Writing on the Susan Estrich/Micheal Kinsley debacle, Anne Applebaum of the WaPo brings a knife to a catfight. Heather MacDonald made similar points about the perils of tokenism a while back, but let's excerpt Ms. Applebaum:
As for Estrich, I don't know much about her at all, except that she's just launched a conversation that is seriously bad for female columnists and writers. None of the ones I know -- and, yes, I conducted an informal survey -- want to think of themselves as beans to be counted, or as "female journalists" with a special obligation to write about "women's issues." Most of them got where they are by having clear views, knowing their subjects, writing well and learning to ignore the ad hominem attacks that go with the job. But now, thanks to Estrich, every woman who gets her article accepted will have to wonder whether it was her knowledge of Irish politics, her willingness to court controversy or just her gender that won the editor over.
Ms. Dowd grappled with the same issue of women in journalism last Sunday - for anyone who still thinks Ms. Dowd is a useful writer, the comparison to the Applebaum column is striking.
MORE: Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein spanked MoDo, so you don't have to.
UPDATE: Dahlia Lithwick is journalism's answer to Dr. Kevorkian, urging her male colleagues to commit professional suicide:
Claims that no man wants to step on the landmine of political correctness, gender stereotyping, and identity politics should not justify bowing out of the conversation. Maureen Dowd, Deborah Tannen, and Anne Applebaum are smart, serious people. They have taken the time to initiate a conversation. They deserve serious responses from men and women alike.
Uh huh. Earlier in this column Ms. Lithwick explained why they won't:
More likely, [men] are terrified to opine on the debate because the inquiry is so fraught with the possibility of career-terminating levels of politically correct blowback—à la Larry Summers—that they deem it better to hold their tongues and wait for the storm to pass. Imagine a man writing, as Dowd just did, that women want to be "liked" whereas men don't care. I can already smell their scorched Dockers.
I can already smell the warmed-over oatmeal that will be served up by any major male columnist who tackles this subject. Could a man clinging to a job in the MSM say this:
There are probably fewer women, in the great cosmic scheme of things, who feel comfortable writing very straight opinion stuff, and they're less comfortable hearing something on the news and batting something out.
Gail Collins of the NY Times said just that. Check Kevin Drum's trackbacks to see what happened when he said something similar.
Or here, Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler ripped Ms. Franke-Ruta of Tapped, who promptly suggested he was sexist (prompting more mockery - now, why make Bob mad?).
Discuss away, Ms. Lithwick.
STILL MORE: Kevin Drum and I have forged a psychic bond, and which of us finds that to be more troubling? He has a longer response to Ms. Lithwick, with a similar theme.
Affirmative action, to really work, would have to be a two-step process. First extend advantages to underrepresented groups; second, order everyone else in society to forget that it ever happened.
"I do not remember it," said O'Brien.
Alex Whitlock and I had a similar back-and-forth, though on the subject of race rather than gender, last week.
Posted by: sammler | March 17, 2005 at 05:33 AM
OK, that was not a great "Shameless Self-Promotion" effort - Alex Whitlock is great, and an established old-timer (no, I have *no idea* why he is not on my blogroll.
To find Sammler's relatively new and very interesting blog, I actualy had to click on his name (which often leads to an e-mail).
Well, we are going to fix that!
Posted by: TM | March 17, 2005 at 09:58 AM