|
Just curious about what others think. I caught a few minutes of her interview with Charlie Rose about her book, "Are Men Really Necessary?" and was not thrilled with the comments she made about feminism, the nature of her column topics, etc. (for instance, when Charlie Rose claimed that she "knew" her last few columns were going to incite provocative discussions about gender roles, actually calling those discussions, presumably among women, "cat-fights," and her response was, among other stupid things, "cat-fights are good business.") I realize that in mass media, and even Rose has lost credibility with me as he has been absorbed into the substanceless propaganda machine of the deeply misogynist MSM, we can't always expect successful women who may be feminists to get fair treatment about their perspectives on feminism from an interviewer; maybe Dowd has come to expect to get screwed whenever she mentions feminism in an interview and has started being, er, coy and sarcastic about it. I don't know. The impression that I got was that she was playing dumb, being passive aggressive and not doing the best job of representing the ideas in her work by copping out like that. I confess, if there's one thing I hate more than women who claim they aren't feminists, it's women who are, and won't admit it, for fear of "threatening" a male fan-base or readership, which was my impression of what she was doing there. (I also hate it when anyone, male, female, transgendered, plays dumb. Hate that. Respecting yourself and your ideas, especially when it comes to an expensive book you've written, is more important than whether someone tries to make you look stupid, or even if they succeed. Your intelligent listeners will "get it," you know? Be a grown-up.)
So, basically, I was disappointed in what I saw of her commentary about herself in which she mentioned feminism. Really disappointed. Then it occurred to me--has she ever claimed to be a feminist? Do others think of her that way? Googling produced mixed results, so I thought I'd ask proud, self-proclaimed feminists around here for their opinions.
|