Letters to the Editor
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From a feminist who is not a fan of Maureen Dowd
I think that Dowd's book was shoddily written and poorly researched. Ms. Dowd is undeniably attractive and intelligent, so if she can't get married it's probably her decision and her choice. I'm sure she has had plenty of opportunities. But her book was based upon a tissue of anecdotes, pop culture and dubious pseudo-science, and cannot be generalized to the experiences of Jane Average in Topeka.
As for John F. Ross - something tells me he's not exactly beating the young hotties off with a stick. That "Women have an expiration date" attitude is not exactly catnip to the ladies, young or old.
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Apologists for Maureen Dowd unite
Another poster wrote:
Ms. Dowd is undeniably attractive and intelligent, so if she can't get married it's probably her decision and her choice.
Oh, I get it. The only thing that matters to men is that you're hot, and that you're smart. Being an awful person doesn't count. You can be a psychotic monster, but if you have a degree from Barnard, then men are supposed to line up.
Fred Reed is absolutely right. Maureen Dowd is a nightmare. To put it in his words: "The drumbeat of animosity is never missing from her hetero-anguished feminism. Men are vain, frightened, immature, unreliable, treacherous, fascinated by gewgaws, obsessed with sex, and unfaithful. Several questions arise. If men are so bad, why does Maureen want one? What kind of men has she been running around with? Those closely resembling herself, it sounds as if. Most to the point, why would any man want anything to do with such a woman?"
Exactly.
One further thought: If you're a middle-aged man, the surest way to enrage a room filled with middle-aged women is to appear with a date who's in her twenties. They completely freak. She can have won the Nobel Prize for chemistry, spend her spare time helping the homeless, and be the nicest, most fascinating person on earth, but God help you if you explicitly reject someone your own age for someone younger.
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Disagreeable shrew?
Is it just me, or does John Ross define "disagreeable shrew" as any woman who demonstrates an unwillingness to carry his superior seed and raise his brood of upright apes.
Looks like I have something in common with Maureen Dowd.
Hark, is that Mr. Ross' doorbell I hear? I'll bet his new mail-order bride or Realdoll is out there on the stoop.
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so many other things are wrong, but once again....
I find so many things objectionable in Ross's letter, but one thing jumps out to me because it was covered in Broadsheet last week: why is marriage ALWAYS all about children?
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If you think that women DON'T have an expiration date
for some men, do your best not to get any older then 40.
And if you think screening young males for a suitable date who has something (for heaven's sake) on his mind besides sex on the first date, don't try screening their grandfathers!!! They figure they can't wait for a date.
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Mr. Ross needs to chill!
Honestly, I'm a 23 year old college student who would find Mr. Ross's attitude towards Ms. Dowds intolerable. Not only what he said was insulting too all single women (not all of us are looking for older men to get it on with, or even younger men for that matter), but to older women in general. His claim that "women have expiration dates" is an insult if there ever was one.
Grow up and grow some balls, and on the side, some brains Mr. Ross. That attitude is deviant and sexist and your lack of liberal compassion is astounding beyond comprehesion.
Just to let you know I'm not defending Ms. Dowd, quite the contray, I'm just taking down the bully because he deserves it. I know not one other female that would share his attitude in the slightest degree.
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Delusional middle aged men
The middleaged man/ twenty something woman thing is largely a myth, and a very delusional nyth. What 50 something man can just up and decide to date a woman twenty or thirty years younger? What can such a man offer a young woman, who can pick from younger, stronger and more virle men? The obvious answer is money, which says something very distasteful about both the men and the women involved. But the truth is, the overwhelming majority of couples are very close in age. Ridiculous old goats like Donald Trump aren't the rule, but the cringe-inducing exception.
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Scary screeds about Maureen Dowd, written by threatened men
Are you kidding? You're going on a website message board - ANY message board - to find material for an article? I think this may be the lowest point Salon has ever hit. What are you going to do next, cite the morons on myspace? Tribe? When they talk about their annoying fetishes? I can see the banner headline now:
Scary Screeds by Water Sportsters Made Pee-Shy by Maureen Dowd
Boy, Salon has gone downhill...
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I...Am...Man...Must...Spread...Seed
It's usually a cliche to mention "the Middle Ages" when talking about someone's unenlightened point of view, but in the case of Mr. Ross and Maureen Dowd, I think it fits.
Either that, or he's a time traveler, back from the days of King Henry the VIII and men who saw women only as tools to carry on their "legacy" by making more boys.
The examples he gives -- Michael Douglas, Anthony Quinn, and the unnamed secretary-shagging lawyer -- are bad ones, men rich, powerful, and vain enough to date women younger than themselves. (Incidentally, I'm 29, and would much rather be with a 53 year old newspaper columnist than a 30-something actress/cell-phone shill. But that's just me.)
It always seems to me that men like this need to forget that death is on its way; a fertile young woman is the best way hide that. At least King Henry was practical in his courtship technique.
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Rebecca, you didn't (and can't) refute that guy's point.
Feigning incredulity at his "neanderthal" views isn't enough to dismiss them.
He's 100% right: women's fertility has a limit, which is around 30ish, and because Ms. Dowd has swallowed the feminist kool-aid she has ended up childless and alone despite her success as a lightweight columnist at the NYT.
I'm a college student who just turned 20 and my number one priority is marrying and starting a family before the age of 27 (when fertility starts to decline) --- and I plan to do that while aquiring some advanced degrees and a career along the way. I am lucky enough to be part of the next generation, who doesn't care about the silly feminist tripe of the Baby Boomers. I grew up in a liberal East Coast town and still, many of those girls who ended up in elite schools are eager to get married young and have babies. Things are getting more conservative by the minute, and young women are thankfully realizing that careers aren't everything.