The Kinsey Response

Admitting you're wrong in print?! Not testosteronic at all. MK just moved up in my Boys II Men roster (don't think you'll ever hear me reference that group again). Almost the entire column is below:

When the New York Times anointed Maureen Dowd as a columnist nine years ago, I gave her some terrible advice. I said, "You've got to write boy stuff. The future of NATO, campaign spending reform. Throw weights. Otherwise, they won't take you seriously." (...) Dowd wisely ignored me and proceeded to reinvent the political column as a comedy of manners and a running commentary on the psychopathologies of power. It is the first real innovation in this tired literary form since Walter Lippmann. (...) Dowd is different, and she is the most influential columnist of our time. (...) Did it have to be a girl? Or could a boy have built an op-ed career out of feelings and motives and all that ick? (...) In the op-ed controversy, talk of innate differences between men and women is not merely permissible, it is the very justification offered by some women (and deeply resented by others) for demanding more women's bylines. Dowd declares a girlish reluctance to be mean, which she says she overcame, but she urges her sisters to play the boys' game with the boys. The linguist Deborah Tannen (...) says women shouldn't have to adapt to the peacocky political culture created by men; the culture should learn from and adapt to women. Meanwhile Dahlia Lithwick, writing in Slate, observes that this discussion has been all-girls so far, and she demands that the boys jump right in. This is a terrifying invitation. Even the most testosteronic male commentator might be excused for deciding that developments in Uzbekistan really require his insights this week. (...) there cannot be many places where "diversity" is less a euphemism for reverse discrimination and more a common-sense business requirement than on a newspaper op-ed page. Diversity of voices, experiences and sensibilities is not about fairness to writers. It is about serving up a good meal for readers. Sure, it's possible that a man might have come up with the Maureen Dowd formula (...) but (...) diversity in the traditional categories of ethnicity and gender is a sensible, efficient shortcut. Everyone involved should be trying harder, including me.