Et Tu Doris? Truth or Sexism?

I have not read this book, but according to a review at Powell's Books, Doris Lessing states in her foreword that men:

... lack the solidity of women, who seem to have been endowed with a natural harmony with the ways of the world....Men in comparison are unstable, and erratic. Is Nature trying something out?

This sounds right out of the mouth of Maureen Dowd and extremist feminists who proclaim it's nature's intent that men should become extinct. Well, wait a minute! Here is a statement by none other than Doris Lessing which is so general that it effectively negates itself, i.e., she would be more accurate if she had said "Men are accountants" or "Men are firefighters," but even these statements are markedly false as stated because of the implication made that most, if not all men, are accountants or firefighters. Thus, Men are no more "unstable, and erratic" than they are heroic and honest. I have to argue on this basis alone, the Lessing statement qualifies as absurdly sexist.

After I read it, I immediately flashed to past memories of a favorite woman boss of mine who was a Devil Prada monster of the worst kind, and to the vision of a mother violently abusing her child outside my office while simultaneously browbeating her husband into total submission. If you are out there, Doris, I highly recommend a reality check in the form of Phyllis Chessler's Woman's Inhumanity to Woman. As Library Journal notes:

Second Wave feminists have for 30-plus years operated under the assumption that sisterhood is powerful. Indeed, women acting in concert have forced society to redefine gender, domestic relations, and the workplace. Still, despite huge gains in public visibility, female ascendance has been hampered by a rarely acknowledged reality: women often betray, hurt, and humiliate one another. Mothers stymie daughters, biological sisters compete, girlfriends gossip maliciously, and women bosses exert arbitrary and capricious authority.

Next, a dose of In The Company of Women for dessert.

NOTE: Evil and assholish-ness are NOT gender specific! And I refuse to join the band of Second Wave feminists who pretend this is true. I know it's a method of bonding for some. If you can sit around and blame the husbands and male bosses and boyfriends and fathers for all your problems, then you have something in common, yes? It reminds me of Neocon rednecks hoisting a beer and blaming all America's problems on Democrats.

I can't do that. I blame everyone for my problems. No one is singled out.