PENIS MAN! OPRESSOR!

No, Erica, it's a good thing that major newspapers print the opinions of many kinds of people, including conservatives. And whether it is a good thing or not, they do it all the time and so you look kind of dumb acting surprised. Even your own paper sort of prints a spectrum of ideas. You did not know this?

So, Erica, exactly why are you taking the time to share this Charlotte Allen's horrible non-news story with us? Can't you find something worthy to share? You work really hard to get yourself angry. Sad.

I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you. I thought Pamela Sitt was unique.

P.S. You forgot one.

And yet... it is actually true. Women are good at some things men aren't, but their brains are just wired differently. And one of those differences is... they're usually shamelessly petty, vindictive, dense, paranoid, and superficial. Some women aren't, of course. But that's certainly no reason to pretend that women are mentally "equal" to men. Try actually working in the "office full of women" - I do - it's a real eye-opener.

Some guys are doing silly, superficial stuff on Second Life, others are not. If you're hoping to meet real-life women as a result of hanging out there - silly. If on the other hand, you're running some Second Life wildcat bank or casino and rolling people for real money... not silly at all.

Well, you have to admit that she's got a valid point there about Oprah and Celine Dion.

As a psychiatrist*, I'd say this "Charlotte Allen" is suffering from an acute case of hysteria complicated by a catatonia-inducing attack of the vapors. This op-ed is a tragic reminder that there simply will never be enough gin, Vicodin, Lorcet and Meprozine in this world. Oh, the humanity.

*not really, tee hee hee.

Hey Donovan, some men's brains are "wired differently" too! For instance, you're an ignorant and misogynistic asshole, and I have enough understanding of the human race that I don't divide people's personality traits based solely on gender. But I suppose you'll chalk this up to an irrational female reaction to your obviously superior male thought process.

That's nauseating.

However, my experience of actual women (and, for the record, I am one) is that a great many of them are hysterical, superficial, and sentimental.

Which is why I choose to surround myself with gay men instead. Hysterical and superficial, yes, but much less sentimental. :D

That book sounds pretty fucking awful.

Except that the premise here is weird and flawed -- who knows why these women are fainting in the first place. Political events are often packed and hot, and people faint at them all the time. Several people fainted at the Clinton rally at Pier 30. This author was clearly hard up for subjects, and not particularly readable ... Gilbert, for all of her self-absorption, is a much better writer.

My first impression was that all those things she's saying apply to most of the gay men I know as well. And then I read the actual article and yup, sure enough, she mentions that as well.

Thanks for posting this Erica.

@2 Diversity of opinion is fine - but outright ridiculous sexist bullshit is not! I find it surprising that anyone would tolerate this. You should not - just as you would not tolerate any article that was racist. Imagine if this article casted off all African Americans as stupid - you'd be justly outraged, just as you should be with this crap. Why are women allowed to be talked about as stupid and ineffective?! Women are 54% of the voting population - and now over 50% of law and medical school graduates. Stop the madness people! This sort of talk is intolerable - to ALL people, both men and women.

In 2004 at one of the damn piers in Sodo that Howard Dean was going to talk at (he turned out to be freakishly late) I nearly passed out listening to Patty Murray...but I was running a fever of 101 degrees and could not even see straight. It was not some sort of amazement at her oratory abilities.

Keep in mind all of those people passing out? It's flu season.

Your last link appears to be screwed up. Which, of course, decisively proves that HTML is a masculine domain, beyond the reach of women's comparatively feeble mental facilities.

Fascinating. Now would ECB like to defend Angelina Jolie's Washington Post Op-Ed in support of the "Surge" in Iraq? (no, I'm not making that up)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022702217.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

I am the ultimate feminist... I say idiots abound on both sides. Yay equality!

And I'm sure they just love working with you, too, Donovan

ECB, I think you're starting to lose it... smoke some weed :)

Charlotte Allen: 1
ECB: 0

The blogosphere is so bent on knee-jerk reactionism that it makes my head hurt.

@21, Good Cheer my fellow Obama follower! According to the HRC crowd we are all idiots irregardless of gender!

Or just waiting for the sky to open up and the light shines through then celestrial chiors sing....

#14
if the truth is uncomfortable then we must never speak of it least someone gets offended, we shall substitute some beautiful lies instead.
it's like the old Beatles song
"living is easy with eyes closed,misunderstanding all you see, it's getting hard to be someone but it all works out ...it doesn't matter much to me"

on that note i really don't believe men or women are Superior or inferior in relation to each other, rather we compliment one another...making up were we fall short
it's not even genitalia...it's hormone balance. of those with more estrogen or more testosterone

Uh oh, somebody didn't get laid last night. Keep trying honey, someone will take pity.

I hope someone hides all those new Utah State quarters from ECB. Celebrating the "Golden Spike" probably won't go over well.

Interesting links ECB: So women have no interest in sports? And they do not play video games either? You should go meet the Seattle Storm or a few of those female professional wrestlers. They would like to explain something to you. Make sure you mention what they do is silly and you know stupid.

A) Shut up, jackson.

B) There's absolutely nothing wrong or over the top about Erica raising this topic and calling the article a piece of shit. Those folks who've said that comments go south expressly because Erica's made a post are being proved correct, here.

C) The article is indeed appalling and while my instinct is always to say that something can be absolutely horrific and still should be allowed to be published, it's true that no major newspaper would publish an article like this about an ethnic group. I want to know that people are making these arguments, and I want to know about the grains of truth in them and how they're being misused. I guess that means I want to see articles claiming that black people's brains are smaller in the WaPo? Now I'm ashamed of myself.

So wait, everyone is mad at ECB? For getting upset at something stupid and inflammatory?

The article made me depressed. The reactions here? Even more so. At least there's some signs of sanity showing.

The good majority of people are frivolous and silly. (Even smart ones a lot of the time.) Men and women both. Just because you don't understand the frivolity of the other gender doesn't mean they're "the weaker sex."

@28, what you said.

GOD the commenters make me angry enough to become a hillary supporter.

But I guess that's just a result of my random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial.

Oh wait, that couldn't be it! Because I am male. Silly me.

Yeah, I read the article too. It sucked. What gets me about many articles of this ilk is A) Nobody questions the methodology of the studies B) The authors of these articles read into the studies some kind of genetic predetermined wiring rather than acknowledge environment as influencing gene expression. (Did you know that taxi drivers in london have larger memory centers in their brains than the rest of the population?) C) Finally they don't get into the nitty gritty of just how many people of different genders overlap and trouble shoot why the outliers are occurring. Sloppy sloppy sloppy, all so they can say "I am so embarrassed by people of my gender." How about instead: I am so embarrassed by the human race? You folks who feel the intense need to jump on ECB no matter what she says? Your intensity betrays you in so many ways. I'm not saying she is always right or always wrong but many of you out there sure feel the need to put her down. You sound so angry. Why does she bother you so? you see, anger is a secondary emotion. fear is primary. What are you afraid of?

But if this was some normal ass white dude talking about how normal ass white dudes suck, would anybody give a shit?

Agreed LMSW. She and Mudede get a lot of "knee jerk" reactions from commentors. And this article is bullshit. Coincidently, reading the Chalice and the Blade right now. And Andrew @22? Really?

Looks like Erica is not the only one.

@16 Try this.

Erica could post a picture of a a litter of puppies and somehow the idiots would still come out of the woodwork to attack her in the comments.

OK: Women are innately THE SAME as men.
And vice versa.

So ... celebrate monoversity!!

I have always been a fan of Erica but I think she may be taking this article too seriously. A woman who writes for the Washington Post makes fun of dumb things that interest women. Erica responds by linking to dumb things that interest men. (My Fisher-Price computer couldn't go to the last link--maybe it was the Three Stooges--but I had gotten the point by then.) But men make fun of themselves all the time. Look at any TV sitcom or the humor section of your local bookstore and notice that men are the ones who get into trouble by not thinking before they do something dumb while their wives or girlfriends bring them back to reality. Comedians Tim Allen and Dave Barry, for example, have built their entire careers on pointing out how silly men can be. I don't take it personally; in fact, I enjoy this type of humor.

I could also add that men vote Republican much more than women. If that isn't dumb I don't know what is. Of course that's too stupid even for me. But I eat standing up at the stove and still haven't figured out what's wrong with that.

Jesus christ that column was terrible. I hope we eventually get to a point in our culture where it isn't acceptable to say this kind of shit and people who do are looked at as generally repugnant, like racists.

and don't forget there are some among us who feel that Bukowski's greatest achievement as the champion of bachelordom was showing that women were the better sex....

Well, considering women were not even considered "people" until around 100 years ago, I think they're doing pretty well... but wait! Gender differences are genetic and not at all due to our culture's loooong history of misogyny. You know, because everything is so equal now. Yup, no cultural factors there.

My opinion is that anyone who thinks that men are never hysterical, superficial, sentimental, flighty, jealous, etc has probably never dated one. Besides stereotyping women, ideas like this also deny male emotions. Big boys don't cry and all that shit.

Office behavior is to human behavior as zoo animal behavior is to animal behavior in the wild. You can't make sweeping assessments about a gender or even a species based on the sort of mental illness & neuroses that develop in minds forced to sit in front of computers at desks repeatedly performing meaningless tasks for decades on end.

There is a sort of meta-irony to bringing this up in a comment thread for a blog post complaining about a "lifestyles" op-ed piece in a newspaper -- talk about superficial, pointless wasting of precious fleeting time on the planet; I may as well be inscribing my thoughts about an annoying cloud formation in wet sand at the tideline on the beach just before sunset...

FAGS have the best brains - thanks evolution - the human brain of coming centuries. WE combine right and left - which is what is needed for the future.

YES, this is a current theory of merit, a book out soon based on this idea.

Great story and interview on this topic on NPR two weekws ago, late at night, hours long.

As a fag who has never been conflicted about it all, I have know this since childhood. I was always pleased by the many differences and did not want to be anybody else.

So much for standard oppression theory.

And just to make sure it is clearly stated, there is an abundance of sexist pig assholes on this blog. Same old shit from the same old shit heads.

Stand your ground Erica, leave them all in the dust. Some will slowly get it, others will die holding their dicks and acting smug and superior about male super prowess and intelligence, and, and and.... Cheers to you Erica.

You know who you are, get screwed. You are obsolete aside that drop of sperm needed twice during your life.

I bet Erica looks way hot when she gets all angry like this and uses such big words in her post. Mmmm. Nice.

LITTLE PENIS - FOR SURE - IDIOT FOR LIFE

@41,

The commenter @5 has posted here before. Based on his reasoning skills, or lack thereof, I'm assuming that he's somewhere between adolescence and college age. I bet he's never worked a real job in his life, let alone at a workplace he has to share with women.

Second Life is hardly a thing just for guys ECB. You should be less judgmental - since that's what you claim to expect from so many other people. Or is it that you're just not allowed to judge women that you respect...everyone else is fair game?

Finally a worth while post from Erica... somebody open the champagne.

After eons of sexism and misogyny, there are gender differences that are environmental. Lots. But this does not mean there aren't any innate ones -- or that we shouldnt' say so. A article like this seems to provoke denying there are any innate differences at all.
The new motto seems to be, "Morte a la difference."

Ugh.

@46 (and elsewhere): No, of course I'm not saying women can't be criticized. My point was that women AND men can be silly and superficial, in equal measure.

By the comments I doubt if most of the commenters here read the full article to read the complete bullshit about women's teenie tiny brains or how despite "special mentoring" we will never outpace men as supreme court justices (um, appointed), accountants or brain surgeons, and she says rightfully so (because our little brains don't have those skills). And now her concluding message to America: "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."

Why should Erica not be incensed about this? I am. For those of you who criticize her for putting so much energy into getting herself pissed off, you also all spend equal or more energy personally attacking her on the slog. Anyone who thinks feminism has come oh so far needs to look no further than the slog comments to any of Erica's posts to see how much ignorance is still out there. They've become disheartening to read. I find it quite surpising since this is such a liberal, free spirited paper. Yes discussion is great, but why is the tendancy always to turn it into a personal attack on her? I don't know how she puts up with it. Given how much sexism has been dredged up by the presidential campaign, I think posts like this are absolutely called for.

Oprah's success isn't just about her being a woman. She has made great strides for being BLACK and a woman, Erica; probably considered the lowest person on the American totem pole.

"This piece of shit actually ran in a major American newspaper."

In other words, it should not have been run. In other words, it isn't enough that I can just stop reading when I read something I disagree with; I don't think it should be in the WaPo at all, because I don't want you or anybody else to read it. Because even though I'm smart enough to see what nonsense it is, you're too dim and I have to protect you.

I guess if I were ECB I'd be taking that back too. But it's easy to believe that's what she meant; feminism today has a pretty long list of things the public isn't allowed to see.

ECB thank you for posting this. It has totally depressed me that something like this would make it into print. To those of you who cry free speech--just because she has a *right* to write such an article, doesn't mean that the Washington Post should *pay* her to write it. Maybe they'll print some of my papers from 4th grade too.

I have gone to an all-girls high school, an all-women college and I have worked in an ALL women office. I can say that working in an all female environment is wonderful.

People are just pathetic all around.

Ah, this did sound familiar. Ugh, I hate it when I agree with ECB - it makes me feel all icky inside.

@52 - That line could just as easily mean "I can't believe a newspaper of repute would print this and still be considered a newspaper of repute." It's not a cry for censorship.

It's 3:00 a.m.

And somewhere, Obama is lurking, stealing your woman's breath.....

@52, elenchos:
The issue isn't that people need to be protected by this crap, it's that a "major American newspaper" was perfectly happy to publish it. As has been said, if the op/ed was about race as a source of inferiorities, no editor would dare publish it. The issue is that Charlotte Allen's viewpoint is still socially acceptable.

(And yet, while it seems that nearly everyone can understand that the racial disparity of the Supreme Court (and other high-profile or high-prestige positions) isn't due to the fact that people of color are inherently less intelligent than white people, but rather due to the centuries of racism and oppression in this country, not everyone is apparently able to understand the same for women and misogyny in the U.S.).

Why do you have to bust on Second Lofe and Girls Gone Wild? There are some poor guys out there who would never experience carnal knowledge without them. Why do you want to deny them their poontang? They never did anything to you.

Why does ECB hate women so?

You try waking up at 5 so nervous, already on a diet, forgetting to bring water, you take the bus or carpool to the Obama event, you hope you can get in at 8:45 am for the 9:00 am start to get in to a Noon event - and from 9:00 am on no food, little water, you can't bring anything in, it's hot it's crowded you're excited OMG He's HERE! He's RIGHT NEXT TO ME!

(faints)

Quite frankly, ECB, I'm surprised you don't understand this ...

A major newspaper isn't much use to me if it doesn't tell me what other people are thinking, even if what some of them are thinking isn't particularly well-reasoned or eloquent.

Many newspapers published editorials supporting The Bell Curve, a scientific racist text. Straight-faced defenses of intelligent design and creationism appear on op-ed pages as well.

Look. Many, many people have beliefs that you can't stand. You're better off understanding them, and you'll make yourself sick if you have a fit every time you're given the information you need in order to understand them.

Why can't we have a Room of One's Own, where women can be separate, and not subject to the feelings and presuppositions that society lays upon one?

Then we can not care what men think of women - and deal with our own issues.

I don't do any of those things, but your point is solid. Everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.

Ohh, didn't catch the XBOX. That's a little extreme, Erica.

"After two tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps Reserve, Steven Vickerman tried to resume a normal life at home with his wife, but he could not shake a feeling of despair.

"His parents, Richard and Carole Vickerman of Palisades, went to visit him at a veterans hospital after he suffered a mental breakdown; they were in disbelief. The funny and adventurous baby brother had become sullen, withdrawn and full of anxiety. Vickerman, who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, killed himself Feb. 19."

Carole Vickerman told the reporter: "We're still in shock. Our son was a proud Marine. He served his country honorably, and we don't know what happened to him."

@35 I'm convinced that Erica could print a story on a 5 year old being gang raped by meth heads during a sunday school program, and commenters on slog would be like "OMG you shrill harpy she was asking for it why wuz she up there flaunting herself get layed u dyk!!!111"

"I am perfectly willing to admit that I myself am a classic case of female mental deficiencies"

The part I agree with

I can't believe you just linked to a video game webpage to call men superficial.

What, is watching movies silly? Reading books? Watching plays? Oh, video games are a lesser art form, enjoyed only by men? I forgot about that last part; you're right.

Fuck you you stupid cow.

Also, for the hater-haters:

"GET LAYED U DYK!!!111"

Also, how is "espn.com" a waste of time? Sports? Athletic endeavors? What the fuck is wrong with you? If I'm watching a tennis match, I'm usually thinking of ways to incorporate things I see into my games. Try eating meat like everyone else and see that exercise and sport is a good/fun way to stay fit; not a waste of time.

Or on second thought, don't exercise; get fat and die.

@22

And you proved them right by using the "word" 'irregardless', you fucking dolt. Get a browser with a spell checker.

Fuck everyone. But especially Erica.

You know, sometimes people only print things to get a response; You do it all the fucking time (I imagine it's the only reason you're still employed, you get clickthroughs). Maybe the Op-Ed writer (and so many others you've feigned insult from) was doing the same.

Jason-

Fuck you, idiot. As a sports fan myself, there is no way that most people are incorporating it into their games with any degree of seriousness. It's frivolous in the same way most entertainment pursuits are- just because some are considered masculine and some are feminine doesn't mean sports matter more than fashion. And most video games, like most books and movies, are dumb as hell no matter who plays them.

If you really do play tennis, I hope you break your leg, it gets infected, and you have to have it amputated. But I doubt you've ever ran in your life.

No fucking way, this is a joke:

"A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women."

Catch that? "accidents per million miles driven"... its irrelevant that men drive 74% more miles. Math is hard indeed. Did an editor even read this?

Jason Peterson translated:

"I've been rejected by so many women that I hate them now"

Did ECB touch a nerve by ragging on the video games that you play instead of getting laid?

Abby, did I make any value/equality arguments re: sports vs. fashion? No I did not.

They are all equally frivolous. I only take offense at Erica's taking offense at the article, then turning around and committing the same violence against men.

So much hate people! Let's take a chill pill!

@72

No, but you did by only being the 10,000 person incapable of spelling my name.

I don't hate women. I'm not going to defend myself against your argument of "playing videogames instead of getting laid" because it's clearly inane. When you eat breakfast, aren't you "eating breakfast instead of getting laid"?

I got laid this morning, I played videogames this afternoon. I have yet to try to merge the two activities, I will bring up this issue at the next convenient time. You'll be posted on the outcome.

Thanks for your concern.

@71

Mark, apparently the woman who wrote the article was incapable of understanding the subtleties of the mathematics she tried to use to back up her claims. Fortunately for her, this very failing also backs up her claims.

However, her claims are false. I'm not sure why ECB gets worked up over this. It's clearly a poorly constructed argument that's poorly researched and even more poorly written. The Post often sucks, I'm not sure why this is news.

It's certainly not an excuse for misandry from ECB. At least the original author spelled out her argument over two pages. From Erica all we get is one line of man-hate.

Umm no, Jason, she was merely pointing out how stupid it is to say women are dumb because they sometimes do dumb things, when men also do dumb/frivolous things. Also I think its interesting (cowardly?) how you say things to someone on an internet forum that you would never have the balls to say to their face. That is all

I can't assess the validity of your argument because you've neglected to specify the exact things I've said that would require a higher-than-average amount of ballage to repeat to someone's face.

My issue is not with what Erica said, it's with how she said it. That a supposedly professional writer believes that another supposedly professional writer's writings aren't sufficient argument can be countered with an insufficient argument itself is appalling. Sorry for the recursive embedding; I'm too lazy to fix it.

I'm going to go play video games now. I'll be doing it next to my girlfriend while she reads her erotica/romantic novel.

And yes, I'll fess up. I get touchy when people call video games pointless, for the same reason Erica gets touchy when people call botox pointless.

I guess two of this type of personality don't mix well.

Ugh. You people make me sick.

Only Erica could garner nearly 80 comments on a Sunday.

Well, yes.

But that's because ECB doesn't promote proper argument on SLOG.

ECB appeals to tribalism and promotes pigfighting.

I've never seen two pigs fighting!

By now you've all figured it out: Ms. B would likely even run that one responder's 4th grade papers if they provoked the kind of response this story did. That's surely one of the reasons the Post ran it and one of the reasons EB linked to it, adding her usual garbage to stoke the fires ("shit" and "fuck: are listed on the first page of the Stranger Style Book under: "Words to use when you're too lazy or untalanted to think of anything else."). Do provocative columns like that work? Look what it has done for EB's hit counter.

Untalented

Actually, FF, provocative columns make you think.

ECB's column demands you instinctively take sides and dig in.

Uh-huh, Jason. Your desire to have ECB "get fat and die" was all because you were sticking up for the poor, persecuted people whose interests were being unfairly maligned by her. Really. You're a hero.

I think the problem with this article is not that it calls women hysterical, superficial etc. It's that it implies that they are hysterical and superficial BECAUSE they are women-- and let's face it, there are a lot of hysterical and superficial (and warmongering, and unintelligent and... well you get the point) men as well. This is just a miscorrelation of Women=dumb.

That's a valid critique, SD.

However, agreement always cuts the conversation short.

If we can't argue around the fundamental truth, how can we keep a thread going for 90 posts?

Erica,

Thanks for posting this. It's so hard to get men to understand that women are still oppressed, even in the littlest ways, and even by our own. It reminds me of the beauty pagents in the 1950's where women were asked what they should do when they graduate college, and they all said "get married and have children". (not that it's a bad choice to do that mind you...)

We need to point out how much this thinking hurts not only women, but men too. And all women need to stand up and point out how men are the same, just in a different way.

For example when men say things like "oh women just care about celebrity gossip, it's so inane" I always say "oh really? because I bet you follow sports stars with the same intensity, if not worse! How many points did XXX player have last season?"

We are all the same. We are human. We care about different inane shit, we are all sentimental to some degree, we are all ridiculous to some degree. We have a frontal lobe, so yeah, we're like that. Look at all the art we have, created by men and women. All frivilous and silly. But we love it. Nuff said.

Men are visual. They obsess about what they see. Women are the same way with hearing. They obsess about what they hear. Many men know how to talk to a woman to get what they want. A piece of what they see.

nothing men do is a waste of time. it is all very important work.

With friends like these (the author), who needs enemies? Seriously, if a man were writing this we'd all be appalled at how misogynistic he is, yet because it's a woman she can get away with calling women stupid? I don't buy Celine Dion CD's or swoon and faint over presidential candidates, but that doesn't mean that I attribute every single dumb thing one particular woman does to the entire sex! The type of woman who writes this shit is the same one who will block abortion because "it's for her own good." Because she apparently is so superior she knows better. Get over yourself.

And Erica took a whole bunch of other dumb stuff and attributed it to "men".

And where one can see her making her point through sarcasm, a whole bunch of people are going to see it as an attack, and that's what always gets us off and running.

At least it usually seems that way.

I wonder if a lot of commenters aren't just conditioned to see every post of Erica's as an attack on them personally, rather than a challenge of someone else's views.

Ring the bell, set out the meat. Same response every time.

@78 The proposition "Women are stupid because women do frivolous things and men don't" can, in fact, be refuted by saying, "Actually, men do do frivolous things." Erica is not arguing that men are more stupid or more frivolous; she is simply refuting that position.

Similarly, I don't think she's offended by the suggestion that some things women do are frivolous as much as by the claim that women are stupid.

None of this has anything to do with hating men.

@80 and @93 win.

Who is this Erica woman and why is everyone hating on her??? I mean what that other woman wrote was garbage and you'd think a major newspaper would have standards.

Men have two advantages over women that give us our edge: Porn and Masturbation.

Now, some women are down with the P&M. This is why you see some women at the top of their professions. Meg Whitman, CEO of Ebay, cums seven times a day. Hillary has a bigger porn collection than the Vatican. Martha Stewart carefully handcrafts donkey sex tapes.

If women want to fill the holes in the ranks of women at the top, they need to pay more attention to the holes down under.