This is a comment by Quadruple A on the post “Men in the Margins“.
“She frequently seems to thread together flimsy interpretations with unreliable sources into a definitive proclamation on her subject’s character.”
This seems to a problem with much of academic or highbrow criticism in the U.S. The method of feminist criticism is often speculative. That’s not to say that there isn’t room for speculation in academia and within a feminist discourse where there is a need to establish what is going on between men and women and nobody really knows what is going on then speculation and abstruse thinking is necessary even. But feminists often don’t seem to realize that they are engaging in speculation because they make very ‘definitive proclamations’ more often relying on the implicit belief that women are more deeply intuitive than men and therefor do not need to think critically.
“It’s come to the point where some feminists are defensive of the expression ‘rigor’ because that sounds too masculine. I think Dowd’s calling you a ‘boy’ has more to do with a certain style and bravado of a certain breed of post-feminists (it’s a broad term) than a general pattern among feminist thinkers though it reflects a defensive tendency of devaluing men rather than finding ways to promote women.”
Photo credit: Flickr / AngelsWings
Here is an interesting article that explores Dowd’s not easily pigeon-holed relationship to feminism.
“Dowd often asks for her chastisement, refusing to fit anyone’s model of how we should talk about men and women..””
http://www.salon.com/2005/11/08/dowd_6/