Is It Safe to Have a Sense of Humor These Days?

Charlotte Allen's opinion piece in last week's Washington Post has provoked an angry response from women who were offended by its tone.

Ombudsman Deborah Howell writes, in today's Washington Post that she, along with "[t]housands of women," found Allen's article to have the "fatal flaw of not being funny."

Howell says, "[I]t's important for provocative opinion to be in the paper, especially in Outlook, which is all commentary. And this should have nothing to do with politics. Allen is a conservative, and Outlook should pay attention to conservative opinion."

She notes that her experience has taught her "to be wary of using humor, satire or irony about gender, race or religion." I can't argue with that. Certainly, the Democratic race for president has taught me the same lesson -- over and over and over. I've been getting that from both sides of the Democratic divide for many weeks now.

Whether one agrees with Allen or not, I thought it was long past time when Democrats needed to step back and laugh a little at themselves.

Howell seems to think Allen's piece went too far. "Readers come to the newspaper looking for news, facts, analysis, opinion and a little fun," writes Howell. "They do not come to The Post to be insulted, and the paper should not deliberately print anything offensive unless it is a matter of great news significance."

Everyone has an opinion, and The Huffington Post posted several opinions on this piece. Megan Pillow, for example, wrote that Allen's article made her realize that "sometimes vintage is just a fancy name for out-of-fashion. The article certainly marks the re-emergence of an antique, but in this case, what we get isn't a hip new comeback. Instead, we've been given a moth-eaten scrap of a concept dressed up in bloviated language and sold to the public for far more than it's worth."

The Huffington Post also posted the opinion of Jacqueline Leo, who appears to indulge in some stereotyping of her own in "The Self-Hating Shrew." Leo calls Allen's article "post-feminism on hyperbolic steroids from China -- an over-the-top rant with a dose of heavy-metal poison thrown in for effect."

Allen "goes on to attack Oprah Winfrey," Leo writes. "[M]aybe it's because Winfrey didn't go to Harvard and Stanford and yet she's still richer than Allen. Next on her list: Celine Dion. I assume ... because she's a Canadian and therefore a potential illegal immigrant or terrorist, not because she sings romantic ballads in contrast to the rap and heavy metal which no doubt dominate Allen's iPod."

Jason Linkins writes, in The Huffington Post, that Allen's internet "chat" last week in defense of her article was "a mind-bending trip inside the mind of a woman who has not exercised her critical-thinking muscles ... uhm ... ever. And her weird, nutball reasoning was hardly contained to matters of gender:"

Linkins, who is a political writer for the Washington Post, didn't bother to point out that Allen has written nearly 30 articles for the Post since 1993, and this is the first one in which her intelligence and reasoning have been questioned. Does Linkins read the opinion section of his own newspaper?

Or does he only read articles with his byline?

Alex Leo told her Huffington Post readers that Allen is "a bigot."

Leo says she "cannot in good conscience read the Washington Post ever again ... I won't be missing much, the New York Times is a better paper and the internet is a faster and better way into politics, but this will be my first break with a major newspaper and it turns out they didn't lose me because 'print is dead,' they lost me because they gave a bigot a platform, defended her, tried to make it seem like she was kidding (she's not, by the way and makes that clear in this forum), and then gave her another THREE HOURS on their website to purport her hatred and inanity."

Leo goes on to play a game of semantics with Allen's column, suggesting that the piece would be regarded as "vile and base and shocking" if the assertions were racial instead of sexual.

I'm sorry that so many people were offended by the article and the fact that the Washington Post published it.

But in a campaign in which I have been called "racist" by Obama supporters and "sexist" by Clinton supporters -- all because I, who originally supported John Edwards, simply asked readers for more information about the candidates before making my decision about how to vote in last week's Texas primary -- I thought it was important for people to be able to laugh at themselves.

Maybe I was wrong.

But if I was, maybe a sense of humor has become the most noteworthy casualty in this war.

The Fairer Sex and the Harsher Reality?

In what is rapidly becoming the real subject of debate in Democratic circles, Charlotte Allen may have put her finger on something. She may have pinpointed part of the reason why the "inevitable" woman is losing to the black man in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

I've been reading some of the online responses to Allen's writings. Many of them seem unduly harsh to me, but honest disagreement is part of the deal when you put your opinions out there for everyone to read.

Each person has to decide for himself or herself whether what is being said is true. And truth is not always a pleasant thing. But sometimes one must confront the unpleasant in order to bring about real change.

And "change" is the buzzword these days, isn't it?

Writing in the Washington Post, Allen says, "I'm not the only woman who's dumbfounded (as it were) by our sex, or rather, as we prefer to put it, by other members of our sex besides us. It's a frequent topic of lunch, phone and water-cooler conversations."

Speaking of Hillary Clinton's pursuit of the nomination, Allen writes, "By all measures, she has run one of the worst -- and, yes, stupidest -- presidential races in recent history, marred by every stereotypical flaw of the female sex."

I've read several blogs today that are written by women and chastise Allen. But I agree with Allen. Hillary Clinton has run an inept campaign.

When the campaign began, I expected her campaign organization to be a lot like her husband's campaign in 1992. That was a staff that was always ready, never unprepared. But Hillary's campaign failed to prepare for a campaign that went past "Tsunami Tuesday" in early February. Here it is, March 2, and Clinton has lost the last 11 primary contests to Obama. And polls suggest she may lose even more on Tuesday.

Allen goes on to give a rundown on Clinton's failings as a presidential candidate:

"She has proved that she can't debate ... She has whined (via her aides) like the teacher's pet in grade school that the boys are ganging up on her when she's bested by male rivals. She has all but wept on the campaign trail, even though everyone knows that tears are the last refuge of losers. And she is tellingly dependent on her husband."

And now, when Clinton needs the support of Hispanics to win Texas and (perhaps) turn her campaign around, observes Allen, she "finally fired her daytime-soap-watching, self-styled 'Latina queena' campaign manager ... known for burning through campaign money and for her open contempt for the 'white boys' in the Clinton camp. But stupidly, she did it just in time to alienate the Hispanic voters she now desperately needs."

Allen acknowledges that the basic strengths that men and women possess are different and that, while some women are suited for the kind of work to which Clinton aspires, many are not. It isn't something to be ashamed of, she suggests. It's a genetic fact.

"I don't understand why more women don't relax, enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess (as well as the ones fewer of us possess) and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel: tenderness toward children and men and the weak and the ability to make a house a home," she says. "Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we can be ... kind of dim."

Now, I'm not sure I buy into everything Allen says. The bottom line is that people are people. Gender is part of the equation, but all the women I know aren't identical, nor are all the men I know identical.

When pondering the role that gender has played in the apparent disintegration of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, it might be just as helpful to recall the words of Sigmund Freud.

"The great question ... which I have not been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is `What does a woman want?'"

Or perhaps the words of Golda Meir are more appropriate.

"Whether women are better than men I cannot say -- but I can say they are certainly no worse."

Just something to think about when the voting returns are being reported Tuesday.