Post Columnist Pulls a Charlotte Allen on Snow Shoveling
We never expected anyone at the Washington Post to match the infamous 2008 Outlook piece penned by Charlotte Allen, in which the author carefully explained how the only reason women were going to vote for Barack Obama was because they're flighty morons who are easily attracted to bright colors and chirpy noises.
Looks like we were wrong. Today, Post columnist Kathleen Parker pens a piece that suggests both she and her editors at the newspaper may have finally gone crazy from being inside for five straight days.
Parker asserts that shoveling is something men just need to do, like it's hard-wired into our genetic code. "What do men want?" she asks. "Shovels. Men want shovels, the bigger the better," she responds.
"Women can't be blamed for wanting to be independent and self-sufficient, but smart ones have done so without diminishing the males whose shoulders they might prefer on imperfect days. Add to the cultural shifts our recent economic woes, which have left more men than women without jobs, and men are all the more riveted by opportunities to be useful," she observes.
According to her profound analysis on the matter, the minute we simple-minded men see a flake of snow, we go running to the nearest shovel. "Man is never happier than when he is called to action, in other words. That is to say, when he is needed," she posits. Of course, she does add that women will shovel, but she only admits as much to avoid "sexist stereotyping." Yeah. That's like prefacing a homophobic joke by saying, "But some of my best friends are gay!"
Did I shovel my walk? Yes. I live alone. My landlord, a woman, did her own shoveling, and admitted to liking it. So did many other women throughout the region, I'm willing to guess. Parker did with shoveling what Allen did with female voters -- took a personal experience or opinion and tried to draw a broad, national conclusion around it. Lame.