accept that we are what we are which is what we are supposed to be and break our backs to be precisely that, or would such pressured and, yes, unnatural behavior reflect a problem worth acknowledging and attempting to remedy?

In the 1940’s Batman carried a whip. Nothing is set in stone.

Basically, what we discovered is this: Charlotte Allen meant the article to be funny…but the parts that OFFENDED people the most are actually the parts that, really, she seriously believes.

And…she really IS dumb. No wonder she has such an ill opinion of other woman.

“Uh huh.”