Word: dowds
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...Harriet Miers represents the Dilemma of the 21st Century Woman, who better to weigh in on the dilemma than Miers’ most caustic critic, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd? In her new book, “Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide,” Dowd grapples with (and documents) the conflicting demands of work, romance, and family, all against the backdrop of a less-than-hospitable cultural climate. As Dowd writes, “Feminism lasted for a nanosecond, but the backlash has lasted 40 years...
...Dowd writes her second full-length book in much the same style as her columns—part musing, part science, part incisive analysis, with short sentences and her signature biting wit. And like her twice-a-week column, “Are Men Necessary?” is intensely personal. She reveals her own anxiety through casual references to her own dating woes and the advice offered by her mother. The first section of the book is dedicated not to the discussion of whether men are “necessary,” but how women are taught...
Despite the pop-culture bent of the book, Dowd avoids the trap of writing in the tone of a half-baked Cosmopolitan column. She artfully weaves together facts, studies, and thoughts from friends and celebrities. She scathingly mocks women who bow to the cult of plastic surgeons, men who cannot admit to themselves that they are intimidated by powerful women, and anything and everything “retro.” Behind the catty banter and constant references to “The Stepford Wives” and “Sex and the City,” Dowd...
Some parts of Dowd’s book might make University President Lawrence H. Summers proud: she accepts that there are innate differences between men and women. Dowd elaborates on the idea that men may not be best-suited for positions of high authority, pointing to “Rummy’s hot flashes” and other Bush administration pettiness as evidence of Y-chromosomal moodiness...
Speaking of the Y chromosome, Dowd smirks, it’s floundering. If modern research is to be trusted, men may soon be as superfluous as an appendix. Dowd uses politics as a lens to examine the evolutionary disadvantages of the Y chromosome, thus getting to the titular topic of her book, even if parenthetically...