I love it when my disorganized blog is ahead of the local paper in pursuing forgotten memes. The other day, I had fun with the New York Times' "51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse" (which I deemed unfairly ahead of Glenn Reynolds' "A Rifle in Every Pot") by dredging up the decades old feminist metaphor -- "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."

I was, well scraping (rescraping, actually) the dregs of the 70s -- at least I thought I was. It was my way of mocking what I saw as a bad metaphor, but in all honesty I like to think that today's feminist women have evolved past mindless slogans and poor analogies.

I mean, a fish on a bicycle? Aside from being a rather poor analogy, there's a certain unattractive suggestiveness which might evoke certain negative stereotypes you'd think the feminists would have left alone.

But here's the cartoon that accompanied this Op Ed in today's Inquirer:

[NOTE: The cartoon is in the Inquirer's hard copy only; hence the link to the artist's site.]

What I don't know is whether the author of the Op-Ed (University of Connecticut Professor Gina Barreca) chose the cartoon to accompany her piece, or whether the Inquirer editors thought it would be clever.

I should always try to keep in mind that what's satire to me may be someone else's opinion.

At least, I think it's someone else's opinion. Perhaps Ms. Barreca intends the cartoon as satire. She is (according to Ms. magazine) an accomplished feminist humorist:

GINA BARRECA, Professor of English Literature and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut, received a B.A. from Dartmouth College, an M.A. from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. from the City University of New York. An award-winning columnist for the Hartford Courant, she has served as an advisor to the Library of Congress for work on humor and the American character, and was deemed a "feminist humor maven" by Ms. magazine. With Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post, she wrote I'm With Stupid: One Man, One Woman, and 10,000 Years of Misunderstandings Between The Sexes Cleared Right Up (2004). Barreca's works, which have been translated into five languages, include the best-selling Sweet Revenge: The Wicked Delights of Getting Even (1995); Perfect Husbands (and Other Fairy Tales) (1993); and They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted (1992).

"Gloria Steinem's marriage is proof positive of the emotional desperation of aging feminists who for over 30 years worshiped the steely career woman and callously trashed stay-at-home moms."

Anyway, in today's Op-Ed, Ms. Barreca inveighs against stereotypes:

Indeed, popular culture - the film/TV world especially - is doing all it can to keep alive the worst social clichés of the past. When women over age 26 or over size 8 are depicted as unmarried, they are most often played by Kathy Bates - or Martin Lawrence. If they're thin and unmarried, they're depicted as predatory and played by Glenn Close or Sharon Stone. If they are young and unmarried... well, by the credits, they won't be.

Complains Barreca, men -- even ugly, out-of-shape men -- are stereotyped as delectable:

Single men remain delectable, however, no matter what shape they're in. I'm not talking only George Clooney here. Any man with a steady job, a history of reasonable sobriety, and the ability to cook one signature meal (either a red gravy for pasta, which they refer to as a "Bolognese" sauce, or a stir fry made in a wok they got from their last girlfriend) can find a woman willing to marry him. Guys who look like Notre Dame gargoyles can find wives who look like Isabella Rossellini. Think Everybody Loves Raymond. Think The King of Queens. Think The Simpsons. Meantime, women who look like Christie Brinkley get dumped for 17-year-olds who work at ShopRite or hookers named Divine Brown.

But forget the new stereotypes. What matters is that the old stereotypes are gone, and that's good for women:

But in the non-screen world, it may be that women have turned the Donna Reed image of singlehood inside-out. Perhaps women are learning that being alone in a relationship is far worse than being alone not in one. (A friend of mine once told me she'd never remarry: single, she can make herself feel inadequate whenever she needs to without having to watch football or, for that matter, her weight.) More and more, being unmarried is a sign that a woman is in control of her life.

But who is making her watch her weight? Her husband? Society? Or might it be her own rational and selfish desire to live longer? Seriously, what has weight to do with this? Not to get off topic, but men and women both get fat, don't they? And isn't being overweight bad for you? Unless Professor Barreca subscribes to the old stereotype -- "fat is a feminist issue!" -- I'm confused. No; I'm wrong right there, because even if she did subscribe to fat theory (or whatever the feminist meme is), then why would she have complained about Kathy Bates? For the fat theorists, shouldn't the latter be considered a liberating stereotype?

OK, enough fat. Let's cut to the meat. Much as I'd like to believe that "being unmarried is a sign that a woman is in control of her life," I often wonder what is meant by being in control. Feminism is supposed to mean independence, yet so many feminists are socialists that I often wonder whether the goal is simply to substitute The State for The Man. If it is, that is not independence, and it is the antithesis of being in control. In logic, if the stereotype of men being in control is bad (because it's bad to be controlled), then how does it become good for the state to be in control? Asserting that it's good for women to be in control of their lives is one thing, but I find myself wondering whether the people who say this really mean it. That's why I suggested that single women be armed. How could any true feminist oppose that?

I think a good slogan would be "a woman needs the state like a fish needs a net."

I know. The net of the state (whether nanny or daddy state) is meant as a safety net.

Nothing funny about it.

(The fish/bike analogy may have been scraping, but the net analogy really is bottom trawling.)