The Feminist Blogosphere and Hill

A few days ago, I wondered why so few women bloggers were backing Hillary. A couple of days ago, Maureen Dowd advised Hillary to act dumb like a stewardess (ew) to get the votes of men. I'm not sure if she managed to secure Hillary's vote from the chick bloggers, but she certainly inspired some snarky blog posts. See blogrunner, Whelan, bean, echidne, and marcotte.

Comments

[dave.s.]

It's so rare that Dowd has anything fresh or interesting to say that I usually don't look at her column. Doesn't sound like this one was an exception...

[Amy P]

Speaking of Dowd, do you think anyone will publish dozens of articles from me on the injustice of the fact that being a happily married mother of two with a dusty resume, no one will publish my quickly dashed off thoughts in prime NYT real estate and pay me big bucks for it? Because that's more or less the inverse of what MD has been getting paid for so long (I'm so smart and pretty and I'm going to die alone).

[Ailurophile]

Moron Dowd strikes again! "Dumb like a stewardess?" Classy.

If she dies alone, it's because she has a go-nowhere personality and is getting her karma back for remarks like the above. Or perhaps because she considers Donald Trump to be boyfriend material.

[Amy P]

I just read the Dowd piece, and it was not as annoying as I expected it to be. However, I've never gotten the sense that she gets that it's no picnic on the other side either--professionally and financially unsuccessful men have it just as rough as unattractive women. (A number of years back, a financially struggling friend in his late 40s went through a divorce and then jumped into the dating pool. I got to listen to a lot of his dating war stories, which were utterly harrowing.)

[Ailurophile]

The thing with MoDo is, and others have also pointed this out, she seems to want to date only the high-flyers. If she broadened her horizons to include more ordinary Joes, perhaps she wouldn't be whinging and yammering about how looooonely she is and how no man wants a successful woman and waah poor little me.

Amy, I can't presume to know your friend or his dating life, but if he had his sights set on the pretty younglings, that might have been his problem. Financially struggling men who aren't that way due to irresponsibility or personality problems, and who are content with women their own age and of average looks, can and do find mates. Again, I don't know your friend so I can't really judge, but so many times, people who complain that there are no good men or women out there are just too fussy.

[Amy P]

Ailurophile,

I've got to be somewhat discreet, since I wouldn't be surprised if he (or an ex-wife) reads here occasionally. My friend is fairly attractive, broke, and a lover of high culture (opera, theater, ballet, classical music, philosophy, etc.), which unfortunately meant that the lower-middle class women he could plausibly attract didn't share his interests and he wasn't successful enough to hold onto the sort of professionally woman who shared those tastes. He put those interests front and center in his personals ads, but still wound up meeting people like the woman who said she liked ballet but couldn't name a single one. Interrogated further, it turned out that her only ballet experience had been lessons in elementary school. A recurring theme in his stories was that his dates were so desperate to go out with someone, anyone, that they'd feign an interest in things that bored them stiff, but were unable to keep up the pretence for long. I believe he once wound up buying theater tickets to go out with some woman who, he later discovered, disliked Shakespeare, but didn't have the guts to tell him so beforehand.

I won't go further into exact details, but I think you do have a point--I think there is a tendency to aim higher than what one's own personal charms justify. (I love Jack Black in Shallow Hal, by the way.)