I'll never understand this: if someone- ANYONE- were to write a book called "Are Women Necessary?" the title alone would be considered too misogynistic to publish and the author would be branded a hateful jerk. Certainly the author would not be considered worthy of praise or employment as a NY Times editorialist.

Sure, maybe this double-standard might get noted as a curiosity- but why does no one ever seem to seriously think about what it really means? Why are female sexists honored and praised by those who consider themselves to be progressive?

Here's what bugs me the most: If people refuse to take women's sexism seriously, then doesn't that illustrate that women's opinions are not taken seriously by those who claim to support women?

Then DON'T READ THEM. I subscribe to Salon just like you do and I really enjoy these kinds of articles. On the other hand, I could care less about King Kaufman's Sports Daily, but instead of writing letters complaining about him, I just skip those.

Lay off already.

This article and most of the responses approach the questions of gender role from a heterosexual prejudice. The fact that the writers (of this article and most of the letters) are so often oblivious to their heterosexual assumptions is a reflection of the larger issue behind all of this. Culture imprints us with models of how things should be. When we don't follow those models, we're faced with a lack of cultural reinforcement for our choices.

Rebecca writes: "(I'm not sure what particular ailment Roiphe is suggesting Dowd suffers from -- Frigidity? Lesbianism? Narcissism? -- but it's probably not very nice.)"

This parenthetical remark says that Lesbianism is an ailment and that its one of several things that are probably not very nice. Yikes. Surely Rebecca is not really anti-gay -- yet, this wording belies a culturual norm that gay people are all too familiar with.

It would be interesting if the article hit the issues from a broader level, for example: "Is it OK to be single?" The culturual pressure operative here is not simply that women need men, but that people need to be in couples. So much of the mythology of culture revolves around the preeminence of romance. Looking at this from my gay perspective, I think that the pressure to hook up is at least as strong or stronger than the gender pressures.

But we all wrestle with these culturual expectations, right? I don't think the impulse to stick to the culturual party line is malicious. It happens because of an impulse to idealize. But I think it would be an improvement if we found ideals that cut through the culturual baggage to the essentials shared by all kinds of folks.

To some extent the fear of being single has to do with growing old. But the assumption that only your family will care about you when your old is just not true. Or rather -- as gay people have always known -- family doesn't have much to do with marriage or your relatives. Family is made up of friends.

It's great to be provacative with articles like this. But lets move the examination deeper and into a broader look at humanity, which includes men and women of all sexual orientations, and indeed, people of many many oddities.

--Duck

As a male, I cannot but admire Dowd's social and political insights. She is genius. She is a heroine. But you can't have it all, Maureen. Some traits are, just plain and simple, contradictory. Consider Aesop's fox, the one who lost his tail, in the chapter before his story was told. Having no tail made him the Op-Ed page king of his era. But his running swiftly was sacrificed with his bushy rudder sheared at the bone. When we meet up with this fox in Aesop's story, he is telling everybody how wonderful it is to have no tail. And insisting, thus, that everybody should have no tail.

What Dowd misses is that while we can, and should, admire brilliant women, some women prefer, or at least enjoy, running swiftly and with grace and balance. Even if given a choice, they would prefer to be in her lofty position.

Am I saying with this that Maureen Dowd is all head and no tail? Of course not. She is also right in understanding that the current crop of men in America are sub-par, so what's a girl going to do. Hers is acutally the plight of all women. The pity of it all is that there isn't much that can be done. We all get about 75 years on the planet and try to make the best of it. Win the important battles, eat well and, if it comes to it, get your orgasms with pretty women who still do have a tail.

Life could be worse for you, hon.

Since you're giving advice, you should be open to receiving some. As such, you might want to re-read the second paragraph of Spike24's last letter. Apparently, he wants to read such articles in Salon, but, he doesn't think the ones written by Rebecca Traister are insightful or interesting. Can't say I disgree with him.

I'm amazed how many people are writing in on this topic. Doesn't that speak volumes? I think anyone who can be that stimulating, make so much blood flow is onto something titillatingly provocative and oh so topical. Obviously she's got the spot that's making folks hot.

When I hear women complain about the male inability to respect intelligence and power in the opposite sex, I often wonder whether they share the same insecurities about female dominance. Is it possible that "successful" women like Traister and Dowd struggle in their search for a male companion because they are predisposed toward being attracted to men who are taller, older, richer, and stronger? Some will argue this mentality is evolutionary, and others will claim it's societal; but regardless of its origins, I find it to be more common than many of us would like to admit.

In her interview with Benjamin Kunkel about his novel, Indecision, Ms. Traister said, "That assumption, that generally young men are unworthy of their female counterparts, is certainly in your book. I would get hanged for saying it, but there's an uncomfortable truth there." Perhaps these men are worthwhile, contributing members of society, but because they don't occupy a status-level that is, at the very least, akin to that of Ms. Traister, she finds them sexually unappealing.

I've been a long-time believer in the benefits of feminism, and I generally have not wavered. But I've begun to wonder if women have unwittingly rendered men less attractive.