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gnaddrig

Great, now I'm going to have to slowly ease myself into becoming less stupid before I can read anything on this site.

If anyone needs me, I'll be reading the comments on YouTube, then hopefully I'll move on to College Humor or Fark's comments and perhaps (fingers crossed) at this rate I'll be smart enough to return to reading Jezebel by Friday.

Good grief.

Oh No I Di'n't.

raych

Nobody's born a jezebel...

W.

I tried to finish this article but my brain got tired.

La la la. Off to eat a chocolate mmm yummy do I look fat in this though?

(Newsflash, toots: idiots abound everywhere, regardless of gender. And we all know what bad parenting can do to uneducated spoiled little girls [one Ms. Hilton comes to mind]. But that's not due to a frickin biological inferiority! Way to set back feminism 10 years.)

3dsunglasses

Jeez, this is doublespeak worthy of Darrell Huff's classic 'How to Lie with Statistics'. You cannot compare accident rates in terms of accidents per million miles and then try to back it up with "even though men drive more". Using figures of accidents per million miles means that the total amount of driving that any one group does has no relation whatsoever with the "accident rate" given.

Moreover, it's also a goddamn semiattached figure; what does getting into auto accidents have to do with being intelligent or emotional? The JHU study also did not distinguish between accidents that were the fault of the driver and those caused by others or external circumstances, and found that mens' accidents were more likely to be fatal.

What does all this tell us about women? Nothing at all- but it tells us a lot about one specific woman, namely, that either the authoress doesn't understand statistics or understands them all too well and would prefer that others did not.

Frenulum

[web.archive.org]

After reading this piece and seeing the picture above of Mrs Allen, I find her last sentence rather ironic:

"Why does feminism have to mean the triumph of the ugly and the surly?"

sallyd

ma_cherie

belbel

rosasparks

I can't even...

snarkhunting

B. The most challenging and brilliant professors I had in college were women

C. Every single mother proves this shit wrong.

D. As far as my female friends go, they are (all of them) the full package: bread-winning professionals, mothers, wives or partners, worshiped by their partners as sex goddesses and domestic queens while excelling at their professions and/or higher education. They make their houses homes while paying for said home. And I know we are not the exception.

I just feel sorry for her that her life has not been as fulfilling as it could have been and she does not have a partner who cherishes all she is and could have been.

Beets.Go.On

kikichanelconspiracy

Anyway, this is a little exercise I do for perspective, because this is how ridiculous it'd sound if the article were about racism and not sexism.

"Depressing as it is, several of the supposed racist myths about black inferiority have been proven true. Blacks really are worse drivers than whites, for example. A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that blacks clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to whites 5.1, even though whites drive about 74 percent more miles a year than blacks. The only good news was that blacks tended to take fewer driving risks than whites, so their crashes were only a third as likely to be fatal. Those statistics were reinforced by a study released by the University of London in January showing that blacks and mixed-race perform more poorly than whites at tasks involving navigation and spatial awareness, both crucial to good driving."

Nice, Charlotte Allen. Bashing your own validates you not.

Maria_Elena18

Tea Em Gee Eff

Pyrovixen

Sounds like somebody is trying to explain away her own mental short-comings by blaming them on her gender.

I guess I should tell my molecular scientist sister-in-law and wildlife biologist female friend to f*** off and get to making a nice home, seeing as how they're probably so wildly incompetent at their jobs. What, with the having vaginas and all.

Megan is right. I want to poke this woman with pointy objects.

redheadedslut

For god's sake, it's "chic". I can tell you pronounce it incorrectly because you've been kind enough to spell it wrong, you inane twat. Don't use French words if you can't pronounce them: it points out what an asshat you are.

Chic - rhymes with creek, not dick
Clique - rhymes with creek, NOT dick again (which, BTW, is a fun t-shirt slogan)
Foyer - rhymes with boy-yay, not lawyer
Niche - rhymes with leash, not itch

Thus concludes Francais un-zero-un. Merci.

Mellalune

okay12345

pinkerton241

But they are French.

@ineffable.me: "it intimidates men and turns them into spinster cat ladies."

The men turn into spinster cat ladies? I would pay so much money to see that. srsly.

Rooo sez BISH PLZ

ZonzoMaster

whyknot

That_little_attention_whore

That_little_attention_whore

blue03

buggeroff

WaltzingMatilda

westvillagegirl (exhiled in chicago)

mmoskwa

westvillagegirl (exhiled in chicago)

Jenloveshercurves

porterlicious

Another thing I've learned at university about men/women comes from my time browsing juicycampus. Girls would post stuff about someone who had backstabbed them or a guy who was a creep or something. Guys would just post threads full of hateful misogynistic and racist bullshit. The site was DOMINATED by guys. And yet people try to argue that women are the catty, petty gossipmongers. I could hardly find women among the men on that gossip site.

Srsly must write paper now apologies for crazy posts.

jammiriffic

When I was in college I had a professor who sat on the board of the Independent Women's Forum. She taught Gender and Family Politics (we read Danielle Crittenden's "What our Mothers Never Told Us" (essentially: "Surprise! Feminism was a big fat failure, and you should be happy because of it!") and other texts filled with claims about women's irrational, tender-hearted, sconce and tupperware -loving natures.

BTWs, not that I'm trying to hate on women, because I don't condone that...however, my professor happened to have six children while asserting that she was AGAINST CHILDCARE. Not government-funded childcare, but ALL CHILDCARE. Her mother-in-law watched the kids. For free. What a _lucky_ lady.

UGH. Sorry to rant.

femminista

jammiriffic

Apologies if the book club has already been arranged. I'm writing a paper attacking Justice Scalia's dissent on the case that overturned sodomy laws, and my philosophy preceptor will want it on time, so I won't be dredging the comments fully until later.

*stabby stabby stabby*

jammiriffic

the only reasoned part of that article is where she points out that "grey's anatomy" is a steaming pile of dogshit.

thebaxterette

neerajaneerajaneeraja

Anyway, Pamela was as far removed from chicklit as you can get. Stories like this were only liberating, in a way, if they were written by women.

But generally, my head exploded at the sheer stupidity of this woman. Which I guess proves her point. Dammit.

haguenite

topsy

Leave the writing to the 'smart girls,' honey.

kami2000

Ok, this made me laugh out loud. Because nothing says "smarter sex" like a crippling dependency on Clive Cussler.

sarrible

VioletFirth

Cam/ron

VioletFirth

I find these articles so fucking funny. All of those accusations may be true occasionally but I will take dumb-to-catty women over (using the stereotype of a "stupid" man) arrogant, destructive (violent? asshole-y?), obnoxious, loud....with bad hygiene.

And in spite of all those qualities the possessor may wear it all with pride and a repugnant bloated sense of entitlement that makes the nose wrinkle, like the reeking stench of shit.

P.S. Tell me that doesn't describe at least one loud, rude asshole you've encountered in a class, grocery store line, etc. etc. recently. Esp. the "arrogant/unapologetic/smug" part.

But she writes a paper on how WOMEN are stupid. Oh yeah, and there are more women in college, too. Jesus. More men commit violent crime too. But I guess that's not a problem of being "stupid," per se, eh?

marie123

RainbowBrite

treecut...will cut a beech

Just joking: Camron, I hear you, but at one point, the word moron was a technical one, and there was once such a thing as the American Association of the Feeble-Minded. I'm not making an attempt to justify the use of the word retard as an insult, but as prone as we (humans in general, not just the Jezebels) are to using insults, it is possible for something to have migrated so far away from its technical definition into slang. Likeforinstance, with the word moron.

Whatevs. I know it's not PC and some folks are offended, but I also have friends who work with special needs kids and do so very [com]passionately, who don't find it offensive.

I also know that if I offended or hurt someone inadvertently through the use of the word, I'd feel really awful.

buggeroff

meaghan2k

slickhop

onesong

scbelle

topsy

Political Party Girl

Katxyz

SinisterRouge

rosie7

TruculentandUnreliable

Lastly, there was a great scientific movement to "prove" that blacks were dumber than whites, particularly via the sizes of their heads. Many people tried to prove that head size = brain size = intelligence and that blacks have smaller heads - it was used to justify slavery and colonialism, explain the advancements of ancient Egypt, etc. This has since been discredited, but Allen must have missed the memo, since she uses skull size in her argument. But since she's a woman, we shouldn't expect her to be aware of such new scientific advancements.

RainbowBrite

procrastinating...

Cam/ron

I doubt that anything other than "although it wasn't the point of the piece (because it was SATIRE, bitches!), look at how incapable women are when it comes to identifying humor" will come out of this thing. (Am I totally confounding the whole thing?)

WaltzingMatilda

Political Party Girl

sumac

However, I agree that no one would be able to get away with publishing an article in a major national newspaper like the WaPo, even an article intended as satire, talking about how black people are inherently stupider than white people. And I agree that it would be a comparable article, simply on the basis that it would put down one segment of humanity in comparison to another based on stupid, faulty, biased evidence.

It's not that sexism is worse than racism. It's that overt sexism is currently more acceptable in our society than overt racism. Women are supposed to be able to take a "joke" that would be considered unacceptable if it dealt with race instead of gender.

MsDirector

Inkymonkey

HATE HER.

inchworm

ltlbbynthn

oeditrix

Political Party Girl

TruculentandUnreliable

Guess I'm just an emotional, dramatic (and don't forget stupid!) woman. Grr.

lollygagger

WaltzingMatilda

katastic

However, intolerance doesn't usually run on only one type of fuel. You may notice that the author's racism comes out to play along with her female hate. Obama is winning because a bunch of hysterical women think he's dreamy. And she never credit Obama for running a smart campaign. She just thinks Hilary has run a stupid campaign. Because of that vagina problem she has.

topsy

sugarbear11

Women are stupid. I'm not going to lie. But here's a little secret that I want all of you to know: So. are. men. I know. Can you believe it? I know it sounds like a lie, but trust me, it is the truth.

People (men and woman) are all kinds of dumb. Yeah, I'm dumb when it comes to math, because I'm LAZY. But I'm smart with history and philosophy and women's studies and english. I know how to drive and parallel park. I have common sense. Some people (men and women) do not. Some people are book smart, some are street smart, some can fix cars and some can bake like a motherfucker. I don't know what else to say other than that. This woman is a fucking douchenozzle.

But my letter is going to be so full of snark that the reader might die of a snark overdose.

meaghan2k

katastic

TruculentandUnreliable

*I'll admit that the BBC tests are probably as reliable as Wikipedia. I was bored and I wanted to see if I was really a female, but I guess my vagina lied to me.

eraserheadpixies (now representing norwegian xanax and JESUS!1!@#!)

Inkymonkey

katastic

RosePetalPlace

WaltzingMatilda

FourInchHeels

The Paint by Numbers View

TruculentandUnreliable

HotNuttyBrownie

hystericalredhead

topsy

Megan Carpentier

Inkymonkey

There are boys who kill other kids because they "saw something cool and violent on TV and thought it would work," and there are women who kill their children because they are mentally ill or wanted to try to keep a worthless man in their lives.

More women are enrolled in graduate programs than men, and more men fill our prisons. True, there are more male doctors, engineers, and attorneys, but taking part in any of these professions comes only after being involved in a school system that's usually male-oriented, and after being raised by parents and a society who may not have expected as much from their daughters as from their sons.

Even if men and women are different in certain capacities, how do we know which sex is actually wiser? Which sex is more likely to make prudent, informed choices? Which is less likely to be self-destructive or harmful towards others? Which sex is more sympathetic and empathetic, thus showing a greater capacity for using both abstract and emotional intelligence in understanding their fellow human (or even animal)?

Ms. Allen picked some narrow examples of women's "stupidity" to write either a satire or something she genuinely believes. I don't care if she was being honest with her article or not. Any reader who's honest with themselves need only look around at our educational, economic, political, criminal justice, medical care, and entertainment systems or industries to understand that "Grey's Anatomy" (which I have no desire to ever watch) is no stupider than "Walker: Texas Ranger" (again, only good when Conan pulls the "Walker: Texas Ranger" lever). We can also see that fainting at the sight of Obama is no stupider than throwing batteries at sports players or punching your fellow fan in a sports-induced rage. Also, wasn't it a man who stabbed another man while they "intelligently discussed" the Obama/Hillary race?

Bloodshed and violence are no "smarter" or excusable than tears or fainting. They are also no less embarrasing. As far as this silly article by Charlotte Allen goes, I ask why it was even published. It's not surprising when one person is stupid. It's confusing when people agree to publicize that one person's stupidity in the newspaper.

Namennayo

Inkymonkey

katastic

I guess she's too stupid to be taken seriously as a writer.

Also, I am looking into gender reassignment now, because I'm good at math, don't like chick lit, and I work in a smarty profession. I can't knit, and I'm not dreaming of motherhood.

kungfutoday

The Paint by Numbers View

Geminijinx07

CrankyOldBroad

I recently came across Charlotte Allen's screed, "We Swoon, We Scream, How
Dumb Can We Get?" in your paper. What an offensive, ill-supported piece of
tripe. Would you publish an article in which an ethnic group was similarly
insulted? No, because overt racism is not acceptable, but overt misogyny is
clearly fine and dandy. I cannot believe you would publish such a thing. I
hate to even waste energy dissecting such a hateful, useless piece of work,
but Allen's reasoning is faulty ( Hillary Clinton's campaign is 'stupid'
merely because she is losing- God knows no man has ever lost a nomination)
and her examples are anecdotal and nonsensical. Just because you struggle
over calculating a tip, Charlotte, does not mean we all do. What a load of
tripe. If women are so stupid, why do they outperform men at every level of education? The evidence supporting women's intelligence is
insurmountable and easily available, if Ms. Allen would only learn to
Google. I don't care if this article was intended to be tongue-in-cheek; I
don't care if it was intended to be the most meaningless strung-together
babbling since opiates were invented- you have irrevocably lost a reader.
Just because you are absolutely a stupid, stupid woman, Ms. Allen, doesn't
mean we all are. If the Post had any standards at all, you would be out on
your rear-end by the end of the week.

Sincerely,

[katastic]

katastic

Inkymonkey

Keep it clean and intelligent. That is our most powerful weapon against Ms. Allen's drivel.

loveyameanit

Jamie Sommers

And fuck you, WaPo.

RosePetalPlace

katekate is squared

You're not stupid because you're a woman, Charlotte, you're stupid because you're STUPID.

katastic

ineffable.me

Inkymonkey

katastic

@Inkymonkey: I'm married...but I don't have dogs, only cats. And I don't have children...and I hate cleaning house. And I'm more educated than my husband. I'm so confused!

TruculentandUnreliable

Suffice to say, I like puppies and kittens and rainbows.

veraikon

Inkymonkey

katastic

DorothyZbornak

violettefay

georgewroth

katekate is squared

@Political Party Girl: Thank you! I guess it takes heretofore unseen levels of stupidity to get me going in the morning.

Inkymonkey

meaghan2k

katastic

ineffable.me

hahahahaha.

ineffable.me

Or, considering this was at the end of her article, I believe this is her PERSONAL e-mail, if you have anything to say 'to her face': charfleur@aol.com.

katastic

katekate is squared

Inkymonkey

mepo

TruculentandUnreliable

And is it just me, or does Allen's denouncement of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Eat, Pray, Love" says more about the products/shows that are being marketed to women than it says about women themselves?

dirkcalloway

Political Party Girl

meaghan2k

wordy

lemuridae

Once I am done with the Diet Coke, I'm going to try to get rid of coffee, too, at least as a crutch, and think of it as more of a treat.

TruculentandUnreliable

Inkymonkey

katekate is squared

Political Party Girl

C&P-ing it here, for posterity: Dear Post editors:

I'm certain you've printed this piece as a cynical attempt to drive up page traffic and get a spike in readership by serving up the most "controversial" opinion you could find. I'm also certain you will claim this was just an attempt to "start a debate," and not a serious argument.

I'm sure your traffic did go up this weekend, and I'm further sure that this makes you proud of your daring. I hope that comforts you in the coming months, when the many offended readers of this nonsense cancel subscriptions, stop clicking on links to articles on your site, and even picking up the Express to do the Sudoku puzzle.

Print journalism is a dying media - you surely know that better than anyone. Maybe you thought a little burst of negative attention would be worth it. I don't think it will be. All you've done is alienate many people who may have foolishly still had some kind of loyalty to the paper. That means you've just sped up your decline.

You'll doubtless trot out other "provocative" bits of hackery to desperately try to get attention, any attention, in the months and years to come. I won't be here to see them, and nor will many thousands of others.

m_supercomputer

hortense

And that this douchenozzle is welcome to go make my apartment a home, or bake me cookies any day of the week.

Blue Skies, Golden Sunshine

TruculentandUnreliable