Somebody needs to bitch-slap the Washington Post

...Or maybe a few people already have.

Earlier this week, anti-feminist writer and commentator Charlotte Allen wrote an op-ed column for the Washington Post about how stupid women are. Really. Her evidence for this? Anecdotal and out-of-context stories about women fainting upon the sight of Barack Obama, watching "Grey's Anatomy" and Oprah Winfrey, women - supposedly - baking cookies for their pets.

According to Allen, "we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental."

"Take a look at the New York Times bestseller list. At the top of the paperback nonfiction chart and pitched to an exclusively female readership is Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love." Here's the book's autobiographical plot: Gilbert gets bored with her perfectly okay husband, so she has an affair behind his back. Then, when that doesn't pan out, she goes to Italy and gains 23 pounds forking pasta so she has to buy a whole new wardrobe, goes to India to meditate (that's the snooze part), and finally, at an Indonesian beach, finds fulfillment by -- get this -- picking up a Latin lover!

This is the kind of literature that countless women soak up like biscotti in a latte cup: food, clothes, sex, "relationships" and gummy, feel-good "spirituality." This female taste for first-person romantic nuttiness, spiced with a soupçon of soft-core porn, has made for centuries of bestsellers -- including Samuel Richardson's 1740 novel "Pamela," in which a handsome young lord tries to seduce a virtuous serving maid for hundreds of pages and then proposes, as well as Erica Jong's 1973 "Fear of Flying."

Okay, for the record, I can't stand Oprah and I thought "Fear of Flying" was self-indulgent crap (but I can appreciate its place in feminist literature). "Eat, Pray, Love," on the other hand, is one of the most affecting books I've ever read, and was exactly the message I needed at that point in my life. Maybe it didn't resonate with Allen...I find it more likely that she hasn't even read it, and is basing her derisive review on the fact that it's an icky "women's" book.

(While we're on the subject of "Eat Pray Love," two quick points: one, it was recommended to me by a guy friend - happily straight, BTW - who's also an Oprah disciple. Two, when I Googled "Eat Pray Love" and the Independent Women's Forum (the anti-feminist group with whom Allen is affiliated), I got an old forum from IWF's Web site where a reader was recommending..."Eat Pray Love." Suspiciously, I can't find this page anywhere just a few days later. I guess we can't have one of the IWF's own devotees swearing by the very book Allen's bashing. I think that's hilarious.)

Allen's an idiot, this we know. But what's the Post's excuse? I know they need readers, but printing blatant hate-speech in your Sunday edition just to get attention is beyond the pale. I e-mailed their ombudsman (who happens to be a woman) the following message:

Subject: I'm too dumb to read your paper
..at least according to Charlotte Allen. So I guess I'll have to cancel my subscription.

Not half an hour later, I got this message back:

Sigh. I'm writing about this Sunday. I'm with you. Don't cancel until
you've read my column!
Deborah Howell
Washington Post Ombudsman

I dig the sigh. You think maybe she's gotten one or two other complaints?

The Post had a live chat with Allen on Wednesday, during which she further demonstrated that she's either a) on retainer for some pharmaceutical giant specializing in blood-pressure meds, or b) really that stupid.

So today, the Post has an op-ed from The Nation's Katha Pollitt, who proceeds to shred both Allen's drivel and the powers-that-be at the Post for deciding that running the BS Allen piece was a good idea. Absolute must-read.

Charlotte Allen and her ilk are infinitely more dangerous to progressive feminism than any man will ever be. That's because when Allen, the IWF, et al publicly blather about how silly are women and our concerns, it allows patriarchal men to say, "See? She's a woman and she agrees with us, therefore it must be true..." As much as I'd like to, I don't believe for a second that these women really are stupid (that would be way too easy). They're just doing what they have to do to assure a pat on the head and a spot in the power structure. They're wolves in sheep's clothing. They are not on our side.