anythings.org

I think every single feminist blog I read has picked up on Charlotte Allen’s sexist “women are idiots” piece already, but it’s my turn now:

So I don’t understand why more women don’t relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home. Then we could 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.

I don’t even know where to begin with this. It’s just so ridiculous that this was even published in the Washington Post. Articles like this not only infuriate feminists because they are based on ridiculous personal views, but they continue to stereotype women. I know more women who don’t fit into Ms. Allen’s (yeah, Ms., not Mrs.!) pathetically chauvinistic view of women than do. And maybe that’s because I use my brain for things other than reading 2007’s lame book of the year, Eat, Pray, Love, but I highly doubt it. I think it’s because I’m a woman, and I’m intelligent.

She, of course, preys on the view of women as “women haters”: us “smart” women (or women like herself, who have accepted our “lower status”) hate these stupid women for all their inadequacies and embarrassments.

Allen also claims that men do stupid things, too, but they have completely justifiable reasons for their stupid actions. Of course, men do stupid things with far less frequency than women, but that’s not her concern. I honestly don’t see how a man can justify liking Rambo because it’s about violence, rape, murder, and mayhem - but a woman can’t justify liking Love Actually because it’s about relationships, communication, and love. How is the former a more sensible reason the latter? Oh, I know, because it is coming from the superior male.

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

We don’t. You just think we do. So what if millions of copies of Eat, Pray, Love have been sold? Just as many women don’t own it as those who do.

And here’s a shocker - men fall for the hysterical (disgustingly stupid physical comedy a la Superbad’s menstrual blood scene), the superficial (fake breasts and blond hair - Victoria’s Secret expectations of women and an obsession with outer beauty), and the non-gooily sentimental (overcompensating with too many action films).

And here’s an even bigger shocker - not all men are the same. Oh, and, neither are women.

This post is dedicated to Sergeant Huxtable of the Aspen Village Platoon and Sarah Sannebeck, my little firecracker.

[Image from Getty]