Katha Pollit unloads on Charlotte Allen’s dim-witted misogynistic rant, and on the editors of the Washington Post for printing it.
A sample:
Who’s really the dim bulb, the woman who doesn’t see the beauty of “Grand Theft Auto,” or the man who thinks Tom Clancy is a great writer? For Allen, it’s definitely the woman: her brain is just too puny. She cannot mentally rotate three-dimensional objects in space — and that, as we all know, is the very definition of smarts.
Funny how that definition keeps changing, as women conquer field after field that was supposed to be beyond them. In the 19th century, physicians insisted women couldn’t cope with college: studying would send rushing to their brains the blood that was needed for the womb. Back then, nobody credited women with the superior verbal abilities and memories Allen says scientists now find women to possess.
[snip]
Why did Allen, by accounts a good reporter on religion in a previous life, write this silly piece? It’s tempting to say she wrote it because she exemplifies the dimness and illogicality she describes — after all, this is a woman who cheerfully claims not to be able to add much beyond 2+2. But I suspect that Allen, who works for the right-wing anti-feminist Independent Women’s Forum, is just annoyed that so many educated middle-class women are cultural, social and political moderates and liberals. Democrats, in other words.
Note to self: Do not mess with Katha Pollitt.