The XX Factor: What women really think.

Sex and the Hopefully-More-Multiracial City

I was a major, unabashed fan of Sex and the City. (The show, that is—the movie was a grating, be-crinolined, poopy joke nightmare.) The things that bothered other people—the sex and status obsession, the what-planet-are-you-on depiction of a freelance writer's earning potential—never really bothered me. Its lily-white vision of New York, however, did ... (Read more in Double X.)

The Spinsterhood of the Traveling Pants

I'm glad E.J. mentioned the outdated and offensive label "spinster" (evoking the hag cartoon on an "old maid" playing card deck), because recently in news stories describing talent show contestant Susan Boyle, I've noticed the insulting characterization making a comeback. But what is the correct term for unmarried women in the post-feminist world? As Kerry noted recently about sociologist Andrew Cherlin's research, in a culture where "marriage matters more here than elsewhere," in the United States, "only a marriage ring guarantees first-class citizenship."

Meantime, though the term spinster is rude, the condition it describes, unmarried women over 40, is common. I'm very glad Dayo brought up the Mark Regnerus essay on the appallingly short shelf life of women. Like Emily, I married relatively late in life. I was 35 when I got engaged, 25 years ago, and had life experience, a career, and a child. But, as a baby boomer, even at my mid-career age, there were comparatively plenty of single available men. Although I agree with Meghan's assessment that Regernus presents a narrow-minded and patronizing sociological premise, he was not wrong when he wrote, "Marriage will be there for men when they're ready. And most do get there. Eventually." Distressingly, however, somewhere along the line, many single ladies with career and education priorities find they have entered a no man's land. Awkwardly, as Jess facetiously (I think) supports, the geezerish single men my age prefer to date women 10 to 20 years younger. 

In the sixth season of Sex And The City, the inestimable Candice Bergen, as Carrie Bradshaw's powerful, glamorous, Vogue editor, scolds the younger woman for dating Aleksandr Petrovsky (played by Mikhail Baryshnikov), one of the infinitesimally few age-appropriate men available. As Enid, Bergen tells Carrie, "There are no men, anywhere. I am a 50-something woman and there's a very small pool, it's very small, it's a wading pool, really." She tells the advice columnist, "so what I want to know, is why are you swimming in my wading pool?" 

The answer is that a man shortage also affects women in Carrie's cohort. The character Mia played by Hope Davis in the new season of another HBO series, In Treatment, despairs of ever meeting a "smart, interesting, available man who's over 40." She tells the single, attractive therapist played by Gabriel Byrne, "they're either married or there's a very good reason why they're not...and if they're divorced, they want them young."  

It sounds grim, but it's not necessarily so. A close friend much younger than I, who treats my husband and me so nicely that our daughter wrote on her Facebook page "thanks for taking care of bonnie and jim" is a former lawyer in her early 40s, stunningly attractive and funny, who has a gardening and flowers business. Though not lacking in male friends who "shoulda put a ring on it," my friend has never married. Wondering if, as an old married lady, I was poorly attuned to the word's connotations, I asked what she thought of the word spinster. "Sure, I'd like a partner and children" she answered the more general question, "but right now I have neither and I'm still pretty happy." In fact, she told me, "I'm into spinster power."

Sex and a British City

Bro in Shining Armor

Dana, I've been on the Paul Rudd rom-com love train since his turn as Cher's caustic yet smitten step-brother in Clueless. But I fear that the romantic comedy slump we're mired in isn't because of uninspiring stars, it's because of a cultural shift. Look at Paul Rudd's next movie, I Love You, Man. At least the way they're marketing it, the central relationship of that film is not that of Rudd and his intended, played by Rashida Jones. It's between Rudd and his new best bro Jason Segel.

If you think about the most popular romantic comedies in recent memory, they're ultimately about friendship: Sex and the City, Bride Wars, the Apatow canon. In all of those films, the romantic male-female bond is always secondary to the same-sex friendship. With the prevalence of divorce and general relationship misery, perhaps it's not that romantic comedies are in a slump, it's the idea of lasting romance in general.

Off-the-Rack Campaigning

To answer Meghan’s question, according to Brooks Brothers online, you can get a very nice suit for less than $1,000. And you can get its top-of-the-line suit for around $1,600. A nice shirt and tie might bring this to $2,000. I seriously doubt Joe Biden bought 70 such suits after becoming Obama’s running mate. And whatever happened to the fine political tradition of wearing jeans and a flannel shirt when courting Joe Sixpack? I’m not sure Chanel is (or should be) the female equivalent.

I also find the argument that Palin had nothing else to wear, prior to the RNC’s shopping spree, a little unbelievable. Palin is the governor of a major state. She campaigned for this office, appeared on TV countless times in that election (including in multiple debates), has surely attended governors’ conferences and other formal events in an official capacity. Are we to believe that prior to being tapped for VP, she never owned anything besides a seal-skin coat and 'coon cap?

As a native of Dallas, I’ve spent my fair share of money at Neiman-Marcus’ flagship store, but as Slate’s piece points out today—it’s pretty hard to blow $150,000, even at a store like Neiman’s. Moreover, I know a lot of high-society women in Dallas who brag about the fine fashion they’ve also found at Target, especially in these tough economic times. (They call the store “Tar-chez.”) Is it really the opinion of the women on XX Factor that a woman can’t look good on TV or at a rally in anything less than a $4,000 designer suit? Seems to me we’re buying into Carrie Bradshaw’s world view a little too much. The dress Michelle Obama wore when she went on The View famously cost $148 off the rack.

Better Than Mr. Big: An Old Guy With Writer's Block

Ellen, that is one gutsy post, and a public service, too. (Maybe Prudie has some suggestions on ways to get the "Clooney it up a little bit'' message out?) No way the big-screen Sex and the City could match last night's Daily Show spoof, in which Jason Jones, John Oliver, Larry Wilmore, and Aasif Mandvi stir their cosmos with cigars and drink a toast to herpes. And anyone on the lookout for something quieter and sturdier—an anti-SATC, set on the Upper West Side—might like to check out the DVD I saw last weekend, Starting Out in the Evening, a movie so carefully made it feels hand-stitched. Frank Langella completely inhabits the role of Leonard Schiller, an aging novelist with writer's block who feels time is running out. When this know-it-all grad student, Lauren Ambrose, barges into his life, full of plans to make her name by resuscitating his career, you keep thinking you know what's coming—will it be this or will it be that?  But then you don't, and it isn't, in a way that restores faith in the kind of writing the lead character demands of himself. (And every writerly kid who says he or she just loves to sit down at the keyboard should see this, too; what a brutal life filling blank pages with fiction is.) The closest it gets to cliché is that it's Lili Taylor (beautifully) playing Leonard's Lili Taylor-like daughter; she fears her most (re)productive years are slipping away as well, while her boyfriend, Adrian Lester, who in my one quibble seems not to have heard of the blogosphere, pours all his energy into starting an online magazine, so his friends will have a place to kick around ideas. Not that we all have the same taste in movies any more than we do in candidates, but I hadn't heard much about this one, and don't know when I've been so floored by a film.

I Loved/Hated Sex and the City!

I admit I watched Sex and the City, the series, pretty religiously. I missed the beginning. And after watching my first episode, I hated it. I hated the way they talked: the faux fabulousness. But it was oddly addictive. It was like a train wreck I couldn't stop staring at.

And then I started to genuinely like it. While still hating it. Sort of.

But the end, the end, it drove me mad.

I was never a fan of Mr. Big. I thought he was miscast. I thought he was downright abusive to Carrie. I have dated men like this. They want to spend time with you, on their terms, only in private, and will never acknowledge their relationship with you in public. For years, they might introduce you as their "friend." They come and go as they please. Then suddenly they marry someone else. Yet they still call you. They string you along with scant moments of tenderness.

 Anyway, it seemed a relationship for a 20-year-old, not a wise, powerful thirtysomething woman.

And this was my main gripe with the show. It promised to be about wise, powerful, independent women. Women who can fuck around like men, but at the end of the week, they always show up for brunch with their girlfiriends. But in the end, it was just about four single women who wanted to find Prince Charming.

Jane Austen with fornication!

Which City Is That Again?

Oh gosh. Can I hide in a closet for the next two weeks, until, like a bad skin peel, this movie flakes off and goes away? For the first five or six or 20 seasons that it was on, I avoided the show, out of principal. What principal, I'm not sure—just the commercials about it on HBO made me twitchy with disdain. Then I realized that it was hardly fair to judge a show without ever having actually watched it. So I did, catching maybe six or eight episodes in a row. It was, I admit, oddly addictive. Still, I stopped when I realized I was missing half the scenes because my eyes were rolling so hard in my head. Also, I got a headache. I disliked much about the show, including the blatant, smug narcissism of all the characters. (The last show I watched was the one in which none of them even knew where they were supposed to vote, because they never bothered. After that, I was done.)  I realize that was the point, in part; I just didn't like it. But my major problem was the total and complete absence of black, Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc. etc. etc., people in that fairy-tale New York. Not just in starring roles— because, let's face it, most people in America, even in urban areas, lead fairly segregated lives—but even in background scenes! Except, of course, for Blair Underwood, Hollywood's designated black man. It was as if a plague had descended on the NYC that I know and love, wiping out only the dark-skinned and unfabulous. Someone must have painted the blood of a lamb over Underwood's door so that he alone was spared. 

I preferred Girlfriends. Equally ridiculous in many ways, but five times funnier.
 

Liked Samantha's Apartment, Though

Sex and the City, the Get-Well-Soon Gift