Maureen Dowd writes entire columns about the sweater and shoe choices of political candidates, extrapolating from that her comparative opinion of them.

There. Done.

I am a 27 year old woman and I have been watching the fall of femism since I was ten. I remember when all my friends and I had seventeen magazine and we were reading articles on what boys don't like about girls: greasy foreheads and overly talkative types. I remember being appalled by this at thirteen. I am not an overly educated journalist or anything, in fact, I am a just a bartender in New York City who reads a lot. I am strong, smart, and attractive, and I have often had problems finding a man. Behind the bar men mistake me for a lesbian because I refuse to wear high heels, show cleavage, and apply the usual late night cake of makeup that cosmo recommends. Of course, I'm always told this probably hurts my tips. I am a feminist, I don't hate men I love them, and I know many that only want to be with strong, influential women. I think in Dowd's case that there might be a generational and social factor. As a bartender I deal with many men of my father's generation and I find most of them to be very narrow-minded regardless of their education or social status. My current boyfriend is 26 and he loves that I am independent. He is a great listener, he has the biggest heart, he is an extremely intelligent, creative person, and he loves me in jeans and a t-shirt. We aren't rich, actually we are at the poverty level, but we have great friends and we are happy. I wonder if Dowd would ever date a man that wasn't wealthy. Would she consider someone who is highly educated by life, books, and art and not a university? I know a few men who could challenge her, would she be up for that if he wasn't on her social level?

Ms. Dowd does what she does pretty well. Witness the letters, and what they claim about feminism.

�Much of feminism never made it out of the gate. It has been trumped by the greed of the 80's, and the religious fundamentalism of the 90's and the complete, dispicable dumbing down of the 2000's.�

Nonsense. Much of feminism shot itself in the foot with its failure to live up to its own much-trumpeted principles and its willingness to adopt outright lies in support of the correct positions. Equality? Where are the calls for Equal Reproductive Rights for Men? (Women have all the choice, Men have half the responsbility? That math does not compute). Justice? Ask the victims of Bill Clinton�s sexually predatory behavior how much concern feminism had for justice. Domestic Violence? Prepetrators are men, trying to dominate, victims are angelic women. (When a researcher published a large study that pointed out that roughly half of perpretrators of domestic violence are women�the researcher received death threats) Not to mention the famous, and completely false assertation about the huge increase in wife abuse during the SuperBowl.

�Some women LOVE being the object of men's desire, they just adore getting down on their knees to scrub the floor, suck him off, or polish the bottom of his toilet. Like girls who've been sold into sexual slavery, it's the only life they know. But women who've had many experiences, including success on their own terms see that the vast majority of men need to be on top (in virtually every way) or their smiles turns upside down.�

Words fail me. This sums up much of what killed feminism. One person�s experience (in this case, a female person, hence her experience is not only right, but righteous, since men are by definition banal and evil) allows her to generalize about about another group (the aforementioned banal and evil men). �The personal is political,� indeed.

Andrea Dworkin had horrific experiences with�BAD people. Who happened to be men. From her own experiences, she generalized about men, at great length. In other contexts, this behavior could be labeled racism or prejudice. Yet, because Ms. Dworkin was in a protected (and saintly) class known as �woman,� her work was seen as deeply meaningful and insightful about society at large, rather than being a reflection of her own wounds.

Time and again, feminists are excused for their sexism and bigotry simply because they are women, and by being the correct kind of feminist (liberal, mostly), they could not possibly be making the same kinds of statements which, in a man, would be considered vile and heinous.

Time and again, inconvenient truths have been ignored, dismissed, or denied by feminists, an attitude which has killed any legitimate moral authority that feminism once rightfully claimed.

I have to admit to being infatuated with Maureen. I've been reading the NYT op-ed pages for a couple of years now, and one of the primary drivers was to read the fantastic writing that she pours on to the page.

Men are necessary. Being a member of that demographic allows me to believe this with great conviction. I look forward to reading this book and don't believe that Maureen literally questions the future existence of the coarser gender. I envy the man that will one day force her to recant her existential questioning.

In her review of Maureen Dowd's new book, Rebecca Traister writes: "But look at what Dowd has gotten. Look at this life: the house, the friends, the exes, the job, the Pulitzer, her siblings and nieces and her relationship with her mother. It's such a full, rich life. And that's OK, right? Well? Is it? I don't know, and what 'Are Men Necessary?' tells me is that Dowd doesn't either."

If a man had all these accomplishments to his credit, and remained unmarried, he'd be celebrated as a desirable bachelor, a stud, a sexy glamourous man-about-town who had successfully avoided being "captured" in marriage by a woman. A woman, by contrast, is culturally diminished by her single status; she's considered *less* desirable (despite her apparent ability to attract interesting, high-status men) because she hasn't "hooked" a man in marriage.

I find this double standard troubling. First, because it diminishes single women by assuming something is wrong with them if they chose not to marry, and second, because it diminishes married men by portraying them as less sexy than bed-hopping bachelors. How sad that in the year 2005 we're still mired in such double standards, demeaning to both sexes.