Interlude

I know that I promised to post on the subject of labor and health care -- but there's something I have to get off my chest first. I am a perennial watcher of the Daily Show, as I hope we all are, and while I love the show, and have Jon Stewart on my list of "The 5 People I'd Most Like to Meet" (other contenders, in case they're reading: Anthony Lane, Bill Clinton, and two that I refuse to identify because of my deep fear of commitment) -- well, I've noticed a little problem. To whit: there are almost never female guests on the Daily Show.

Certainly, Stewart is drawing from the population of those who write books and columns about politics, and women don't seem to be very heavily represented in those circles. I hate that, of course, as should every right thinking person; and I hope that Stewart hates it, too. But what the hell is up with that? Why do women think they can't opine on things? And, let's be clear, it's just the opining -- there are plenty of female reporters, and they have, many of them, legendary status. Think of Silvia Poggioli, and swoon. Think of Judy Miller, and barf a little.

But go watch, for example, Bill Maher's HBO show "Real Time". He does better than most at getting female guests on a regular basis -- but never more than one woman at a time on his weekly three-person panel. And when there is a woman, she is always, regardless of her political affiliation, seated in the middle, between the two men. Apparently, we never graduate from the boy-girl seating that we had forced upon us in the first grade.

In the American Prospect the other day, this question (women in politics, not seating charts) got a full treatment (the piece is problematic but worth reading) -- complete with the wisdom of Maureen Dowd, who predictably enough thinks that this entire effect can be attributed to the fact that women are shy about their opinions because they're too concerned with being liked. Coming from her that makes sense, because her columns reek of exactly that concern. The most offensive thing about the fact that the Times has one regular woman op-ed columnist isn't that there's only one -- it's that the one is Maureen Dowd. If you're going to have one woman columnist, why does it have to be someone who constantly backs off her words by being "funny"? And the "funny" is in quotes because she isn't even that -- she routinely structures her column around a pun (famously, the lowest form of humor) and then works that pun redundantly for the first two paragraphs, and extends it further into the body of the piece. Yuck, yuck, yuck. No wonder she, and everyone else, thinks women are scared to hold forth on politics -- she's demonstrating precisely that concern in every column.

Of course, I am a) a woman, and b) a woman who likes to be funny; but ask around, and you'll find out that I am also c) a woman who is quite happy to be hated. Frankly, I have no idea why women aren't better represented in political analysis in this country, nor does anyone else. The reasons are, I'm sure, all the things you'd expect, but as to the recipe -- that's anyone's guess. But so what? If, as the American Prospect suggests, the issue is that women just don't get in the game enough, then my answer is: Here I am! Given the current state of misinformation and sheer ignorance flourishing among the male punditry, I really don't see how I can go very wrong. So, can I go on the Daily Show now??


Just as an aside: there was a British study earlier this year demonstrating that men are not attracted to funny women. Aside from explaining my entire life, this study also indicates that Maureen Dowd is probably using the wrong strategy in her whole "please like me" effort.