Pollitt Sets Things Straight

Last Sunday wasn't a banner day for gender and journalism. The Times gave too much credence to the scientifically-unsupported single-sex theories of Leonard Sax, while the Post did one worse by publishing this monumentally inane opinion piece from professional anti-feminist Charlotte Allen, who argued, in all seriousness, that women are stupid, because their brains are small, and so they should stay home where they belong. Today the Post took a small step toward atonement by publishing a response from Katha Pollit, which you should read. An exerpt:

For Allen, it's definitely the woman: her brain is just too puny. She cannot mentally rotate three-dimensional objects in space -- and that, as we all know, is the very definition of smarts. Funny how that definition keeps changing, as women conquer field after field that was supposed to be beyond them. In the 19th century, physicians insisted women couldn't cope with college: studying would send rushing to their brains the blood that was needed for the womb. Back then, nobody credited women with the superior verbal abilities and memories Allen says scientists now find women to possess.

True to form, she dismisses these as minor talents that only helped her "coast" through school and life. But back when the experts were explaining why women couldn't be lawyers or professors or poets (at least not very good poets), nobody said verbal skills and memory were trivial; they only became trivial when women were found to excel at them. Now the sexists diss women as inferior mental-object-rotators. I have no idea whether this is true, and whether if so it's unchangeable, but you have to admit this is a very narrow scrap of turf on which to plant the flag of manly superiority.

I let my subscription to The Nation lapse a while back, but Pollitt's sharp perspective and clear writing were what I've missed most. Read the whole thing.