Saturday, May 22, 2010

Others weigh in on Elena Kagan

Maureen Dowd is right on about this -- see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/opinion/19dowd.html -- and so is Nikki Stern -- http://open.salon.com/blog/1womansvu/2010/05/17/an_unmarried_woman

Dowd says Kagan's IQ may have detracted from her social life (ya think?): "It’s a disturbing echo of those Harvard Business School students who said on “60 Minutes” a few years ago that they had hid the fact that they went to Harvard from guys they met because it was the kiss of death with men who were threatened by more successful women. “The H-bomb,” they called it."

The comments on Stern's essay are telling. My favorite:  "Maybe if these high-powered and ambitious career women had the spousal equivalent of a wife (the man behind the woman) to do for them what
full-time political wives do for their husbands, that is EVERYTHING, then they could find the time to get married and have children while maintaining their careers."

Dowd also says Michelle Obama oughta fix Kagan up with some smart guys in DC. Yeah, right.

I advise Elena to hire a housekeeper and adopt a couple of cats and call it a day. But then I am somewhat soured on the dating world at the moment. Maybe next week.

Friday, May 14, 2010

more on being the smartest girl in the room

One of the great loves of my life told me years ago, "Look, I slave away all day in a highly competitive environment. When I come home I don't want to match wits with somebody like you — I want to drink a Bud and watch Laverne and Shirley." The TV reference should give you some idea as to how long ago this was.

My friend eventually married a much-younger woman who, while certainly bright, was no competition for him. Not much of a challenge, either. He wanted a nice housewife who would raise his children and support his career, and that's what he got.

This has become a sad pattern, I'm sorry to say. I meet a man who's clever enough for me, who gets my jokes, who's a great companion, and he weighs his options and picks another woman, usually one who's less prickly, easier to get along with, more subservient. Why? Beats me.

It's not necessarily that they're thinner or prettier, either, though that has often been the case. "She's not as funny as you are; she has less of an edge," one old friend told me about his new fiance, "but she's restful." Another of my great unrequited loves, calculating his romantic alternatives, said to me, "But if we became lovers who would I talk to?"

Sometimes I despair, I really do.

So don't be so quick to assume that Elena Kagan is gay. She probably can't get a date to save her life. Men are often afraid of the smartest girl in the room.

The smartest girl in the room

Okay, so Elena Kagan spent today visiting members of Congress and schmoozing nicely so maybe they will vote to confirm her nomination to the Supreme Court. 

Meanwhile various otherwise-reputable publications are speculating about her sexuality. They insinuate that because she's, like, 50 and never-married, no children, she must be a lesbian.

Oh, give me a fucking break.

I know nothing about Ms. Kagan's sexual preferences, but I can assure you that she suffers from the "smartest girl in the room" stigma no matter which gender she'd want to date, assuming she had any time, which she doesn't. 

See, here's the deal: if you're the smartest girl in the room, you get to be the best friend, not the lead. The lead has to be just a teensy bit dumb. As one of Rosie O'Donnell's best characters put it in "Sleepless in Seattle," "The wisecracking dame never gets the guy." 

More on this tomorrow, when maybe I'll be in a better mood.