Charlotte Allen hosted a Q&A on the Washington Post website today to respond to the reactions to her inflammatory opinion piece asserting women are dumb. Read the transcript here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/03/04/DI2008030402153.html

I managed to get three of my questions in, although I do feel they were given short shrift by Allen:

Washington: You write that you doubt women’s representation in such fields as law (the Supreme Court) and medicine (brain surgeons) will rise much in the 21st century. However more women than men currently are graduating from law school and medical school. Could you please comment on this apparent contradiction?

Charlotte Allen: That’s absolutely true, but the proportion of women at the highest levels of these fields is going to remain relatively small, I predict.

 

Washington: Do you believe caring for children, men and the weak is something that should be valued less in society? I ask because you seem to imply that they are tasks only fit for the dim, and unworthy of an intelligent mind. What do you think about men who are caregivers?

Charlotte Allen: Quite the opposite: I think that caring for children, men, and the weak are the most important things that can be done. It’s women who have devalued them by mocking stay-at-home mothers, etc.

 

Washington: Were you trying to start a constructive debate with your opinion piece? Do you think that’s happened? I think by concluding that women are “dumb” because of real sex differences that exist just pisses people off, and thus precludes any real debate on this issue—and it’s something I think should be explored openly. Name-calling doesn’t get us anywhere.

Charlotte Allen: I called no names, but to be quite honest, I wasn’t trying to start a debate, constructive or otherwise. I was just expressing my views.

Read a rebuttal to Allen’s piece that was posted on the WP website here.

I have to admit I’m starting to wonder if Allen’s opinion piece doesn’t actually signify something good after all. In Allen’s Q&A session she argued that men are lampooned all the time as idiotic oafs but women are off-limits, unfairly so. I don’t know if I completely agree with that (surely it’s not hard to think of instances in which popular culture makes fun of women), but it’s certainly much more mainstream acceptable to poke fun at those who have power in society (i.e. men). Maybe the fact that a media powerhouse such as the Washington Post would publish a “humor” piece that pokes fun at women means that women have truly risen above their historically weaker status in society–both institutionally and socially. Maybe this is an important turning point, rather than the display of crass cattiness I first thought.

Or, you know, at least in addition to.