A Last Word on Gender Bias in the Media

By Brigitte L. Nacos
I had promised myself that I wouldn’t write one more word about gender bias in the media—particularly not as it relates to the current race among the remaining contenders for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. But that was before I read the article by Charlotte Allen in this weekend’s Outlook section of the Washington Post that celebrates the superiority of males and the inferiority of females. At first I thought that this nonsense presented under the headline “We scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?” was a rejected proposal for a sketch on “Saturday Night Live.” But since none of the writers of rejected TV-material can be as dumb as the author of this piece, it became clear that this was not meant to be a laughing matter.   
It may not be prudent to recommend that you read the whole article because the more hits it registers the more it may tempt the Post to publish more of the same stuff. Here are but a few excerpts from the piece: 

“Depressing as it is, several of the supposed misogynist myths about female inferiority have been proven true.”
“The theory that women are the dumber sex -- or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents -- is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Men's and women's brains not only look different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting for men's generally bigger body size).”
“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.” 

Charlotte Allen’s wisdom on gender differences also serves a partisan purpose in that, in her view, women—the stupid sex--fall for Senator Obama. As for Senator Clinton, “By all measures, she has run one of the worst -- and, yes, stupidest -- presidential races in recent history, marred by every stereotypical flaw of the female sex.” 

The question here is not how a seemingly educated woman can come up with such idiocy in the 21^st century. Obviously, there are always some particularly dumb outliers.
The real question is, then, why the editors of the Washington Post decided to publish such piece of rubbish and promote it prominently on their web site.

Comments

[Francis L. Holland]

I couldn't believe they had published that crap. It's too simply too antagonistically gender-aroused and stigmatizing for publication by any reputable newspaper. It's basically a reprise of the comments by Harvard's EX, EX president, Lawrence Sommers.

But is the media treating Obama better? If so, whatever happened to the cliché term "frontrunner" that we always pasted on whomever had the most delegates and the most popular votes? It seems that, when the candidates are a Black man and a white woman, NEITHER of them is considered to be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, because the term is too positive to be bestowed on either of them, as far as the white male supremacist media is concerned.

[Tony]

I can't agree with the second post, in that the problems are both a diminished journalistic standard AND a willingness to allow gender stereotyping. In this example, a woman wrote the article, which keeps alive the double standard that members of a group are allowed to denigrate each other, but outsiders are attacked.

[Brigitte]

Yes, Professor Lehman-Wilzig, there is a dilemma in criticizing media content for precisely the reason you give: particularly offensive articles receive even more attention.
That's why I wrote that it was prudent to put a link into my blog. I did it reluctantly trusting that the people who visit my site are sophisticated enough to deal with this.
And, yes, the article appeared in the weekend Outlook print section as well.
Thanks for another thoughtful comment.

[Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig]

The problem here isn't so much gender stereotyping as it is journalistic standards. The WP felt (correctly) that such a piece would increase traffic to its site for being "controversial". Prof. Nacos is correct in severely criticizing the piece but also plays into the hands of such "anti-journalism" because her column merely indirectly feeds the frenzy. This is not a criticism but rather a dilemma: do we criticize a ridiculous opinion even if we know that such critique will add fuel to the fire (or serve the base interests of the publisher)? Hard to say. One question, though: did this piece also appear in the WP print edition? If not, then that's proof that the issue is "linking" -- only on the Net can such outrageousness really work. Shame on the WP...

[StowMom]

Here, here...I couldn't finish the article by Charlotte Allen because it's stupid and crazy and so not true. I know it was in the Outlook section and she's entitled to her opinion but I'm disappointed in the Post for publishing it.