1. Maureen Dowd: Are Men Necessary?

I almost didn't buy this book based on the title. I wasn't paying $30 to read "Men Suck" over the course of 300 pages. I like Maureen Dowd despite the fact that she never has anything nice to say. She is the rare critic offering no one immunity from her acerbic indictments. Which is problematic to some because her allegiances are opaque at best. Who does she like? No one knows. I bought it, for the same reason I buy most books, a fresh perspective.

I consider myself a feminist, despite rejecting most feminist discourse, and had hoped to uncover ideas that might resonate with my own aesthetic. I found that Dowd remains a trenchant observer, her churlishness directed at men and women alike. Her most scathing rebukes directed towards her perceived failures of Feminism and women who have made choices she finds despicable. Page after page she deconstructs woman after woman and the occasional man.

“Maybe there would be more alpha women in the working world if so many of them didn’t marry alpha men and become alpha moms, armed with alpha SUVs, which they drive in an alpha, overcaffeinated manner down the freeway while clutching a venti skim latte. They’re equipped with alpha muscles from daily workouts and alpha tempers from getting in teachers’ faces to propel their precious alpha kids.”

Dowd's a hater. She is righteous in her loathing of Bergdorf Botoxed Blondes and the men who prefer them. Her hate betrays a disappointment that more women are not taking advantage of opportunities created by the Women's Movement and that men are not choosing those that do. Critics of her book, have made it personal, they claim she blames Feminism for her singlehood. I didn't get that at all. I do sense a frustration on her part, but really, how many high-powered women in the public sphere are married?

The Women's Movement, not unlike the Civil Rights Movement, was about creating opportunities where none existed and empowering it's constituents to take advantage. If Feminism is about anything it is about women's choice. Those choices being less and less clear.

The dialogue has shifted and it's no longer a debate between women who work vs. women who don't. It's not just are you playing the game, but how are you playing it?

'Are Men Necessary?' doesn't really make a strong argument for anything in particular, but if you're familiar with Dowd's writing you wouldn't expect that in the first place.