As US readers all know—unless you’ve been living under a rock—the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton is getting married this weekend, and even non-tabloid news outlets have been in a hot and sweaty lather about the prospect. How much do the flowers cost? Who made her gown? Is the Clintons’ security detail ruining some other bride’s Big Day? The media pile-on is especially ironic because Chelsea, the only child of two of the most recognizable and relentless over-achievers in American history, deliberately chose not to follow in her parents footsteps. She got an excellent education, built a solid career and seems to have created a happy, low-key life that’s not especially different from the lives of many other privileged young career women. So why the hell is America hyperventilating like her wedding is our new national reality show?

The Washington Post‘s Robin Givhan wrote:

Yes, her parents have talked about how excited they are about her impending nuptials. They have spoken about how emotional the day will be. Surely we are not so crass as to take parental pride as an invitation to snoop? Oh wait — we are.

This despite the fact that Chelsea Clinton has repeatedly refused to court the limelight herself, unlike, say, Jenna Bush, who managed to parlay a brief stint of do-gooding in Central America into a book deal and national publicity campaign. Or Bristol Palin, who turned the lemon of unplanned teen pregnancy into lucrative spokeswoman lemonade—thanks to pro-abstinence speaking gigs and a cable-drama guest spot—and then used the cover of US Weekly to tell her presidential wannabe mama that she was finally marrying her baby daddy. By contrast, Chelsea Clinton’s sole foray into the spotlight was to campaign with her mother in 2008, and even then, she was not exactly garrulous in public, preferring to introduce her mom, shake some hands and then fade into the background. I’m sure she could have used her family’s huge social capital to run for office or be a socialite/philanthropist—as Caroline Kennedy has done—but she didn’t. Chelsea Clinton went to school, got a job, kept her head down and worked her butt off. For that, I sincerely respect her.

Unfortunately, the media, perennially in the thrall of the Wedding Industrial Complex, simply cannot leave this discreet, hard-working woman alone. This week People magazine even has an article—cross-posted to CNN.com—about Marc Mezvinsky, entitled “Five Things To Know About Chelsea’s Fiance,” as though people are not only interested, but have the right to know about him. Poor guy. The article’s obviously what’s known in the magazine world as a “write-around”, meaning the subject didn’t co-operate in any way, so they just recycled a bunch of public knowledge for the sake of attracting eyeballs. Granted, Mezvinksy’s not a total stranger to the public eye—his mother was a well-known Congresswoman and his father earned notoriety after he went to prison for fraud. Still, I doubt Mezvinksy ever envisioned CNN posting an article about “getting to know him.” Because really, he’s just a young Wall Streeter, one of a gazillion perfectly nice but undistinguished young banking dudes in New York who marry equally accomplished young women. Now, though, he’s become worthy of the 24-hour news cycle, and I honestly feel a bit sorry for him.

As if the endless hyperventilating about the cost of the wedding and the dress and the flowers and the traffic in Rhinebeck weren’t enough, a fair amount of ink has been spilled—especially in New York press—over the fact that Mezvinsky is Jewish and Clinton is Methodist (hey, just like my parents!). It’s a bit offensive that their religion is considered worthy of nosy speculation. The People article says that “there’s no word if Chelsea’s converting yet” but noted that she had attended a Yom Kippur service with her fiance last year, implying that people of one religion can’t possibly attend a holiday ceremony of another religion unless they’re considering switching teams. I think it’s pretty safe to say that if Chelsea hasn’t converted already in order to have a Jewish wedding, she likely won’t do it at all…not that her religion is anyone’s goddamn business anyway.

So what dubious cultural lesson can we take away from this media feeding frenzy? Givhan explains:

If there is anything particularly noteworthy about Clinton—and this is a sad reflection on our pop-culture universe —it’s that as the child of two public and controversial parents, she seems well-adjusted, intelligent and pleasant. Yet, here we are doing everything possible to transform her wedding into a media circus that only Bethenny, Bristol or a host of bridezillas could appreciate.

This is how our culture rewards decorum.

It’s also proof positive that our culture simply refuses to believe that privacy is worthwhile and desirable. Or that any young woman could squander her potential for media “stardom” by preferring an unremarkable life of education and hard work over the cheap lure of narcissism and fame-whoring.

Mazel tov, Chelsea and Marc. I hope you get to go right back to being inconspicuous, and soon.

Porn FAIL.

A girlfriend recently brought a stack of supposedly cute’n'funny books as a gift for a bridal shower I attended.  One of them was Porn for Women, whose jacket read:

Prepare to enter a fantasy world. A world where clothes get folded just so and delicious dinners await. Give the fairer sex what they really want beautiful PG photos of hunky men cooking, listening, asking for directions, accompanied by steamy captions: “I love a clean house!” or “As long as I have two legs to walk on, you’ll never take out the trash.” Now this is porn that will leave women begging for more!

Give me a fucking break. Even with tongue planted firmly in cheek, this is a dismal, dated, patronizing, heteronormative sight-gag that reinforces the same tired gender roles it pokes fun at. Ooh, a man’s folding laundry! It’s so hot and crazy! Tee hee! And even worse…there’s a whole series of these books.

Look, there’s obviously no shortage of porn that caters to male sexual fantasies. Hell, there’s so much of it that I get to write lots of posts blaming porn for all kinds of sweeping negative cultural trends. I truly believe there should be more porn for women. We deserve quality wank material that portrays a woman-centered sexual experience. But this isn’t even sexual for fuck’s sake! Yeah, yeah, I know that’s what’s supposed to be the joke, but come on…it’s funny that women get excited when a man acts like a responsible adult? Puh-lease. They must think we have some seriously low standards.

Porn for Women also reinforces the chauvinist vision of women’s sexual arousal as silly and not even physical. Newsflash: Women have the same horny, sweaty, bodily-fluid-producing carnal desires as men. We want to get off, just like men. And just like men, we have wild, hot, nasty fantasy lives that porn should cater to—real porn, featuring real people having real sex. But instead, the makers of Porn For Women claims to understand that for women “sometimes a clean kitchen is hotter than a shower scene.”

Well, it ain’t. Granted, this was just a stupid book given as a gift at a wedding shower, it’s yet another irritating example of commercial crap that reinforces stereotypes that help no one—men or women. We don’t need it, even as a joke.

Guanabee’s Cindy Casares nails Tom Horne’s illogical bigotry in an awesome obscenity-filled post about Horne’s appearance on Anderson Cooper:

Tom’s delusional argument boils down to this: We shouldn’t teach students “the downer” that they are oppressed. Why is it that this argument is always used by white men? Tom goes on to quote testimony from one student who declared, “Before I took this [ethnic studies] course, I didn’t realize I was oppressed. Now I realize I’m oppressed.” And this would be called self-actualization? Empowerment? Not in Tom Horne’s Arizona! It’s a downer.

Yeah, too much knowledge makes you sad, particularly the knowledge that you’re the victim of discrimination and oppression. What I find particularly impressive is the bullshit way Tom Horne frames the bill as a service to Latinos. Ignorance is bliss! Tom doesn’t want people to know they’re oppressed—because he doesn’t want them to feel bad about it!  What a racist paternalist pinche cabrón thoughtful gentleman!

The arguments against ethnic studies don’t really pass the smell test, though:

Judy Burns, president of the governing board of the Tucson schools, said the district’s ethnic studies courses did not violate any of the provisions of the new law and would be continued because they were valuable to the students.

“From everything I’ve seen, they empower kids to take charge of their own destiny, gain a sense of the value of their own existence and become more determined to be well-educated contributing members of society,” Ms. Burns said.

But Tom Horne wouldn’t know that:

Mr. Arce and Ms. Burns said that they had repeatedly invited Mr. Horne to visit the ethnic studies classes, but that he had declined the invitations.

“We wish he’d come see it, so he’d know what we do, and not just go on hearsay,” Ms. Burns said.

Mr. Horne acknowledged that he had never sat in on a class, but said he did not believe that what he would see would be representative of what regularly took place.

Even though he has never so much as set foot in a classroom to observe an ethnic studies class, Tom Horne takes the classic approach: he’s the Pendejo White Man in Charge, and his prejudices are therefore obviously right. All the other people—even those with the first-hand knowledge he lacks—must be wrong.

What “regularly took place” in these classroom?

Sean Arce, director of Tucson’s Mexican-American studies department, said the ethnic studies courses do teach students about the marginalization of different groups in the United States through history.

“They don’t teach resentment or hostility, in any way, shape or form,” Mr. Arce said. “Instead, they build cultural bridges of understanding, and teach the skills students need to understand history.”

Furthermore, Mr. Arce said, the ethnic studies courses have been highly effective in reducing students’ dropout rates and increasing their college matriculation well above the national average for Latino students.

Right. There’s no actual problem here, except the overactive, bigoted imaginations of Tom Horne and his fellow comemierdas concerned citizens.

Of course, what really scares Tom Horne, and others like him, is that the “downer” proof of bigotry and exploitation might make his Latino neighbors not sad, but empowered. They might insist that The Man respect their humanity. They might protest racism, go to college, make money, and become upwardly mobile. And in a couple decades when Latinos are the ethnic majority, Tom Horne and his capullos neighbors might not be able to cash in on his white privilege and Anglo name anymore! That version of the American Dream makes The Man wake up in a cold sweat…in his 5-bedroom house that was built, cleaned and maintained by the very people he despises. ¡Que ironía!

The ban would apply to the full-body veil known as the burqa or niqab. This is not an article of clothing — it is a mask, a mask worn at all times, making identification or participation in economic and social life virtually impossible.

Except that women wearing the niqab and the burqa participate fully in economic and social life every single day, in France and elsewhere. It in no way prevents them from interacting with people or going about their business…unless someone is discriminating against them.

This face covering poses a serious safety problem at a time when security cameras play an important role in the protection of public order. An armed robbery recently committed in the Paris suburbs by criminals dressed in burqas provided an unfortunate confirmation of this fact. As a mayor, I cannot guarantee the protection of the residents for whom I am responsible if masked people are allowed to run about.

Masked people! Allowed to run about! WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN????

This public safety argument is patently alarmist and ridiculous. France is hardly overrun with burqa-wearing criminals, and even if criminals might wear burqas as disguises, that’s no reason to ban all burqas. I’m sure in France criminals also wear hoodies, ski-masks or stockings pulled over their heads to disguise themselves, and yet no one proposes a ban on those.

The visibility of the face in the public sphere has always been a public safety requirement. It was so obvious that until now it did not need to be enshrined in law.

It’s a public safety requirement has never been imposed before, or on non-Muslim French. But now that there are some Muslims around—who just don’t get how obvious it is—the French need to enshrine it so they have a legal pretext for forcing their customs on Muslim immigrants…in the  name of safety, of course.

But the increase in women wearing the niqab, like that of the ski mask favored by criminals, changes that. We must therefore adjust our law, without waiting for the phenomenon to spread.

So I assume he’s banning ski-masks? Because he just totally made the argument to ban ski masks AND implied women in niqabs might be criminals….in the same fucking sentence!  Oh, and France must do it now, without waiting for the phenomenon to spread. It’s important to deprive citizens of their civil rights now instead of waiting for a legal basis for doing so! When white men start talking about the need for pre-emptive strikes, you know nothing good will follow.

Individual liberty is vital, but individuals, like communities, must accept compromises that are indispensable to living together, in the name of certain principles that are essential to the common good.

It’s not a compromise if a group of people is being forced to give up something and getting nothing in exchange. That’s a sacrifice. Copé expects French Muslims to willingly sacrifice their civil rights in the name of certain principles that are essential to the common good. He’s tellingly silent about what exactly those principles are, or what constitutes the common good. The fact that he can’t offer up a single specific example of how Muslim women would benefit from the ban means it’s not a compromise at all, nor is he thinking of the good of those women or their community. It’s simply the majority’s need for conformity being forced on the minority.

But here’s the part where I totally blew my top. Boldface mine:

How can you establish a relationship with a person who, by hiding a smile or a glance — those universal signs of our common humanity — refuses to exist in the eyes of others?

Finally, in both France and the United States, we recognize that individual liberties cannot exist without individual responsibilities. This acknowledgment is the basis of all our political rights. We are free as long as we are responsible individuals who can be held accountable for our actions before our peers. But the niqab and burqa represent a refusal to exist as a person in the eyes of others. The person who wears one is no longer identifiable; she is a shadow among others, lacking individuality, avoiding responsibility.

Wow. Just wow. According to this French elected official, a woman in a burqa is not a human being. Because the white man can’t see her face, she ceases to exist. If he can’t gaze upon her to his satisfaction, according to his own cultural standards, she has no individuality, no rights, no responsibilities. She becomes a non-person to him. How fucking wrong is that?

I mean, really, I don’t know how you can recover making a statement that blatantly wrong-headed. But he tries:

From this standpoint, banning the veil in the street is aimed at no particular religion and stigmatizes no particular community.

Except the one it’s aimed at: the French Muslim community.

What makes this obvious bigotry even more appalling to me is that Copé is the son of an Ashkenazi Jewish father and an Algerian Jewish mother. Belonging to more than one minority group—groups with very rocky histories in France—doesn’t seem to have given him even a smidge of tolerance or compassion for other despised minorities.

Indeed, French Muslim leaders have noted that the Koran does not instruct women to cover their faces, while in Tunisia and Turkey, it is forbidden in public buildings; it is even prohibited during the pilgrimage to Mecca. Muslims are the first to suffer from the confusions engendered by this practice, which is a blow against the dignity of women.

Muslims are the first to suffer from the confusions? How fucking patronizing is that? The French authorities are only banning Muslim dress so those poor silly Muslims won’t cause any confusion to their neighbors! As opposed to educating the neighbors about tolerance and Muslim custom, of course. And in the same breath, he actually says that this paternalistic, condescending bullshit actually upholds the dignity of women?

Through a legal ban, French parliamentarians want to uphold a principle that should apply to all: the visibility of the face in the public sphere, which is essential to our security and is a condition for living together. A few extremists are contesting this obvious fact by using our democratic liberties as an instrument against democracy. We have to tell them no.

I think I know who the extremist is here: the elected official who uses democracy as a pretext to insult, patronize and even dehumanize the fellow citizens whose customs and religion are different from his own.

I’m going to go farther than “tell them no.” Jean-François Copé, I’m telling you: ferme ta geuele.

Nuala Cabral – Walking Home – a great piece on street harassment, highly recommended.

Staceyann Chin – Am I a Feminist, or a Womanist?

Amalia Ortiz – Some Days

Wanda Sykes – Detachable Vaginas

Dear Harpies,

I am writing because I have had to recently re-enter the dating world after a few years of reprieve, and I am not too happy with what I am seeing.  I feel an obligation to be polite to men that would seek my company, even if they are being too pushy for my liking.  If I am out dancing with my friends, and a guys asks me to dance, I usually will say yes, but I have also found it necessary as of late to also say, “I will dance with you, but please don’t try to grab me.”  (Which doesn’t always work.)

Last night I had the pleasure of receiving too much attention from two rather persistent dirtbags.  At the beginning of the night they seemed nice, seemed to mean well, and I didn’t want to offend either of them, so I agreed to dance with them (this wasn’t simultaneous, danced with one, then the other approached, danced with him).  Cut to end of night as I am politely declining an invitation home, politely declining to give out my number, explaining that my ex-boyfriend is also at the club and that I do not want to offend him, and basically very firmly but politely saying NO, NO, NO.  I guess the politeness means, “I don’t really mean no, please keep harassing me.”  In the end, I had to be the bitch.  I had to basically say fuck off.  And it pissed me off.  I shouldn’t have to be a bitch.  I should be able to say “thanks, but no thanks,” and have that be the end of it.  I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ASK MY EX-BOYFRIEND TO ESCORT ME OUTSIDE TO A CAB.

I mean, it’s hard enough for us to try to be social together (we have many many common friends, and it’s been four months so we are trying to make this platonic thing work), let alone when I have to use him to police would-be suitors (or harassers, as it were).  Anyway, just a rant, and an inquiry as to if other harpies have encountered this.  Is it impossible to be polite when it comes to rejecting advances?  Should I not even try to save the boys’ egos anymore, should I just go straight to bitch?  Why don’t men fucking listen when ladies talk?

-Bitchy in Boston *

Why don’t men fucking listen when ladies talk?

Ahhh…that is a question for the ages, and one which we—and probably all of you, too—spend an inordinate amount of time fuming over. The short answer is: Men don’t listen because we live in a patriarchial world and the Patriarchy has always taught that men’s opinions/wants/needs are more important than ours. You can apply that universal truth to many, many experiences, including why some dudes are grabby assholes in dance clubs. I think any woman who’s spent any time in a dance club or bar will have had the same experience you’re describing; it’s a common hazard at places where there’s a lot of free-flowing alcohol and testosterone.

But on to your question: Is it impossible to be polite when it comes to rejecting advances?

No, it is not impossible. But sometimes the only effective rejection is an impolite one, and you shouldn’t feel bad if you have to resort to it.

My rule is to reject politely but unequivocally the first time: No, thank you. I’m good/I don’t want to dance/I’d rather not give you my number. For most men, this will be sufficient. Most men are decent people and dislike rejection. They aren’t inclined to pursue someone who’s said she’s not interested. If a man gets grabby while dancing, I just give him the bitch face and move away. If he persists, I walk off the dance floor. He can’t grab me if I’m not there.

I’ll be less polite the second time: No, I’m not going to dance/drink that/give you my phone number. This is accompanied by a cold, hard stare.

If he persists, it’s time to Be A Bitch. At this point, you’ve made it clear—not once, but twice—that his attentions are not welcome. And he has not respected your No. That is a bad, bad sign. You are under no further obligation to be nice—in fact, being a bitch may be necessary for your own safety.

Try this, and feel free to yell: I said no twice already! Did you hear me? Now back the fuck off! Don’t touch me! Get away from me!

You may remember that my Be A Bitch posts started when I had A Very Disturbing Conversation with a friend who was being groped in a most unwelcome way by a guy she was dating, but she didn’t want to smack him or to tell him to get the fuck away because she was worried he’d think she was a bitch. She just couldn’t bring herself to be impolite, even though she was being sexually assaulted. Fuck that. Unwelcome advances—especially physical ones—are when it’s most important to be a bitch.

Most guys will back off before you have get out the Bitchzooka, but the ones who don’t are the ones who require the Bitchzooka. In fact, you’re doing Womanity a service by unleashing it, because I can guarantee if the dude is bothering/pressuring/pawing/being disgusting to you, he’s done it to plenty of other women, and maybe—just maybe—the Bitchzooka will make him think twice before doing it again. And if he grabs you and won’t let go, or paws your breasts or your crotch, it’s entirely appropriate to scream bloody murder, slap, punch, shove or knee him in the groin.

Being a bitch may deter dirtbags enough that you won’t have to rely on your ex to defend you, but having someone walk you to a cab or your car is still a good idea. Bouncers will often do this. Or you can go with a group of girlfriends and make a pact to arrive and leave together. The most important thing is to be safe, so if your instincts tell you a guy is trouble—even after you’ve been a bitch to him—don’t take any chances.

* I have to say, this letter reminded me of one of my favorite Flight of the Conchords songs: “Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor.”

For future reference: THESE are Nazis.

Listen up, folks. I’m hereby banning any and all Nazi-Hitler-Holocaust references with regard to health care reform, progressivism, conservatism, Tea Party-ism etc. If you are an American and you are not discussing, teaching, or studying early 20th century European history, STFU about Nazis and the Holocaust. Right now.

That means you, Laura Ingraham, reading the famous anti-Nazi poem “First they came…” at a conservative rally on the Mall.

That means you, crazy-ass lady, waving a picture of President Obama as Hitler at a town hall debate and calling health care “a Nazi policy”–and to a gay Jewish congressman, no less (who then totally pwned your crazy ass).

That means you, Glenn Beck, with your bizarre Nazi fetish and penchant for injecting Nazi-era art and video into every rant about whomever you disagree with.

And yes, that also means you, my fellow left-wingers, who refer to Tea Partiers and Southern conservatives as Nazis. You may not agree with their politics–hell, I don’t agree with their politics–but Nazis they ain’t.

Whatever interesting times we may be living through right now, however much we may disagree with–or even hate–the opposition, there is no genocide or evil dictatorship or World War going on here. Get a fucking grip and find another metaphor, okay?

No. You don't. Via atomicjeep @ Flickr

Dear Corporate Food-Like-Substance Manufacturing Overlords,

I’ve been seeing this commercial of yours a lot lately–it seems to be in heavy rotation on TLC and Bravo (Lady Channels, for ladies!)–and I feel the need to write and ask if you realized a few simple facts.

1.  80 calories is not sufficient for a grown-ass woman’s lunch or dinner.  Or anybody’s lunch or dinner.  One will become very ill, very quickly, if limited to 80 calories per meal.  No, I’m not a medical doctor, but I don’t have my head up my ass, so I feel pretty safe making that assertion.

2.  Fat is a nutrient.  You need it to live.  Many vitamins are fat-soluble can only be absorbed and used by the body if you consume some amount of fat.

3.  Women deserve to derive pleasure from food.  Not guilty, “oooh, so decadent!” pleasure that you then have to excuse or disavow to keep your dainty lady cred, but “my stars this is tasty, full stop” pleasure.  You seem able to manage this for your manly soup varieties.

If you’re trying to sell your product, you might consider not treating your customer like a hideous monster whose shameful need for actual food must be managed by the painfully self-conscious consumption of your chemically engineered slop.  If you aren’t actually in the business of selling self-loathing and misery, you might consider hiding your contempt for your customer a little better.

Fuck you very much,

PhDork

P.S.  Soup does not have a gender.

Just say no, ladies. Via ghistil @ Flickr.

I fucking hate the bouquet toss.

I was ranting about this to MamaSharper just the other day, in anticipation of  an upcoming wedding where I’m on bridesmaid duty. Don’t get me wrong–I’m delighted for the bride and honored to be asked; we’ve been friends ever since we met in 9th grade gym. But it looks like it’s going to be a very traditional bridesmaid gig, including the matching picked-from-a-catalog bridesmaid dresses. Y’all know how I love those.

But if there’s one thing I hate more than bridesmaid dresses, it’s the bouquet toss. Bridesmaid dresses are just unflattering. The bouquet toss is an undignified, paternalistic, sexist spectacle. Nothing that reinforces the “desperate single woman” stereotype more than ladies leaping like wide-receivers for an overpriced, slightly wilted bunch of flowers because of what those flowers represent: OMG, I’M GONNA GET MARRIEEEEED SOON!

I’ve heard anecdotally there’s a tacky garter toss tradition for men–where the groom removes the bride’s garter and throws it to single men–but frankly, I have never seen it at any wedding I’ve been to, whereas the bouquet toss is ubiquitous. If you search “bouquet toss” on YouTube, you’ll find dozens of cringe-inducing videos of women in frenzied, squee-ing, rugby-like scrums, often set to “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”. It’s fucking embarrassing.

The bouquet toss seems to be a uniquely American tradition; a poll of my non-American friends report the bouquet being unsentimentally discarded (Salvadoran, Bolivian, German) or saved to be placed on a war memorial (Russian, English, Australian) or a relative’s grave (Korean, Chinese). They seem a little mystified by the traditional American launching of the flowers at single women. A French friend sniffed that “It looks vulgar. And humiliating.”  Bingo.

Still, the bouquet toss seems to be stubbornly stuck to our culture like a wad of toilet paper on an unsuspecting heel–even in my own family. When my sister had a traditional Southern church wedding in 2003, she insisted on throwing her bouquet, even though it was a tiny, family-only wedding, with exactly five unmarried females present: me, my other sister, my 50-year old aunt, and the two flower girls, ages 5 and 7. My sister, aunt and I stayed seated–visibly snarling at the few relatives who urged us to line up for the catch–and let the bride pitch the damn thing to the flower girls.

I’m kind of hoping that my high school friend won’t do the bouquet toss at all. If she does, I plan to recreate the scene from “Sex and the City” where the women watch the bouquet arcing in their direction and let it fall–splat!–at their feet, after which they head off to have another drink and hook up with some hot groomsmen. I have my misgivings about that series, but that moment was pure gold for me.

A few years ago, I was a bridesmaid at a different wedding–where we wore whatever we wanted, hooray!–and instead of tossing the bouquet, the bride announced she’d be giving it to the lady in the room who had been married the longest. I thought that was a great compromise; the flowers went to her 80-something great-aunt, who was tickled to death. If a bride simply must do something with the flowers, that seems infinitely preferable to lobbing them at other women.

Got any alternative uses for a bridal bouquet? Dry it? Play volleyball with it? Make fancy compost? Please share!

I'm glad I saved this image from the last time I posted about Audrey Irvine.

When last I wrote about Audrey Irvine, author of the erstwhile CNN column “Relationship Rants”, she was blaming everyone from Beyonce to the US Census for the fact that no one respects unmarried relationships anymore (her outrage started when a random skeevy guy hit on her and didn’t seem to care when she told him “I have a boyfriend”). For its sheer lack of logic, crappy writing and the negative messages it sent to women, I dubbed her essay, “A Boyfriend is No Defense from Being Hit On“, the most Ridonkulous Op-Ed of 2009. It’s still early in the year, but I think Audrey’s already written a real contender for 2010. This time she’s outraged that no one respects married relationships either! And she’s got something completely fucking ridonkulous to say about it! The essay’s entitled “Dear Married Men: Keep Your Distance” and…well…let’s strap on the barf bag and take a look:

Audrey tees up her rant by telling how one of her friends posted a Facebook status saying: “Maybe it’s just me, but I am extremely uncomfortable with any married man calling me “just to say hi.” Not good! Respect your wife!” This, and subsequent musings on married men socializing with single women led Audrey to conclude:

Drama is exactly what you get when a married man tries to befriend a single woman without mentioning his wife, much less an introduction. With that said, I’m declaring it is almost impossible for a married man to be friends with a single women if she doesn’t know the wife.

Well, if Audrey declares it, it must be so! Never mind that most women have plenty of platonic or business relationships with married men without a speck of drama (even if they don’t know their wives!). Yes, we sometimes cross paths with skeevy married men men who hit on single women (and married women, too). Thing is, when you meet these skeevsters, their motives are usually pretty transparent. It’s easy to simply avoid them, or give them the brush-off. But not Audrey. Just like last time, Audrey can’t encourage women to simply say “go away” to the skeevy guys. Instead, because there are skeevy guys out there, Audrey thinks every man and woman everywhere must change their behavior! To wit:

…my advice to married men is simple: You are married and cannot enjoy some of the same luxuries as single people. That includes befriending single women under the guise of business ventures without introducing your wife.

Does this mean a man’s wife has to accompany him to every business or social event? Audrey seems to think married women should expect to be dragged everywhere on some kind of cockblocking duty. Not only is this completely ridiculous–do you think they might have something more useful to do with their time?–but it’s also completely unnecessary: the vast majority of married men are perfectly capable of engaging in conversation or business relationships without being unfaithful.

There’s a whiff of real anti-male sexism at work here: OMG, all men are hound dogs!  If his wife isn’t there, he’s going to try to fuck you! as well as the usual anti-female “woman as temptress” sexism: Don’t talk to my man, bitch! Cuz he’s gonna want to fuck you and that’s YOUR fault!

What I found almost as amusing as Audrey’s muddled brain-droppings is that most of the commenters on CNN–not usually a thoughtful crowd–think Audrey’s as full of shit as I do, and called her on it. A quick sampling:

Did CNN pay for this article? Frankly it looks like something written at the last minute by an author desparate for something before a deadline. Utter trash.

Frankly, this is how all of Audrey’s articles read to me. Her writing is as bad–or worse–than her message. One reader managed to cut through the shitty writing to get the only decent take-away message in this mess:

I agree with the message of this article, but I disagree with how it’s been cleverly hidden behind the subtle “don’t sleep with my man” message. Yes… single ladies…if it feels icky, than it probably is – so walk away. But I am personally insulted by the insinuation that my married men friends are out to sleep with me and further more that because I am friends with married men – I am putting your marriage at risk. Ladies (married ones) if you don’t trust your man to hang out with a female friend – then you’ve got bigger problems in the marriage that need addressing.

Well, yes. And given this article and her previous one about the importance of everyone respecting the territorial rights of boyfriends, I do wonder why Audrey seems to want everyone to walk around with “I BELONG TO [INSERT NAME HERE]” badges on their chests. Bad past experiences, maybe?

Unfortunately–as further painful proof of how ridonkulous Audrey’s writing is–I even found myself mostly agreeing with the “men’s rights” dude who wrote:

What a moronic article. Just another self-righteous woman getting off on bashing men. I am a happily married man and a darned good husband and father. I talk to single women all the time because they are PEOPLE. Most men DO keep it in their pants and don’t necessarily want to hop in bed with every woman they meet. It’s time men started standing up for themselves and started dealing with the sexism and prejudice that is being dumped on them these days. (ed: Oh noes! Think of the menz!!) Audrey Irivne, you are nothing but another angry sexist intolerant bandwagon jumper looking to satisfy your own ego.

That’s Audrey Irvine for you…so deeply wrong-headed about male-female relationships that she makes a feminist find common cause with a male chauvinist. Now if only she’d just rest on those laurels and spare us any further “insights.”