Dish It Out, Ladies

[Snowden]

March 13, 2005

OP-ED COLUMNIST Dish It Out, Ladies

By MAUREEN DOWD
ASHINGTON

When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit, giving a kung fu kick to any diabolical mastermind who merits it.

I try not to visualize myself as one of the witches in "Macbeth," sitting off to the side over a double, double toil and trouble, bubbling cauldron, muttering about what is fair or foul in the hurly burly of the royal court.

There's an intense debate going on now about why newspapers have so few female columnists. Out of what will soon be eight Times Op-Ed columnists - nine, counting the public editor - I'm the only woman.

In 1996, after six months on the job, I went to Howell Raines, the editorial page editor, to try to get out of the column. I was a bundle of frayed nerves. I felt as though I were in a "Godfather" movie, shooting and getting shot at. Men enjoy verbal dueling. As a woman, I told Howell, I wanted to be liked - not attacked. He said I could go back to The Metro Section; I decided to give it another try. Bill Safire told me I needed Punzac, Prozac for pundits.

Guys don't appreciate being lectured by a woman. It taps into myths of carping Harpies and hounding Furies, and distaste for nagging by wives and mothers. The word "harridan" derives from the French word "haridelle" - a worn-out horse or nag.

Men take professional criticism more personally when it comes from a woman. When I wrote columns about the Clinton impeachment opéra bouffe, Chris Matthews said that for poor Bill, it must feel as though he had another wife hectoring him.

While a man writing a column taking on the powerful may be seen as authoritative, a woman doing the same thing may be seen as castrating. If a man writes a scathing piece about men in power, it's seen as his job; a woman can be cast as an emasculating man-hater. I'm often asked how I can be so "mean" - a question that Tom Friedman, who writes plenty of tough columns, doesn't get.

Even the metaphors used to describe my column play into the castration theme: my scalpel, my cutting barbs, razor-sharp hatchet, Clinton-skewering and Bush-whacking. "Does she," The L.A. Times's Patt Morrison wondered, "write on a computer or a Ronco Slicer and Dicer?"

In 1998, Bill Clinton made a castration joke about me at a press dinner, as I sank down in my seat. I called Alan Dundes, a renowned folklorist, to ask about it. "Women are supposed to take it, not dish it out," he replied. "If a woman embarrasses a man, he feels inadequate, effeminate. He wants her to go back to the kitchen."

The kerfuffle over female columnists started when Susan Estrich launched a crazed and nasty smear campaign against Michael Kinsley, the L.A. Times editorial page editor, trying to force him to run her humdrum syndicated column.

Given the appalling way she's handled herself, Susan - an acquaintance for many years - is the last person Michael, a friend of mine, should hire. But he should recruit some more talented women to write for him. So should The Times, The Washington Post - which also has only one female columnist - and anyone else who has an obvious gender gap on their op-ed pages.

Gail Collins, the first woman to run The Times's editorial page and the author of a history of American women, told The Post's Howard Kurtz: "There are probably fewer women, in the great cosmic scheme of things, who feel comfortable writing very straight opinion stuff, and they're less comfortable hearing something on the news and batting something out."

There's a lot of evidence of that. Male bloggers predominate, as do male TV shouters. Men I know and men who read The Times write me constantly, asking me to read the opinion pieces they've written. Sometimes they'll e-mail or fax me their thoughts to read right before I have lunch with them. Women hardly ever send their own rants.

There's been a dearth of women writing serious opinion pieces for top news organizations, even as there's been growth in female sex columnists for college newspapers. Going from Tess Harding to Carrie Bradshaw, Dorothy Thompson to Candace Bushnell, is not progress.

This job has not come easily to me. But I have no doubt there are plenty of brilliant women who would bring grace and guts to our nation's op-ed pages, just as, Lawrence Summers notwithstanding, there are plenty of brilliant women out there who are great at math and science. We just need to find and nurture them.


E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/op...13dowd.html?th

[BrianK]

Can't argue with the woman's logic. Her numbers in the profession are real so dispute would not be valid in countering her opinion. Too bad the powers that be can't grasp the idea that input by a variety of sources/minds would add to readership increasing. That is evident here in point/counter point. One only has to look at which topics have generated the most back and forth exchange to realize that when women speak up and express their thoughts a wide range of replies happen.

[cb88]

The irony of this is how cannabilistic the liberals are. Is it not the liberals that champion the causes of the minorities and women? Yet, here their biggest "supporter" in the media can't even put their money where their mouth is.

It has been my long held unresearched theory that liberals are all blow and no go...they want to yell from the mountain tops that they are the champions of the underdog, but when it comes down to it, they are scared to see the underdog win because then they lose their voting base.

[Snowden]

Originally Posted by BrianK

Can't argue with the woman's logic. Her numbers in the profession are real so dispute would not be valid in countering her opinion. Too bad the powers that be can't grasp the idea that input by a variety of sources/minds would add to readership increasing. That is evident here in point/counter point. One only has to look at which topics have generated the most back and forth exchange to realize that when women speak up and express their thoughts a wide range of replies happen.

I can understand the problem she had when she started as a columnist. Her

As a woman, I told Howell, I wanted to be liked - not attacked.

That sentence is me. I can see both sides of most issues and I find the combination of understanding what a person says sometimes causes me to waver in what I think. Even at my age, I still fall into this pattern enough to confuse friends.

One very close friend tells me I am very frustrating in this aspect; that it's good to see both sides, but I need to make a decision which is right and which is wrong. Sometimes they seem equally right or wrong to me and that's not helpful at all!

[BrianK]

Originally Posted by Snowden

I can understand the problem she had when she started as a columnist. Her


That sentence is me. I can see both sides of most issues and I find the combination of understanding what a person says sometimes causes me to waver in what I think. Even at my age, I still fall into this pattern enough to confuse friends.

One very close friend tells me I am very frustrating in this aspect; that it's good to see both sides, but I need to make a decision which is right and which is wrong. Sometimes they seem equally right or wrong to me and that's not helpful at all!

I think what you said is the advantage a woman has. The ability to absorb what is said and think about it. CB's addition/comments shows that to be true. By looking at what the female columnist has written and taking it a step further in applying it to everyday life and her perception of liberal thinking.

My focus was on the words written but you both took it a step further in explaning how it relates to yourselves.

That was the point I was trying to make in my 1st post. Perspectives/attitudes/ thought processes all improve by women adding that much needed other dimension.

As for wavering that is IMO the sign of a healthy mind. One that isn't locked into one train of thought.

[kruser79]

It's interesting, I really don't have the problems she outlined (inability to take criticism from a woman, feelings of inadequacy when confronted by a woman). Now granted, there just aren't that many women in my line of work, so professional friction wouldn't really be "Just around the corner."

I think one of the reasons why, would be the fact that my mother never criticized nor belittled me. She was, and is, always a figure that I could confide in, discuss things with, and over all just talk to.

Never having had a negative female influence (let's not get into ex-wives now, shall we? ), I don't see women as being a threat, and hence, actually listen to what they have to say. The men that tune them out sure miss a lot.

Just look around here. A good portion of the ideas and theories, and just plain common sense come from the ladies that post here (and run some of the stuff around here, lol).

(And I don't think I could be accused of tuning them out simply because of their gender, could I? )

[cb88]

Originally Posted by kruser79

It's interesting, I really don't have the problems she outlined (inability to take criticism from a woman, feelings of inadequacy when confronted by a woman).

I am confronted with this daily. My sales guys don't seem to like to take training, instruction, correction or constructive criticism from a female.

I know what she's talking about...but you can't shove ideals down people's throats, you have to change their perception by doing and example...not by government mandates. It's human nature if you think something is being forced on you to resist it even more.