Poshdeluxe

i read this highly thought-provoking article in the times yesterday, “what’s a modern girl to do?” from maureen dowd’s upcoming book, are men necessary: when sexes collide. it is WELL WORTH yr time to read this… but if you are just super busy pants, here are a few excerpts…

[p.s. let me know what you think... i lurve talking about
feminism/sexuality/gender issues. and boys, i especially want to hear
yr responses]

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I thought [my mother] was just being Old World, like my favorite jade, Dorothy Parker, when she wrote:

By the time you swear you’re his,

One of you is lying.

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My mom gave me three essential books on the subject of men. The first,
when I was 13, was “On Becoming a Woman.” The second, when I was 21,
was “365 Ways to Cook Hamburger.” The third, when I was 25, was “How to
Catch and Hold a Man,” by Yvonne Antelle. (”Keep thinking of yourself
as a soft, mysterious cat.. . .Men are fascinated by bright, shiny
objects, by lots of curls, lots of hair on the head . . . by bows,
ribbons, ruffles and bright colors.. . .Sarcasm is dangerous. Avoid it
altogether.”)

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Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and the author of “Creating a Life:
Professional Women and the Quest for Children,” a book published in
2002, conducted a survey and found that 55 percent of 35-year-old
career women were childless. And among corporate executives who earn
$100,000 or more, she said, 49 percent of the women did not have
children, compared with only 19 percent of the men.

***************

Female sexuality has been a confusing corkscrew path, not a serene
progressive arc. We had decades of Victorian prudery, when women were
not supposed to like sex. Then we had the pill and zipless encounters,
when women were supposed to have the same animalistic drive as men.
Then it was discovered - shock, horror! - that men and women are not
alike in their desires. But zipless morphed into hookups, and the more
one-night stands the girls on “Sex and the City” had, the grumpier they
got.

***************

It was naïve and misguided for the early feminists to tendentiously
demonize Barbie and Cosmo girl, to disdain such female proclivities as
shopping, applying makeup and hunting for sexy shoes and cute
boyfriends and to prognosticate a world where men and women dressed
alike and worked alike in navy suits and were equal in every way.

But
it is equally naïve and misguided for young women now to fritter away
all their time shopping for boudoirish clothes and text-messaging about
guys while they disdainfully ignore gender politics and the seismic
shifts on the Supreme Court that will affect women’s rights for a
generation.