Shrinking Violet

Via Broadsheet, I see that Katha Pollitt has responded to the recent column in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on women in the op-ed pages, in which its author, Connie Schultz, asked, “What does it take to get a woman to speak her mind?” Pollitt retorted, in part:

Women now make up half of all med students (Blood! Gore! every day you could kill someone with a tiny mistake!), half of all law students (arguments! crazy clients! people being really mean to you all day long!). Women are increasing their numbers in virtually every male-dominated profession from engineering to politics -- except opinion journalism. For this, and this only, women are just too shy and nice. I don't believe it.

I don’t believe it, either. And I don’t know who the hell these women are, those so supposedly reluctant to speak their minds. Frankly, I can’t quite fathom what it would take to get me to stop speaking my mind, short of hog-tying me. And even then, I’d still be grousing about it. “This is total bullshit, you totalitarian fuckwits!” If that brought on a duct tape muzzle, I’d resort to hand gestures, and if my fingers were chopped off, I’d be giving the stink-eye. There’s just no stopping the ’tude when I’m determined to deliver.

As Mr. Furious says, he can tell when I'm pissed just by looking at my hair.