Double Standard

If someone read you the first two sentences of Maureen Dowd's column on the nomination of Harriet Miers,you might think you were listening to talk radio. ( I would link you to the column but The New York Times now requires a subscription for access to their columnists.

"I hope President Bush doesn't have any more office wives tucked away in the White House.

There are only so many supremely powerful jobs to give to women who are not qualified to get them."

My problem with Dowd's column isn't that she has issues or concerns with Harriet Miers , Condeleeza Rice or Karen Hughes; my problem is that Dowd uses a rationale and logic that pitifully stereotypes women and is about as anti-feminist a column that I have read in a long time.

To read Dowd, you would think that loyal,hardworking women are  actually love-sick cheerleaders pining away because of their unrequited love for George W. Bush.

If these three women are the only people in the Bush administration that work that hard, or are that loyal, then maybe that would be a fair depiction.

But there are men who are as loyal and who work as hard as these women. What are their sexual motivations?

Not only does Dowd insinuate that a woman would only be hard-working if she somehow was in love with her boss, it also depicts these women as "less-then"  real women ( real women being those who are either married, a size 4 ,or who have achieved work-balance so that they never put their work ahead of their personal lives)

Dowd describes both Condeleeza Rice and Harriet Miers as workaholic bachelorettes.  Bachelorettes? Does Dowd describes herself, as a bachelorette?

Technically, these women are bachelorettes  since they are not and have never been married, but if you go by Merriam Webster's definition, a bachelorette is a term for young, unmarried women.  By most standards neither Rice nor Miers would be considered young.

More important, please explain what their marital status has to do with their ability to do their job? 

Since Ms.Hughes is married, Dowd opted to diss her femininity by focusing on Hughes height--she's six feet tall. Dowd describes her as a 6 foot Texan. Making her sound more like a cowboy than a diplomat.

Please explain what her height has to do with anything to do with anything other than genetics

It is so disappointing to read a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist fall right into the anti-feminist trap that the only motivation that a woman  could possibly have to to devote herself to her career is unrequited love.

Criticize these loyalist on the facts. Evaluate them the same as you would do a male nominee. If, in Dowd's opinion this is just the latest of 20 nominees who are not qualified,say that.

But to single out the women gives the impression that the men being appointed in the Bush administration are somehow qualified. Is that what you intended me to takeaway from this column?

Focusing on "their love" for George Bush is insulting to them and insulting to every woman who has tried to advance her career without sleeping her way to the top.

Who would have thought that Dowd would be the ultimate anti-feminist?