Desperate Columnist

In her new book, Are Men Necessary, Maureen Dowd bemoans the perceived inability of accomplished, professional women to find mates. Apparently men are necessary to Dowd. Otherwise, she wouldn’t object to their lack of desire for her. The real question may be, “Is Dowd necessary to men?” She writes, “While we had assumed that making ourselves more professionally accomplished would make us more fascinating.” That may initially attract a date, but one must be interested in the other person for the attraction to last. Relationships are interactive. Simply trying to be fascinating is a form of egotism. Few want relationships in which their role is to serve as the audience to an ongoing monologue about the other’s accomplishments. I picture Dowd’s ideal man as a guy jumping up and down, waving pompons and cheering, “Way to go, Mo!”

Dowd wrote, “Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection rather than affection,” when referring to updated versions of Cinderella such as Spanglish, Maid in Manhattan and Love Actually as indications that powerful men are only interested in women who have servile occupations. She also cites a University of Michigan study which found that men prefer to marry subordinates and a 2005 British study which reported that the higher a woman’s IQ is, the lower her chances of marrying are. The first flaw in her theory is an over-reliance on movies: Art does not always imitate life. Sometimes, it’s just fantasy. The second flaw is relying on too few studies. Scientific studies often yield conflicting results. Thirdly, in real life, most people marry people with similar backgrounds, education and values. In his column, “Losing the big Mo,” Rich Tucker points out, “My male friends include lawyers, teachers, executives, journalists. Their wives are lawyers, teachers, entrepreneurs and, yes, stay-at-home mothers. Each of the college-educated men I know married a college-educated woman. No one married a servant girl.” Another flaw in Dowd’s theory is she ignores the female side of the equation. Most girls with high IQs go to college and most professional women are college graduates. Often, colleges indoctrinate students with feminist ideas, sometimes to the point of portraying all males as potential abusers and rapists. Women with such ideas are unlikely to relate well to men. In the absence of anti male views, professional success usually requires many hours at work. Therefore, professional women have little time for dating, which makes finding husbands difficult.

Some women are exchanging professional jobs for traditional roles. Dowd quotes one of her friends as saying, “What I find most disturbing about the 1950’s-ication and retrogression of women’s lives is that it has seeped into the corporate and social culture, where it can do real damage.” Feminists believe our top priorities are that women perform traditionally male roles and that both sexes receive equivalent incomes. Surveying the population as a whole demonstrates that men earn more, but fails to take into account that the earnings are based on different jobs. A National Women’s Law Center report states traditionally male occupations such as carpentry, automotive technology and welding pay better than traditionally female occupations such as child care, cosmetology and health care. People have known that for many years. Yet, since 1977 the percentage of females in trade and industrial courses only increased from 14% to 15% according to the federal Office for Civil Rights. Many women are better suited to working with people than to working with mechanical things. Have feminists considered the possibility that most women don’t want traditionally male jobs even when encouraged to consider them? Has it occurred to feminists that women frequently value things such as job satisfaction and flexible hours more than a larger paycheck? According to What Women Want by Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway, most women would forgo a paycheck if they could: Seven out of ten women say they would stay home with their kids if they could afford it. Feminists have spent years trying to convince women that their value as human beings is measured by the size of their paychecks while debasing the occupation of housewife and mother. Instead of pushing women to pursue male occupations and roles, like trying to force square pegs into round holes, feminists should accept women’s choices.

Dowd makes her low esteem for housewives abundantly clear with this comment: “With no power or money or independence, they’ll be mere domestic robots, lasering their legs and waxing their floors – or vice versa – and desperately seeking a new Betty Friedan.” Her dark view of domesticity clashes with history. Women performed the traditional role of mother and wife since Biblical times, yet became disillusioned with the roles dictated by feminism in less than two generations. Women are finally realizing that they should not have to justify the desire for a traditional role. Darla Shine, author of Happy Housewives said, “We are taking back the power. We’re happy. It’s time to admit it and be proud of it.” When I was young, women were taught that staying home and raising families was only done by those who couldn’t succeed in careers. Dowd’s domestic robot image was very much in vogue. Women like Shine do young women a valuable service by creating awareness that the role of housewife and mom is a valid occupation rather than something to apologize for.

Copyright Eva Ellsworth, 11/20/05, all rights reserved