1. Most "genius" artists are, famously, pretty poor role models for either John or Jane Blow. So the "Frida Kahlo problem" doesn't pass the sniff test that detects author BS.

2. WHAT "no dates for Saturday after Wednesday night" rule?

(And anyway didn't the chicks who wrote "The Rules" all promptly drown/get horribly divorced or something etc?)

3."So the first rule is to use your education with an eye to career goals."

Gee, I hope Ms Hirshman - who, incidentally, generally smuggles MORE snippy rules for women into her writing than most feminazis - isn't claiming originality with this one!

Ms Hirshman is a pretty humorless "follow ME!!feminist" herself. Handle with care!

She's right on. Sadly, this is much-needed advice, and the topic of a book I never finished writing.

And whether it's art or not, too many women go into silly careers, where they'll never make any real money. They don't understand that the only way you can protect yourself (from, for example, having to stay in a bad marriage as a sort of low-rent, unadmitted whore) is by having career, financial, and emotional independence. Because I have my own money, and don't believe in marriage or living with anybody, I never need a man for any reason other than the fact that I'm happier with him than without him. In other words, I have the luxury of having real love in my life. Many (or even most) women don't.

Guys don't have an out like women do: "Oh, if it gets hard in the work world, I'll latch onto some guy, get knocked up, and become a Brentwood housewife." That's why men aren't, for the most part, taking the P.R. jobs that pay nothing that women do. Guys know they have to make something of themselves, and make some money, or they're fucked. They don't take "pretend" jobs -- the kind that will never really go anywhere, the new version of the old Mrs. degree. They're really just like gun buying -- the same old Mrs. degree but with a waiting period.

And regarding the Wednesday/Saturday thing -- that's not just from "The Rules," which, by the way, had some smart points, although I generally refer to it as "How To Erase Your Personality In Order To Trap A Wallet Attached To A Man's Body." What "The Rules" basically was, is a guide for women who have no self-esteem to show them how they can ACT as if they have it, which is likely to have men treat them like they have it. As opposed to acting like doormats with legs, saying yes to anything, whether they want to or not. Having the ability to say no is good -- pretending to be somebody else to trap a husband is bad. Personally, I recommend The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem for women all the time -- because so many women think having a guy is a shortcut to having a you.

As far as my own take on "The Rules," because I have a self, I have the freedom to act as the anti-Rules. For example, I never had a problem with having sex on the first date and such -- but I understood the consequences...which is that guys tend to value you less if you do it. The guy for me wouldn't think that way, and I didn't need a boyfriend badly enough to forgo my natural lusty Jewishgirlness.

Furthermore, the term "feminazi" is silly and makes me hurl.

Amy, I agree 110% with your comment above, both about Hirschmann and about "The Rules."

"Oh, if it gets hard in the work world, I'll latch onto some guy, get knocked up, and become a Brentwood housewife." And this is no guarantee either. Hubby can get laid off or outsourced or sick or plain just decide to trade you in on a newer model. I learned when my parents divorced back in the early 70's that a woman had darn well better be able to take care of herself financially.

I haven't read Hirschmann's book, but from what I've read with the excerpts and interviews with her, I agree with her viewpoint.

Amy,
"Feminazi" makes me want to hurl too. I should have put it in quotes since I simply was echoing Hirshman's specific use of it in the first par of your quote.

"They don't understand that the only way you can protect yourself (from, for example, having to stay in a bad marriage as a sort of low-rent, unadmitted whore) is by having career, financial, and emotional independence".

Don't you have to stand at the back of a long line smugly calling women stuck in bad marriages "low-rent, unadmitted whore[s]"?

You know, behind all the angry guys in bars?

Don't you have to stand at the back of a long line smugly calling women stuck in bad marriages "low-rent, unadmitted whore[s]"?

You know, behind all the angry guys in bars?

The guys are rightfully angry. They could've gotten off much cheaper and easier by hiring a maid, a cook, and a hooker.

And apparently, the long line hasn't gotten through to a whole lot of women. In the past, women didn't really have choices. These days, they do. If they are smart enough to avail themselves of them.

And P.S. If you need a guy because you can't get along financially without him, you don't stay with him simply because you love him, you have to stay with him because you'll be in poverty without him. Dumb to get in that position. And ugly, as far as what relationships can be based on, like love and having fun, and being better with somebody than you are alone. Which is the only kind of relationship I'm interested in. Otherwise, I'm a girl, I can get sex. No biggie. And I have friends to round out my life.

Hirshman's telling women to stop growing up to be helpless. I hope more women listen.

I put it in a different way: becoming a self-rescuing woman. Which doesn't mean I'm not a girly girl when I'm with Gregg. He's got the equipment to be a man, why would I act like a man in my relationship? My favorite thing is the look on waitresses faces when they hear me ask, "Honey, what should I have?" (for dinner). Now, I'm perfectly capable of ordering dinner - been doing it for years. But, Gregg is very good at the food thing, and he always orders better than I do. I got wise a while back -- he'll always pick something better than I will -- and I ask him what I should have. Because I'm a powerful girl, it's fun to give up the power in my relationship (in a sense). And especially when it means I'll ultimately be happier with my dinner.

And yesterday, he had to buy gifts for his brothers and their wives. I made him wait in Barnes and Noble while I picked out the presents for their wives in Nordstroms, and then I found the books for one of his brothers (which he approved), and then just led him to the cashier to pay for them. I'm good at shopping. It makes him, on the other hand, seriously consider looking for a firing squad.

"The guys are rightfully angry. They could've gotten off much cheaper and easier by hiring a maid, a cook, and a hooker."

And which of these three lucky, lucky gals gets to have his kids, Amy?

That's what you often leave outof these aging grrrrlpower rants: the love of the cheap "unadmitted whore(s)" for the kiddiewinks!

> famously, pretty poor
> role models

Role models... Role models, role models. It wasn't until Oprah came on the air in the mid-80s that I realized how batshit women really were about this. Back in the 70's when it was just the silly feminists prattling on about it, it seemed like their own quirk.

The core problem that feminists have with role models is actually the problem that all women have with them. We all agree that the most powerful tool in generating good human character is example. But women often talk as though it's like seasoning that you can sprinkle over a dull cut of beef... You just need to choose between the black pepper and garlic powder.

But young people are watching everything all the time, except when they're not paying attention, and *we don't get to choose.* That's Rule #1, right? The posters of basketball players, actors and guitar players hanging in bedrooms have little to do with who kids actually grow up to be. They learn more about dealing with people by watching the school bus driver every morning.

The damning part is that the women who most want to talk about this seem often to be the worst at actually surrounding their kids with a gallery of admirable people. (Starting all too often with the [divorced, absent] fathers. When a kid doesn't have a loving father in the home, it doesn't matter if the poster is Michael Jordan or Snoop Dog.)

The attraction of Role Model thinking is abject control freakery: It imagines that you can violate Rule #1, and supervise the installation of good nature into a child during scheduled periods, checking off boxes on your clipboard, and reviewing the configuration in verbal, expressive chat sessions that warm the feminine heart.

Many women seem to prefer that approach to the hard, risky work of mating well and holding themselves and others to high expectations, and actually prefer their kids have only dream figures/'role models' to work with. Yet women are indisputably regnant in the realms of the moist and fleshy. This is a paradox that I'll never understand, and for which our Creator will never be forgiven.

These "role model" discussions aren't thoughtful reflections on the transfer of good moral fiber; they're girly gossip.

Over the years I've some amusing Kahlos. She had a gift for making mountain ranges look thigh-ish, calling to mind this passage from Paglia: "... the idea of beauty is a defensive swerve from the ugliness of sex and nature. Female genitals are literally grotesque. That is, they are of the grotto, earth fissures leading to the chthonian cavern of the womb."

Even so, if you said I'd never see another Kahlo, that would OK. But the actress who played her in the movie (which I didn't see and neither did you) has a nice rack, and that ought to count for something.

PS- What you got against "feminazis"? It's funny.

I bet Frida Kahlo was too busy living her extraordinary life to have given a damn what Linda Hirshman thought. Isn't that the point?

Hey, Amy, get back to talking about Iraq, or Crid and I won't argue and we'll agree on everything, and who wants that?
This sounds like a great book for women. It also sounds like great advice for men, for college students in general.

Heh heh...soon enough, Cat, soon enough.

And quite frankly, men would be a hell of a lot happier if women took Hirshman's advice.

P.S. Genitals are, in general, pretty unattractive. They're service items.

(Cat, fear not. See

http://tinyurl.com/y3kopr

from A&LD)

Funnily enough, good careers whatevers have been giving out Hirshman's advice for years (without wrapping it in some fragile point about Frida).

Amy? Calling women "low-rent, unadmitted whore(s)" may let off your grrrrl steam, but it teaches nothing.

It's just sounds vaguely unhinged.

Well, Frida would have been a charity case if not for her rich parents and her well-earning, if difficult husband. And as an English major who just got lucky in a career, I wish someone had given me advice about what useful courses to take in college. But Hirschman just makes work sound dreary--the joy of being a stay-at-home mom is that you're not stuck in a cube farm or doing junk work to expand billable hours.
Watching Sex and the City, I always wondered why the show was so open about the characters' sex lives but so secretive about their earning lives. Did Carrie's column pay %150 a word? How did Samantha's business work, since she seemed to never be in the office? And what kind of law did Miranda practice, anyway?

> "Honey, what should I have?" (for dinner)...

Bad girlfriend! BAD!!!!

The Goddess writes: "Furthermore, the term 'feminazi' is silly and makes me hurl."

Not only that. It's disrespectful. A "nazi" is not an agreeable thing for most people, and for some, it's downright terrifying, not without reason. It's best not to make such casual references to nazis. Rush Limbaugh is the idiot who coined the term, I believe.

The ironic part about this is that Limbaugh's many didiots (on a message board where I participate) took great offense to a poster who shared this link, a creation of Eric Blumrich, calling Rush Limbaugh a Nazi, using Rush Limbaugh's own quotes in carefully arranged snippets. I must say, I'm impressed. It's very well done, if distasteful.

Jody writes:

Amy? Calling women "low-rent, unadmitted whore(s)" may let off your grrrrl steam, but it teaches nothing.

It's just sounds vaguely unhinged.

Well, I could be accused of bias, since I'm an Alkaloid (fan of the Advice Goddess), but I don't believe she called women in general "low-rent, unadmitted whore(s)." I believe she was referring to women who stay in bad marriages because they have no marketable skills or resources to survive in the real world.

Thank you, Patrick. Reading comprehension is, apparently, a lost art.

And, FYI, I don't have a problem in the world with women who work as prostitutes.

Not prostitutes, in and of themselves, but there was one I heard of when I was living in North Carolina. Prostitution was a means to support her drug habit, so she turned out crack baby after crack baby.

I don't believe in capital punishment, but she makes a good argument for it.

Almost midnight here..happy Christmas one and all!

Frida Kahlo's biggest tragedy was not the accident that left her crippled for life. It was the fact that she was lived before the invention of modern electrolysis.

Clearly, Lena wins this round!