Damn she's good

Maureen Dowd has an excellent column on how powerful women in this country need to be shamed and tamed before we can accept them. To wit:

Arabs put their women in veils. We put ours in the stocks.

Every culture has its own way of tamping down female power, be it sexual, political or financial. Americans like to see women who wear the pants be beaten up and humiliated. Afterward, in a gratifying redemption ritual, people like to see the battered women be rewarded.

That's how Hilary Swank won two Oscars. That's how Hillary Clinton won a Senate seat and a presidential front-runner spot. And that's how Martha Stewart won her own reality TV show and became a half-billion dollars richer while she was in prison.