Politicians don't like women interviewing them when they come out of the shower.
When the politicians come out of the shower, not the reporters.
Page boys, on the other hand, they're good with.
Maybe it's just good sense. There are plenty of women who have held political positions they could have leveraged to become pundits, but chose not to. My opinion of pundits is generally very low. Of course, the punditocracy won't get better until better people become pundits. But, hard to blame someone for not wanting the headache.
4: That's the same way I feel about politicians.
LB, you are brilliant, and if you get tired of the lawyering gig you'd make a hell of a pundit. Now if only we knew someone who had connections in political journalism....
Somehow, when women's supposed greater 'good sense' than men only shows up in a tendency not to be found in positions of power and prestige, I doubt the explanation. Without some evidence that women are generally more sensible than men, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Which is why I didn't expect anyone to take it seriously. I just wanted to comment on the state of pundits.
Has copy and paste stopped working on this blog for anyone else today? I haven't been able to for several hours now, although it's working fine on my computer everywhere else. But I cant' copy a portion of the post and paste it into this comment box. Which really hampers me. I can only retype so much.
This comment is not off-topic. It's on-topic-- I had a comment to make, but it required copying and pasting a portion of the post.
It's way too easy.
Leftist men have no chests, left females have no breasts. You all agree on most everythang else.
6: Aw, shucks, thanks. The pressures of keeping the mortgage paid and the children fed (my god, how they eat) are going to keep me working in the law for the foreseeable future, though.
Brock: have you restarted your browser? Sometimes Firefox does that to me after a long session, just to be pissy, I guess.
Hey, wasn't abc123 the guy who got banned, back in the day? Is that bannage still current?
Golly, I thought I was banned here.
Progressive-think is more stupid than
1939 ghetto think.
is abc123 some long lost troll? the pseud sounds familiar.
yeah, and by the looks of things, he's still red and off his meds
I was about to ask if this is the return of the fabled abc123, the only person to be seriously asked (and agree) to never return, and if so why it was this post, of all posts, to provoke such a momentous occasion.
On preview, I still can't decide if it's the original troll or someone else using an alternate-pseud as a joke.
Apparently so. How about you get lost again.
but 14 looks like another racist comment, though i'm not sure if it's anti-black of anti-semite
"Leftist men have no chests, leftist females have no breasts"
Doesn't this simplify to "Leftists have no chests"? Why the two separate clauses?
11: I know the feeling. I've been bitching about buying land in Oregon and living in a yurt, but I can't get anyone to take me seriously.
You know what you guys are? Watermelons.
Insufficiently forthright about my true socialist views, you mean? I'll work on that.
My dad lives on a communally owned ranch in Southern Oregon and uses homemade hydro/solar power - it can be done! Go for it DaveL.
Green on the outside, red on the inside.
My sister and her husband live in Portland and have been looking for land somewhere outside of town. I'm thinking commune. It's going to have to be a small commune, though, because my sister and her husband are among the very small handful of people that I can stand to be in close proximity with for more than a day or two. Although I suppose yurts must be cheap enough that you can spread a few around and declare one your Yurt of Solitude.
With a layer of white in-between.
Ben's been spending too much time on Standpipe's blog. No doubt he'll blame it on the brain-rotting effects of hanging out with some of us.
Hi Anna from Portland (previously Cairo). I remember you from ObsWi. Glad you're back from Cairo. Unless Cairo is home, and...never mind.
Especially since recent posts I have about read Cairo all seem to be about suicidally depressed cabdrivers.
No, Sunstar Ranch, which is not in Takilma but near it.
Bob: Yes, I used to comment on ObWi. Yes, Cairo was home, and I do miss it. Kids in high school now and education system in Cairo fairly insane, so we returned here.
I have not met many suicidally depressed cabdrivers. Bipolar, now that is a different issue. Homicidal, definitely!
However I am not Tom Friedman so obviously the several thousand taxi drivers I interacted with over the years I lived in Egypt are not representative as I never met a single one that extolled globalization.
To answer the question, I think it has something to do with the gendered nature of conversations. Tia and I were talking about this recently, that women tend to begin from a place of assent. Even if this isn't your heart's desire, you get socialized toward doing this. And God forbid you start from a place of dissent in public, in front of people!
Pundits tend to be male because, since birth, they're more encouraged to hate stuff, take sides, be unreasonable. And those women who do *cough, Coulter, cough* are those who clearly don't see any problem with appropriating masculinity wholesale in order to get ahead. Some of us would call it voluntary tokenism, but we wouldn't want to ruffle any feathers.
And whoa -- What happened to the kitty? I gotta think about dolphin sex every time I go Happy Fun Page?
When I think "happy fun", I think "dolphin sex".
When *I* think Happy Fun, I think "Please don't put your penis in that unwitting dolphin, Sir."
Your happy fun sounds kind of censorious.
And, what's more, it seems that you also think dolphin sex when you think happy fun, only you think of it with a kind of negative subjunctive value ("let it not be that dolphin sex").
My Happy Fun has very clearly marked limits, so that the Happy Fun may play heartily therein.
I am Becks-style.
My Happy Fun sayeth, Let there not be dolphin sex, nor kitten sex, nor puppy sex, nor herpes sex, nor any kind of incest, but let there be fun, and let it be good.
There is no doubt that witting dolphins are preferable.
What happens in Atlantis should stay in Atlantis.
What is the age of consent for dolphins? They live as long as 48 years, so I guess it would be about 7 or 8.
Sorry to try and get back on topic...but I believe that the original post was addressing the topic of women and punditry.
What about the possibility of political bloggers posting under masculine pseudonyms? I agree its not ideal, but at least there is a chance that a greater than thought number of women are involved in the world of political commentary.
Austro and abc123 return to commenting here today. Hmmm.
As for LB's personal issue -- might the problem be that you are insufficiently evil? I know you are willing to fight the bad fight for evil corporations...but maybe you aren't as enthusiastic about it as you need to be?
This is what I'm thinking, peep. As much as any of us ethical lefty dames wants to jump in that circle and mouth off, we don't because doing so is insufficient and even unethical.
Every time I see this issue, half of me wants to say, What, the world needs more pundits? Isn't that like saying we now need the Weather Channel 2: Headline News?
And the other half of me wants to say, Same old story. Take one part self-silencing (is this opinion really worth voicing?), add one part logistical issues (easier for people to be part-time pundits if they are not pulling 2nd shift at home already), throw in some social-networking barriers and a bit of outright sexism, and ta da.
I remember hearing Anna Quindlin tell a story about a newspaper editor who refused to run her column in addition to Ellen Goodman's because "you're both women." Leaving aside their genuine similarities in demographics and opinions...seriously?
Witt, we could shoot one guy pundit for every lady pundit hired.
Shit, we could shoot to guys per lady. Why stint?
OK, now I've actually clicked through. You know what strikes me about this?
“The pool is weighted toward men. … Within that, the number of people who are capable of writing 700 words twice a week and making it sound fresh and interesting … that’s a very tiny pool.”
How tightly structured the whole process is. Why can't it be four women writing twice a month, instead of one woman writing twice a week? Why can't it be three 400-word pieces and an occasional 1200-word essay? I get that NYT real estate is rare and prized, but why not have a rotating cast of semi-permanent guests? Didn't Ehrenreich do a month of guest columns?
Lots and lots and lots of people might have 10 or 12 great columns in them and not be able to sustain a full-time gig. So what? Why is that the gold standard?
And geeze, why is this conversation about white, upper-middle-class women anyway? Bring on Anna Deavere Smith!
Writing 1400 words a week is nardly even a full-time job. That's abou 6 typed pages.
34: Some of us would call it voluntary tokenism, but we wouldn't want to ruffle any feathers.
Coulter isn't voluntary tokenism, she's a voluntary Quisling. Her role is to reassure the red state readers that despite her no-holds-barred rhetoric, she's a tractable female who also thinks women should be in the kitchen.
I tend to think Michael is right in re: inclusion in the punditocracy being a dubious honour. But I suspect the missing quality is simply "maleness;" the networks that enable access to the punditocracy still tend to be, at least in the informal sense, boys' clubs. (I suspect this might also help to explain LB's issues...)
I'll cop to the socialized lack of self-confidence. I'm a fucking chicken shit about sending stuff out, and it pisses me off that I'm that way, but there you go.
And the reason we need more women pundits is that women oughta get paid for having dumb-ass opinions, same as the men. It's not like I won't share my dumb-ass opinions for free, but why can't I get paid as well as all the boys and their dumb asses? I don't want to have to go back to kissing academic ass, damnit.
I'm not buying the "dubious honor" thing. The currently prominent pundits kind of suck, but it's a damn sweet gig if you can get it.
Just curious: how many of you regularly read any pundits?
ogged, it should be obvious by now that everyone here only reads this blog. I need a Kotsko fellowship.
My initial thought was that if anyone reads pundits, it would be the people here, but you're right, we don't read anything else.
And when we do wander off and read other things, we miss out on dolphin/kitten substitions, it seems.
But I'm not, like, bitter.
56: I'm not buying the "dubious honor" thing.
Two words: "Jonah Goldberg." If I could make mucho bucks and be completely dissociated from whatever the hell he's doing, I'd be all over it. If not, I'd be...
...
Momentarily hesitant.
Okay, I guess you're right.
Indirectly we all read the pundits, at least to the extent that at least one editorial per day gets picked up and lambasted from all sides in the sphere or that influential editorialists get invited onto NPR or tv to remake their cases in different media.
I do get the sense, though, that the business of the op-ed writer is changing. If I'm not wrong about this, the tenured editorialist at big newspapers like the NYT or WaPo has already become an impossible luxury for most 2nd tier papers. The LAT brought in Jonah Goldberg, for Christ's sake, and he is still ensconced at NR and is already syndicated in plently of places. Lots of papers like the NYPost run a couple of Goldberg pieces per month; I don't know whether these papers get to pick the pieces to run or whether they have a set contract with... someone (Goldberg? NR? LAT?).
Hmm. This is making me think that TAP and The Nation need to do much better jobs of getting their young writers syndication deals.
Actually, calling up the local rag and demanding Sausagely might be kind of fun.
Especially if you referred to him as "Sausagely."
TAP really does have a pretty impressive group of young writers.
In additional news, water is wet. And oxygen is useful for carbon-based lifeforms.
Right. Which is why TAP's market cap is north of Google's, right?
Right. This ale is stronger than I thought, right?
How does an op-ed writer get a gig, when it really comes down to it? I'd been vaguely aware of Brooks's books before he got signed into NYT tenure, and Friedman was a journalist for a long time. Where did Dowd come from? What is the usual CV profile? How does the business of syndication actually work?
Lurking journalists, if any there be: answering these questions could make a great feature-length piece guaranteed to get a lot of page-views.
I think the usual process used to be that beat reporters got columns at the end of distinguished careers, sort of as a reward for all their work. Friedman seems to be an example of this dynamic. It seems to be changing, though, probably due largely to structural changes in the newspaper industry--smaller dailies can't afford their own columnists, so they buy syndicated columns, which increases the clout of the columnists who write for the big papers, which makes the role of pundit high-profile and sought-after, which leads the big papers to bring in writers from other backgrounds to attract more readers and capitalize on their position. I think this is where Brooks comes into the picture. Or something like that; I don't know much about this.
Does the Prospect write versions of this a lot, or do I just noticed it more acutely because of the number of times they turned me down for a job right after college?
I often wonder if I'd have gone to law school if blogs had existed 5 years ago--there's a real chance I would have actually broken into political journalism instead. Two weeks ago I would have said: a good thing for me they didn't. Tonight, sort of the opposite feeling.
In general and AFAICT, the career route into punditism is the same as in other forms of advertising and media - single-minded obsession with kissing the arse of someone who already works there.
It reminds me of the days when I used to work at a big firm. We would all go to meetings in the morning saying "how can we get more diversity in the workplace? how oh how? this is a nearly intractable problem!" and then meetings in the afternoon saying "we need to hire a couple of salespeople. does anyone have any mates who they think are any good?"
75: That sounds horribly familiar.
57 -- I read Krugman regularly until he disappeared behind the pay wall. Would do so again if he were more available.
Maybe I should comment this over at Ezra's place, since y'all are talking about significantly different things here, but I feel like my political polemic/sparring skills are underdeveloped because I can't find many people to spar with, say, at school. There were comments to this effect over at Ezra's, but I think many men are just unwilling to engage with women. I say provocative comments all the time in class, and they are frequently, if not always, ignored. It could be that what I say is irrelevant, but I don't think that's the case. I see my classmates all the time, going at it with one another, but every time I try to get in on something, it's like I'm fucking invisible. My only real substantive political-type arguments happen with my four female friends, who are totally badass (sadly, none of them ever speak in class, even though they totally kick ass, thus perpetuating the silence of women). For instance, over drinks last night we got into a heated discussion about psychiatrist-patient privilege. But the way that we talk to each other, I literally have never seen it, not in class, not in my friendships with men, not on television.
I guess I should write a post about this or something. As if I were a blogger.
they are frequently, if not always, ignored
Perhaps you should start prefacing your remarks with accusations of sexism. That seems to work here, at least.
Where did Dowd come from?
My recollection is that Dowd worked for the Star, and has a better reporting CV than, for example, Brooks. IIRC, she was kind of a stud. And I think she was even a pretty good opinionista initially. I have no idea why or precisely when she went off the rails.
Golly, Apo, if I understood that correctly, which I'm not sure at all that I did, it was kind of hostile. But I probably didn't. What'd you mean?
And M. Leblanc: Yeah, I know what you mean. I always talked a lot in class in law school, and had no trouble getting into arguments/discussions with professors. But the heavy talkers in class tended to be me and a bunch of guys who would continue the arguments after class, and I never had much luck trying to muscle my way into those groups. I've certainly had male friends who I argue about politics with, but one-on-one; in a group of guys I tend to feel as if I'd have to punch someone to get heard.
I can name a dozen women I'd rather read than Krauthammer. One has to assume, though, that the Post runs K because there's a demand for that kind of column. (I'm not sure I want to know who wants it).
On women in law, I play for the other team, and have some views. I would guess that LB's firm, like most others, would be delighted to have more women who meet their partnership criteria fighting their way in. Each case is specific, and there's plenty of luck -- in my firm, if you hitch your wagon to the wrong senior people, you can have a much tougher time advancing. Not because of politics, really, but economics. But junior lawyers picking fields and mentors don't really understand the implications of the choices they are making. Still and all, as LB says, you don't advance in the field without trying to do so. (Just as, I imagine, in academia, those peer reviewed articles don't write themselves, nor do grants come to people who didn't apply, or visiting professorships to people not willing to relocate.)
M. Leblanc's comment is sad -- of course we're better off if the junior lawyers we hire will argue with us about the law, the facts, and the application of one to the other. It's what makes the job worth doing. (That and the money.) I've worked with some terrific women lawyers over the years, who stepped up in this way.* Just because it's not on TV one shouldn't assume that it's either non-existent or unwanted. It's sadder still because our society really has a problem with this. One hears from women who comment on blogs that response to their comments changes once their gender is known. I wish I knew a solution.
*It's part of my job to communicate the results of the annual performance appraisal to a dozen or so of our associates. I usually have at least one woman for whom to firm's annual message is a suggestion about being more assertive. While finding her own style of assertiveness. I wish I was better at this.
Guys avoid heated/controversial discussions with women because they're liable to take something personally, or get over-emotional and cry or yell. Better to just let them say their piece/vent and then move on with other things than to try and engage them. Unless there is something important riding on the outcome of the argument, some goal you are trying to achieve, engagement is a losing battle likely to just waste time and get people upset.
(Is the stereotype you are working against. Like most stereotypes it's obviously false, but I'm sure you're aware that many men are taught by society to treat women exactly this way. Especially in relationships (this is a standard dynamic in comedy), but this carries over to other aspects of life as well. I doubt many of the guys are thinking about this consciously, it's just sort of how they're used to dealing with women with whom they disagree.)
I see Alameida already posted comment 84 on the front page.
85: and lack of main-page timestamp makes pwnage undeterminable. Alack.
Mmm. And another thing that feeds into the stereotype is a fascinating double standard about what constitutes getting unbearably excited or hostile. Arguing with women, I never worry about hurting anyone's feelings or scaring them. Arguing with men, I spend a lot of time apologizing for the same rhetoric and level of emotion that doesn't bother women at all (and that doesn't, to me, appear to differ substantially from the rhetoric and emotion that's coming at me from men I argue with.)
87 -- What makes you think apology is necessary? Body language or stereotype?
I am wary of placing the blame for the lack of pundits on any theory that explains it by pointing to a perceived lack of interest in polemic and debating on the part of women. First, there are many careers besides punditry that require people to be outspoken and to defend their points of view vigorously. And second, while I'll grant that women are socialized to be conciliatory and find common ground, I don't grant that prevents them from being argumentative or controversial (B, Tia, LB, pretty much everyone woman here) nor that that's necessarily a bad trait in a pundit. Certainly 'I'm the man who can see both sides and wisely adjudicate between them' is not an uncommon persona for a pundit to adopt.
Rather, I think the problem is closer to what dsquared & m. leblanc point to, plus this confused idea that a male-dominated field, whether it be punditry or metaphysics, can become less male-oriented by hiring one or two token women. Women aren't stupid or immune to market forces, and if you set up the career track, hiring process, expectations (like Witt said) to favor men, even if you're as well-meaning and kind as you could be, most of us are going to wander off and find something else to do with our lives where we have a greater probability of success.
88: Explicit demands for apologies, protests about my level of hostility.
LB is shrill.
Buck states his opinions vigorously.
&c.
90 -- Yow. Remind me not to argue with you . . .
it was kind of hostile
No, no, not at all hostile. Sorry if it came across that way. Just riffing on the fact that such statements tend to spawn quite lengthy discussions here.
Women aren't stupid or immune to market forces, and if you set up the career track, hiring process, expectations (like Witt said) to favor men, even if you're as well-meaning and kind as you could be, most of us are going to wander off and find something else to do with our lives where we have a greater probability of success.
This is one of the strongest arguments for affirmative action out there. I shouldn't let it affect me, but it's hard to really go for partnership wholeheartedly while looking at a current set of partners with a 30-2 male female ratio. While I try to put it out of my head as a factor, there's a certain amount of "Well, realistically, that's not likely to happen, is it?" going on in my head, that leaves me focussing on alternative career tracks rather than seriously thinking of partnership as a possibility.
This is happening in my head, mind you -- I'm not claiming that I'm being treated differently than male associates. Just that it's easier to work for a goal that looks achievable.
This is one of the strongest arguments for affirmative action out there. I shouldn't let it affect me, but it's hard to really go for partnership wholeheartedly while looking at a current set of partners with a 30-2 male female ratio. While I try to put it out of my head as a factor, there's a certain amount of "Well, realistically, that's not likely to happen, is it?" going on in my head, that leaves me focussing on alternative career tracks rather than seriously thinking of partnership as a possibility.
Tell this to your senior management and watch them put their heads in their hands. You are the one -- one of the ones -- they've been counting on to change this ratio. [Yes, that's a guess, but an educated one based on knowing (a) pressures law firms are under from clients to diversify and (b) how smart and articulate you are.]
You know, we've got kind of an unusual firm. 70% of the litigation associates are female, but not a lot of associates seem to make partner -- we add a lot more lateral partners than promotions from associate. If they're actually looking to make female partners, they have a whole bunch of options beyond me.
I really shouldn't bring my personal experiences into this -- there are all sorts of reasons that I'm not wildly successful, most of which relate to me individually rather than gender issues, and which I probably shouldn't be hashing out online.
Arguing with women, I never worry about hurting anyone's feelings or scaring them. Arguing with men, I spend a lot of time apologizing for the same rhetoric and level of emotion that doesn't bother women at all
Interesting. I have exactly the opposite experience.
97b -- Of course. It's just that we know you well enough to know that they are morons not to be promoting you.
98: Interesting. I wonder if it's related to the fact that, in the other thread, you described yourself as not particularly engagedin sort of in-class dick-swinging arguments. (Well, that would explain why you don't offend men, not why you do offend women.)
And I should say that I've certainly had female interlocutors complain of feeling steamrollered after arguing with me -- they just don't seem to be personally offended by the experience or hold it against me.
(Actually, maybe I'm pissing off other women right and left, and they just don't complain about it as much. Now I feel insecure.)
Not in-class dick-swinging arguments, because the material is difficult for me to assimilate quickly. But I definitely argue with people about non-academic matters, and I am much more comfortable telling a guy flat-out that he is wrong, has his head up his ass, etc. I would never say those things to my women friends.
Hrm. It's possible that I'm politer to women than men IRL, in that I tend to mirror the rhetoric of the person I'm talking to, and women tend to themselves be politer.
95: I don't think you're alone. It sounds really stupid, but being able to envision yourself as a partner or a senior faculty or as running the firm seems to me a big part of it happening. (Not in a frou-frou afterschool special way. In a necessary but not sufficient condition sort of way.) It was something I noticed myself about how much I relaxed about a certain set of career and life goals when our department hired women with kids as senior faculty.
96, 97, 99: If LB's firm is like my firm, the whole "prove yourself" thing really gets in the way of the firm's doing what is in its own interest to do. Maybe it's that we're in a smallish market and facing more competition from outside for quality work and quality people (our compensation hasn't kept up with the mainland), but there's a pretty large generation gap in what people want to get out of the practice, and the firm keeps losing very good associates that it wants to keep because preserving the bust your ass and prove yourself culture seems to be more important than actually holding onto the people who need to stick around for the firm to have a future. It's kind of sad.
On the other, more cheerful hand, a truly hateful case I've been on exclusively for nearly a year has been stayed, freeing me to forge exciting new relationships with other partners, and maybe get to work for clients who won't make people insult me at parties. Woohoo!
I just read m leblanc's blogpost and ouch. Since she referenced Tia's post I feel I can compare "not engaging arguments" to "discounting feelings/humanity" etc. "You just don't listen." Okay, while I recognize a lot of what M leblanc says as truth, I will listen more attentively to a woman talking about feminism than about Iraq, especially in argument. leblanc seems not to recognize what political argument is about.
I am not a boy-toy in a Socratic dialectic. But is x exactly like y? No. Then it might be z? Maybe. But if z, then aa must be true? Yes, I suppose so.
Political argument is about grabbing the initiative. Talking points, staying on message, distracting, discounting, etc. Never actually granting your opponents arguments have merit. Let your opponent grab merit. Maybe not directly engaging is a patriarchal thing, but Marcotte seems to turn every issue into "I blame the Patriarchy" and I admire her for it.
Did I not directly engage your argument, which was about enforcing the patriarchal heirarchy? Damn right I didn't. That is how rhetoric works.
No, that's entirely wrong. M., when she says that men won't engage her arguments, means that they literally won't talk to her; conversations with M. and men A and B go like this: Man A says something, M. responds, B responds to A rather than M, M says something else, A responds to B rather than M, and so forth. Eventually M gets bored and wanders off. This really isn't something M. can easily deal with more aggressive argumentative technique -- you can't argue with someone who won't talk to you.
108:I will reread. That is something entirely than what I seemed to have read. I did like leblanc's post, but it was painfully direct.
But that also is something I do in blogthreads. I ignore trolls, and try to answer a good argument not with refutation, but with distraction or substitution (while appearing to engage). I have never understood Emerson's need to engage trolls.
Having reread, I stand corrected.