The XX Factor: What women really think.

Lady Hack

At the risk of dignifying the inane with more indignation than it's worth, did the Washington Post really run, as one of its main weekend Outlook pieces, an essay whose sole point is to argue that women are dumb? The writer, Charlotte Allen, describes a friend's plot for a novel called Office of Women, "in which nothing ever gets done and everyone spends the day talking about Botox." She ends by urging women just to relax and "not mind the fact that way down deep, we are ... kind of dim." In between those brilliant bookends isn't any sort of serious discussion of the research on sex differences, just unfunny stereotypes by the shovelful. I'm not surprised that Allen would write this kind of drivel. But I'd like to be surprised that the Post (which owns Slate) would prominently publish it. Can anyone seriously imagine Outlook headlining the stupidity of Latinos or evangelical Christians or chimpanzees, for that matter, in this callow, unsupported way? Will there ever be a time in which feminism-bashing women won't enjoy lower publication standards ? I'm all for provocative—bring it on. But this essay does that word a disservice.

UPDATE: John Pomfret, the editor of Outlook, says Allen's essay was a joke. Right, that sorry editor excuse. The only problem is that the essay is so not funny.