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Women Aren't Dumb, Charlotte Allen, You Are

12-13-2004.Charlotte_Allen_bw.GVS1GF6O8.1.jpg
self-loathing troll, Charlotte Allen

We're shocked the Washington Post even ran this drivel.

What is it about us women? Why do we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental? Take a look at the New York Times bestseller list. At the top of the paperback nonfiction chart and pitched to an exclusively female readership is Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love." ...

I swear no man watches "Grey's Anatomy" unless his girlfriend forces him to. No man bakes cookies for his dog. No man feels blue and takes off work to spend the day in bed with a copy of "The Friday Night Knitting Club." No man contracts nebulous diseases whose existence is disputed by many if not all doctors, such as Morgellons (where you feel bugs crawling around under your skin). At least no man I know. Of course, not all women do these things, either -- although enough do to make one wonder whether there isn't some genetic aspect of the female brain, something evolutionarily connected to the fact that we live longer than men or go through childbirth, that turns the pre-frontal cortex into Cream of Wheat...

So I don't understand why more women don't relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home. (Even I, who inherited my interior-decorating skills from my Bronx Irish paternal grandmother, whose idea of upgrading the living-room sofa was to throw a blanket over it, can make a house a home.) Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim

Men do lots of dumb shit too, Ms. Allen. They watch sports, read FHM, and start preemptive wars. We concede that you're an idiot, Charlotte, but we won't blame that on your gender. Did we mention you look like a troll who lives beneath a bridge?

Comments

It is clear that Charlotte Allen is in a bit of a personality crisis. Perhaps because she is disgusted by her own personal habits, she is insistent on claiming that all women share these same qualities. My own existence serves as a rebuttal to her verbal sewage that is dripping with disdain. I was born and remain 100 percent female, but I am not much of a romantic at all. There is a difference between gushing and cooing over a romantic gesture and appreciating a gift of dinner on an anniversary, for example. I enjoy classic literature, and novels with philosophical meanings and new points of view such as Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5. Though I don’t read much “chick lit,” as Allen calls it, it couldn’t possibly be that those who prefer such books simply enjoy a happy ending (note the sarcasm). Gender has absolutely nothing to do with it. My sister’s boyfriend of 4 years is what I would consider a man’s man, yet he watches “Grey’s Anatomy” every Thursday because he thinks Catherine Heigl is “hot”. Nonetheless, he watches the show by choice.
Point number 3, I have never met a person (man or woman) who bakes cookies for their dog, unless burning a batch and feeding them to their dog who will eat anything counts.
My father is a retired surgeon, who has witnessed many cases in which men claim to “feel bugs crawling around”. Once again, gender has nothing to do with this psychological symptom. Many of the women I have met in this lifetime are brilliant scholars and a few are pure genius; NOT what I would consider “dim.” And something else? Think about this example: The prefrontal cortex of the brain is considered the neurological basis of our conscience, and those who have a weakened, etc. prefrontal cortex most commonly include criminals, sociopaths, drug addicts, and schizophrenics. Now if 14 out of 14 related male sociopaths in a group have an identical form of a gene “A” on the X chromosome, and the gene “A” causes a slower production of the enzyme MAOA (which breaks down such brain chemicals as serotonin and noradrenaline) ---low amounts of MAOA are linked to aggression--- and men are 10 times more likely to commit violent crimes than women, why on earth is it an acceptable assumption that WOMEN have “cream-of-wheat” prefrontal cortexes? Face the facts, Allen, your entire theory is based on nothing factual. If her compilation of negative “opinions” is based on personal experience, it can be inferred that Ms. Allen hasn’t gotten to know many people very closely. But if this is just a ploy to spark some sort of verbal war something else; congratulations, Charlotte Allen, you’ve managed to make yourself look like a frigid bitch AND an idiot.

'paul' - please elaborate on your choice of words, specifically 'stupid' and 'gutless'.

shut up D, she's ugly. how is making a joke about that sexist? Is it sexist to say Rush Limbaugh is fat? Cause he is.

Charlotte Allen should check out where she gets her research. Her entire argument about men's brain sizes correlating to superior intellect has origins in a racist 19th century "science" called craniometry.

The late Stephen Jay Gould debunked it, and his widow Rhonda Roland Shearer responded to her article on StinkyJournalism.org.

Thank you for defending women against Allen's sexist attack. I was quite disgusted by her whole piece in the Post. However, I argue that it was unnecessary for you to twice use the word "troll" to describe her appearance. Her physical traits should be neither here nor there when discussing what she has written. To comment on such things only perpetuates sexist notions, which I know you were trying to defeat.

wow, what strange comments.

if he's a stupid man, why are you reading his blog?

And some stupid men write gutless diatribes on hipster blogs.

Oh, btw, a former (male) pitcher claims to have Morgellons disease. She was wrong on that one, but spot on target with the rest of the piece.

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