With the latest batch of vampire romances, I’ve noticed a somewhat alarming trend: All the vampire heroes — you know, the immortal dead-inside blood suckers who possess tremendous strength and superpowers — are male. The vampire lovers — the comparatively weak, fragile humans who are bound by mortality — are female.

Lady vampire lover of yore (also known as 1997), Buffy Summers, while human, was at least a Slayer, also endowed with vampire-butt-kicking superpowers. She also died twice without truly dying. And although she’s been known to be seduced by the brooding vampire sex appeal, she never loses her mission: Rid the world of as many evil blood-sucking monsters as possible.

But here in 2009, we no longer have Slayers. We have pensive, conflicted vampires and the moody young women who love them: “The Vampire Diaries” teen drama just debuted on The CW last Wednesday; the “True Blood” Season 2 finale aired Sunday on HBO; and the second movie in the “Twilight” saga, “New Moon” hits the big screen on Nov. 20.

Ain’t them the breaks? FINALLY you meet a guy, and it’s always something. “Hey Mom, I met the perfect guy, and he says he would totally date me, if he weren’t already with a live-in girlfriend … Wow, this boy I just met is sooo dreamy; too bad he’s moving to another country next week …”

Pfft! Those are garden-variety problems. What if your dream man is cursed for all eternity? What if you’re always unsure whether he’s looking at you with burning sexual desire or just craving a juicy human steak? What if he’s an old soul who can hold his superior life experience over your head while he’s in state of arrested development — always the sulking, skulking teenage boy?

Let me preface this by saying that I have not read the “Twilight,” “The Vampire Diaries” or “The Southern Vampire Mysteries” books, so the complaints I’m logging are based solely on what’s on the screen — and may well be dealt with in the novels. Let’s talk about what we’ve seen so far …

***********SPOILERS AHEAD*************

Starting with “Twilight,” which I enjoyed more than I would like to admit.

In the movie, though, we actually don’t know anything about the heroine, Bella Swan. Kristen Stewart is beautiful and mysterious. She’s clumsy and hates dancing. She also hates shopping, clothes, sports, and surfing. But what does she like? Apparently, she mostly likes getting the gorgeous boy no else can have and the threat of dying any minute. Edward the vampire, who nobly abstains from eating people, can play piano and baseball and can fly, so he’s the rock star of this movie, and she’s the groupie. Why can he not read her mind and her mind only? Is it too full — or too empty?

Also, when Bella touches Edward’s hand the first time, she flinches at his coldness, and soon ascertains that he’s what the Indians call a “Cold One.” Does he even have a heartbeat or breath? As pretty as Robert Pattinson is, that doesn’t seem very appealing — cuddling with a man who feels like an ice sculpture. That boy is ice cold! Wear your thermals!

(You give me the chills!)

Most disturbing to me, though, is that Edward is a complete jerk to her for half the movie, an emotional roller coaster promising to end in a train wreck, and Bella just can’t let it go. When he puts on a display of his overwhelming speed and strength, his potential for violence, and explains how he craves to kill specifically her, she gets starry-eyed and tells him she doesn’t care and she thinks it’s love. (Because bloodlust is just as romantic and loving as sexual desire?) And when he says everything about him is a charade to draw her in, she insists she trusts him. She continues protesting that facing the threat of her mother’s death, facing her own death and breaking her leg in the process, it was all worth it, because she found Edward. Yet he won’t make her a vampire and his wife, even though she clearly wants nothing more and has nothing better to do. Jerk.

A friend commented that he felt as though the moment Bella told Edward, “I’m not scared,” she became the powerful and interesting one. To me, though, it’s nothing like the brilliant scene in “The Labyrinth” where Sarah states to the Goblin King, “You have no power over me,” and his whole world crumbles. Sarah is rejecting his offer of false, manipulative love. Here, Bella is told “I am deceiving and manipulating you to lure you into the jaws of death,” and she counters with irrational feelings of love and trust.

That brings me to the debut of “The Vampire Diaries” TV show on The CW …

The “Diaries” books pre-date the “Twilight” books by a decade, so it’s intriguing how similar these two storylines are. An emotionally detached, cynical dark-haired beauty named Elena (whom, like Bella, is preferred by all boys in the school to the perky, easy blond cheerleader) attracts Stefan, the handsome, deep, emo guy all the girls are swooning helplessly over. Elena can’t swoon, because, like him, she is also feeling dead inside — with reason, because her parents just died. Stefan, like Edward, has given up noshing on people, but she, her blood specifically, stirs up “urges” in him, and I wish we were talking about a boner.

(Stefan kind of looks like Morrissey. How apropos! Also, he and Edward both share the ability not to get toasted by the sun.)

This love story in this one, so far, I like better, just because Elena has no reason to believe her new boy is a vampire. Her blood-sucking suitor has been entirely warm and pleasant. Man, is she in for a MAJOR letdown.

On the other hand, “True Blood”, created by Alan Ball, the man who brought us “Six Feet Under,” has vampires living out in the open, drinking synthetic blood. The show, based on the “The Southern Vampire Mysteries” by Charlaine Harris, deals with complex, adult issues such as discrimination, fetishism, and religion — perhaps in a heavy-handed way. Enter the dysfunctional immortal-mortal romance.

Sookie (pronounced Suck-KAY) the psychic human waitress is completely taken with Bill, the gorgeous, brooding vamp. Thankfully, characters on the show are always voicing the obvious red flags these romantic heroines are always shrugging off:

“You set up a date with a vampire. What do you have? A death wish?”

“The fact you think you’re gonna be fine just proves how not fine you’re gonna be. Vampires think about one thing, and one thing only: Drinking. Your. Blood.”

(Vampire suitor bares his fangs.) “I think we need to stop seeing each other.”

Yes, Sookie is clearly a bit kooky. Bill, too, has the cold-hands problem. “I’m afraid I’m not as warm as the men you must be accustomed to.” I wish Sookie didn’t give off such a stench of desperation. As in, “I don’t really ever get close to a warm man’s body, so your cold dead one will do just fine.” Sookie echoes Bella when Bill tells her, “I am a vampire, and you are mortal,” and she answers, “Who cares?” At least the sexy part of their courtship is just a blood-drinking fetish and not a full-on “I think about killing you more than most people” love letter.

Possibly the most upsetting aspect of these stories, particularly the ones for teens is this: You take the typically unrealistic romantic teen fantasy — filled with angst and unhealthy obsession — and inject it with this idea that thirst for blood and violence are equated to love and sex. My friend also sees Edward is valiant, because it takes everything in him, fighting his own instincts to not kill her. Is that how we define romance these days? “I didn’t hit you, I didn’t rape you, because I love you. Aren’t you grateful? I am a prince!”

Sure, I understand it’s all a metaphor for losing your virginity, but it’s a disturbing one. Because the girls are always the innocents, who are at risk of have their lives forever destroyed and altered. The guys, meanwhile, are cold and dead and really not facing any sort of catastrophic change.

Read Glamour’s “4 Reasons Why Twilight Is Bad For Your Love Life”

Mostly, though, these stories, I believe, appeal to young women who are attracted to tragic love — the bittersweet ideal of a romance that’s dangerous and unstable and something a girl can’t ever really HAVE without a tremendous sacrifice.

I — having been a girl attracted to tragic, bittersweet love stories not so long ago — am over all the moping and hand-wringing. I can’t wait till they bring “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” back. Please, don’t screw it up!

See her awesome screaming freak-out in “Caught Out There.”

Not to suggest I endorse domestic violence, but it is refreshing to see a woman react to a breakup and a man’s deception — not by crying, not by begging him to come back, not by singing the blues — but by screaming and tearing things up. With her wild rainbow-streaked hair, she is a force of nature.

Sure, everyone got fed up with that silly “Milkshake” song, but for this “Young Fresh N’ New” video, I will always love her. She mounts a big monster truck, rolls over some cars, loads up some runaway kids to hit the road with her.

Speaking of feminist hip-hop pioneers, let’s talk Salt-n-Pepa. I danced to their killer beats for 20 years before I stopped to think about how ground-breaking they were. When “Push It” became Top 40 sensation, I was too young to understand the significance of women aggressively asserting their sexual desire. Yet Salt-n-Pepa were creating a hip-hop revolution with just with one simple stanza:

“Yo, baby pop, yo you, c’mere, give me a kiss.
You better make it fast or else I’m gonna get pissed.
Can’t you hear the music pumping hard like I wish you would?
Now push it. Push it good. Push it real good”

Look at those outfits – aren’t they badass?

What’s interesting to me is that today, 22 years later, there’s still a backlash. I just heard this 2004 “cover” of “Push It” by the Diplomats. *cough* Excuse me, by “cover,” I mean sampling a song and giving it the same title.

“Birdman Junior I’m fly, Bitch know the name
in the game, airplanes and trains we came,
ya pussy pay me, I’m a pimp so I don’t have to buy,
No see niggas won’t buy you So I don’t f*ck for free like Akka-Nelly-Bitch!
No I ain’t Nelly bitch, this ain’t no tip drill
I got like six pills but I’m on that sip still
It make me sit still, What’s really money?
Get real, i’m tryin’ to f*ck you, and the 5th wheel
Push it”

That hook of “Push It” is undeniable. Put it on, and everyone wants to dance. It is particularly sneaky, I think, to take that wicked awesome hook Salt-n-Pepa came up with, and replace those rhymes with men rapping about women desperate to get in their pants. Visually, instead of Salt and Pepa giving attitude and busting moves in long leotards and puffy jackets, we get a bunch of passive prop-like video girls writhing in bikinis.

What an insidious formula: Take a infectious, irresistible tune by powerful women about powerful women, strip away those strong women voices, and rap about taking women’s power away! Do partiers even notice?

Here, we have a 2005 San Francisco Chronicle piece on some of the strongest and most talented women in hip-hop and R&B — Queen Latifah, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, and Floetry.

Naturally, it’s loaded with “ironic” jokes about “man-hating,” for example:

Do they hate men? More than Oprah, judging by songs like “Mr. Messed Up” and “Headache.” “Ms. Stress,” meanwhile, delivers the ultimate kiss-off, “You to I means death of my heart my visions my dreams.” Translation: “We hate men.”

Would a joke about Too $hort hating women come off so well? No. You know why? It would not be funny — considering how many hip-hop artists say actually hateful things about women. If those same women stand up for themselves, God forbid, and assert what they want, let’s label them “man-haters” and make jokes to defuse our collective discomfort.

Thank God we have people like Byron Hurt in our corner. He’s an awesome male feminist and hip-hop fan who’s willing to take a hard look at how masculinity is presented in his favorite music, as he demonstrates in his 2006 documentary “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes.”

The full film is about an hour long if I remember correctly. Do watch it. It’s worth the money.

(Neurologist Jean Martin Charcot demonstrates a case of “hysteria” c. 1885)

As soon as President Obama named federal appeals judge Sonya Sotomayor as his nominee for the Supreme Court, right-wing commentators jumped on the chance to attack her — since they apparently are only against sexism when it’s politically convenient for them (i.e. making misogynist comments against Sen. Hillary Clinton, but claiming critics of former Gov. Sarah Palin are sexist).

An excellent article by McClatchy Newspapers on Wednesday predicted the coming firestorm:

WASHINGTON — Judge Sonia Sotomayor can be blunt, aggressive and impatient. So get ready for another public debate, and probably some insinuations, about her judicial temperament.

************
Sotomayor earned considerable praise among the lawyers quoted in the almanac. However, she also elicited critiques that range from “she can be a terror on the bench” and “she is temperamental and excitable” to “she can be a bit of a bully” and “she can get harsh at oral argument.”

He further characterized Sotomayor as a “wonderful colleague” who doesn’t mince words. He said she had “in a not insignificant number of cases changed my mind . . . both by charm, but mainly by the force of her legal argument.”

Send in the clowns:

Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has called her an “angry woman.” Sean Hannity, naturally, has picked up all the negative things these lawyers have said about her suggesting she doesn’t the right “judicial temperament” (read: “she’s a hysterical woman”).

And also, because it’s convenient, they are charging, very ridiculously, that she is racist against all the poor long-suffering white men who hold a drastic majority of all positions of power in the government, media, and corporate America. So Limbaugh also called her a “racist” and a “bigot” — even going to so far to compare her to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Newt Gingrich jumped on the “racist” bandwagon, too, of course. (Read here to find out what all the accusations of racism against Sotomayor are entirely unfounded.)

Meanwhile Chicken Little, I mean Glenn Beck, has dismissed all her life accomplishments with this disparaging comment: “Hey, Hispanic chick lady! You’re empathetic … you’re in!” Yeah, that’s not at all sexist or racist. Never mind she graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, served as the editor of Yale Law Journal, and worked as a prosecutor before being nominated to a U.S. District Court.

By the way these talking heads are reacting, you’d think we had something serious to be concerned about, as if the Supreme Court nominee had been accused of sexual harassment by a reputable source.

My favorite is G. Gordon Liddy — a convicted felon in the Watergate scandal who has a talk radio show, that apparently, people listen to — when he says this:

LIDDY: Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.

Oh noes! She has a vagina! Maybe Liddy would like to suggest some helpful products for her.

Listen here for Liddy’s full comment and commentary by The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur, who points out that the language Liddy refers to as “illegal alien” is spoken in countries all over the world, such as Spain.

Last night, I went to the benefit screening of “America the Beautiful,” which originally came out in spring 2007. For someone who is very aware of media messages to women about beauty and sexuality and how we, as a culture respond, very little of the movie was surprising or new information. However, women (and men) receive hundreds and thousands of these negative messages every day, so I am always in favor of someone new trying to counter or break down these communications.

When it comes to this kind of feminist commentary, people always say, “Oh this has been said before!” Yes, but has it been said enough? How many headlines in a week screech, “Major Celebrity Gains 10 Pounds and Is Totally Fat Now.” Oh, that’s been said before. Does not stop them from saying it again.

Here is what made this film interesting to me:

* It comes from the point of view of a man, Chicago TV and radio personality Darryl Roberts, who himself had been obsessed with finding beauty and physical perfection in women. And for him, it starts when he wakes up, as though he just emerged from a deep hypnosis. He says it dawned on him he had a problem when the woman he ended a five-year relationship with married someone else. She was wonderful (and looking at the picture of her, lovely) — everything he could ask for in a companion. But he, being friends with Michael Jordan, felt like he could have all that wonderfulness, in a hotter, more perfect package. He says, “What good is this obsession with beauty doing us? It certainly didn’t make me happy.”

* Roberts interviews some dudes who are just cretins. Guys that you never ever want to see procreate. Guys who suggest that if Pamela Anderson and her ilk could be cloned, all other women could be disposed of. But interestingly, Roberts feels sympathy toward them — they, too, are “victims” of brain-washing.

* Roberts discovers a 12-year-old girl, called Gerren, who was becoming a sensation in the modeling world, and he follows her through three years of her life. Gerren, at first, seems to be playing in a world she doesn’t entirely understand, prancing around in skimpy clothes. By age 13, she’s a has-been. By age 15, her more womanly size 4 body is considered “obese” in France where she is trying to get a contract.

* He calls out “Dr. 90210′s” Dr. Rey (You remember my friend, Dr. Rey?) for not being a board-certified plastic surgeon. In fact, no one of that show is board-certified. Roberts gives a very gruesome picture of the ugly, life-threatening side of plastic surgery.

* Roberts has a very poignant segment about a girl who died of bulemia, in which he interviews her parents. And they sadly explain how they subtly played a part in her demise, with the mom admitting she was critical of her own body in front of her daughter. She says, “Children think Mom is perfect and beautiful. And if you tell them you’re not, they look at themselves and say, ‘I have her body.’”

* Roberts calls out American cosmetic companies, too, for loading up their products with carcinogens. He buys a bunch of random products at Target, and has a Chicago lab test for their toxicity. The results are frightening. After the screening, Roberts explained that a major cosmetics company offered to sponsor his film for $1 million, if he just took out that “one little segment.” After he said no, they secretly hired away his publicist, who called all 17 publications in New York City that had interviewed him about the opening and told them to pull their stories. Fortunately for him, one of the six people who saw his movie, happened to be the daughter of Meredith Vieira on “The Today Show.”

It was inspiring to see how many people came out to this movie in San Francisco to support About-Face and Beyond Hunger. I have been a huge fan of About-Face and its Gallery of Offenders since the mid-’90s. It’s endlessly inspiring see how many people are passionate about this problem.

I loooved Dushku’s character in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” as Faith “the dark slayer.” My good friend Chanelle used to complain that Buffy was too femme, that she didn’t look tough. And Chanelle never bought the slayer superpowers business. I can see both sides, as one hand, tough, well-muscled, un-dainty and un-pretty girls are hardly ever in the spotlight. On the other, I am a small woman who often is underestimated, so it thrilling to watch someone so little and cute kick butt. But Dushku could never be doubted. She exudes toughness. Even in the cheerleader epic “Bring It On,” you knew Dushku could rough all those girls (and boys) up.

So it is more than upsetting to watch “Dollhouse,” a show in which Dushku is stripped of all her power. Here is the premise: Women (and men) are sold or sell themselves into slavery (it’s not clear how much is voluntary and how much is done through blackmail or straight-up slavery) with a secret organization called Dollhouse, which then strips each slave of all his or her memories and personalities. She or he is then rented out to a millionaire for an exorbitant fees and programmed to have whatever personality and skills said millionaire requests.

*** SPOILERS ALERT***

In the first few episodes, Dushku, who is one of the Dolls, is rented out as a “dream date” to a couple guys, and of course, this is involves sex. Making her, as Television Without Pity pointed out, a high-tech prostitute. One on hand, it is sort of a hysterical commentary on the idea of a “dream date” and all the guys on Nerve who feel so entitled to demand specifics like, “I want a woman who can quote German existentialists and who also weighs less than 100 pounds.” Or, my favorite, “I want a woman who is as comfortable in jeans as she is high heels.” Dushku can race motorcycles! She can tie bondage ropes! And she’ll still melt when a millionaire hands her a cheap looking trinket! For the next guy: She can climb cliffs! Camp in the wilderness! Shoot deer with an arrow! Be awesome in bed!

But she’s not always a call girl. One man hires a Doll as the “perfect hostage negotiator” to recover his kidnapped little girl, and so Dushku is given the memories of a woman who was kidnapped and raped as child. (Shudder!)

Frankly, even though I do enjoy this show on a sci-fi level, it’s horrifying to see a woman we all know and love as a superhero or super-villain be put in one terrible situation after another (or a least to watch her fall in love with a chain of douchebags), and then have her memory of these events erased. And then to see Dushku wander around all doe-eyed and empty-looking in her “tabula rasa” (blank slate) state. Even as we’re rooting for her to overcome her present circumstances, her heroics are a part of the fake personality — right? Even though there are supposedly male Dolls, the only ones we see are women, and the main storyline, of course, is our pal Dushku.

I have to stop here to say Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” and “Firefly,” is one of my favorite male feminists in the public eye. I have been sold on him after this speech he made in May 2006, when Equality Now gave him a Men on the Front Lines honor.

You can also read the full text here

“But, these strong women characters…”

Because you’re still asking me that question.

“Dollhouse” is intriguing because Whedon has always been fairly sex-positive, and in “Firefly,” he presents the Inara Serra character as a positive spin on prostitution. As a “Companion,” Inara was something like an intergalactic courtesan, a woman of high social standing, who got to carefully chose and select her customers. She always carried herself as a strong, willful and intelligent woman of integrity. In the last episode of “Firefly,” the crew even rescues a whorehouse named Heart of Gold. In “Dollhouse,” though, Whedon seems to be making a distinction between sex workers who make their own choices, and those forced into prostitution against their own will, for whatever reason, as “human trafficking” is brought up often by the cop hunting Dollhouse down.

Well, according to this io9.com article, Whedon IS trying to sketch me out:

Dollhouse’s Sexuality Is Creepy On Purpose

Are you creeped out by the raunchy marketing for the mind-slave-peddling show Dollhouse? Then creator Joss Whedon is very, very happy. Whedon explained his show’s take on the skin trade, in a call with reporters. …

Today, Whedon talked more about the idea that people’s identities are already becoming more customizeable, thanks to the Internet and “extraordinarily specific medications.” This is something that wasn’t really true even a decade ago, and it gives you new ways to talk about very old questions. “Who am I? What am I as I get older, and what’s really sticking? What’s the part I can point to and say, ‘This is me,’ and what’s just coming and going? And what has been imposed on me? Who the hell am i? Why aren’t I prettier?” But also, what do people expect from each other, and how do we use each other?

Now, that I’ve seen Episode 3, I suddenly get it. “Dollhouse” isn’t even a comment on prostitution. It’s a comment on sexism and how women are viewed as objects in our society. And it’s brilliant — even though I won’t dispute the obvious plot holes. In Episode 3, the comparison of the Dolls to the life of a super-sexy overly handled pop star is fairly heavy-handed, the diva’s too-obvious speech set off a chain reaction in my head. Dream dates, pop-star fantasies, acting, magazine covers, strip clubs, pageants, “The Bachelor,” make-up, Wonderbras, playing dumb, pretending to like something you don’t — it’s about EVERYTHING that requires artifice in women. And Dushku always turns out even more awesome than she is programmed to be. Plus, they finally let us in on the fact at least part of Dushku’s doe-eyed routine is faked (oh, how I was hoping for that!).

Turns out I just noticed Dushku is a producer for the show, too. Hooray for Joss and Eliza! I seriously was having my doubts, but now am I sold.

But that’s just my opinion. Are you creeped out by this show? Did it disturb you in the beginning?

We’ve Seen 3 Episodes Of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse!

Brittney Griner named nation’s no. 1 player

“She will change the face of women’s basketball.” Nimitz coach Debbie Jackson said. “There really is not a high school player that has played like Brittney Griner has. There’s no doubt in my mind that she will be one of the top notch collegiate players, and it won’t take long for her to do that.”

Tanya writes:

The sound of snow crunching under treading feet has a soothing quality. There’s nothing quite like the rhythm of little ice particles crushed by an eager boot. Concentrate on the sound for a long while, and eventually it becomes a small symphony of pressures, tones and pauses. Cheryl E. Leonard understands this. Recently, the San Francisco-based musician and naturalist received a grant from the National Science Foundation to go to Antarctica and develop musical compositions based on the natural elements and sounds of that cold, vast region.

Read the whole piece here

It should be mentioned that her article appears Coilhouse an awesome blog and print magazine produced by three fascinating ladies. See their posts on a woman gettting a mermaid tale, a feminist sci-fi writer, and the 25 Things About My Sexuality site.

Also, I am delighted by this list of topics they cover:

* cryptohistory and misanthropology
* abandoned structures + sprawling metropolises
* pre-apocalypse pleasure islands
* Genghis Khan’s bow and Hiro Protagonist’s sword
* Siamese twins, and other such nature’s curiosities
* otherworldly beauties with faces painted bright
* unreasonable footwear
* complicated hair
* technological body enhancement
* incredibly strange music
* flagrant futurism
* whalebone, absinthe & silk
* patricide girls
* body scaffolding
* dressing for war

These photos were taken by French photographer Guillaume Herbaut and originally posted on Oeil Public. Thanks to Dahlia Rideout on Divine Caroline for uncovering and my buddy James for pointing me to her post.

A group of about 150 women, calling themselves “Asgarda,” devote their lives to training in boxing and fighting with medieval weapons up in the Carpathian Mountains. Apparently, their hero is controversial Ukraine prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, an energy baroness-turned-reformer and leader in the Orange Revolution of 2004. At the very least, Tymoshenko seems like a force to reckon with, and I would say she also rocks some fierce Princess Leia braids, but that’s silly — surely Ukrainian women came up the ‘do way before George Lucas did.

From Herbaut’s photo essay on Asgarda:

Katerina Tarnouska (founder of Asgarda) looks at me in the eyes. She is a thirty-year-old blonde with a ponytail, wearing a white dress. “Time has come to get separated from the men.” She dreams of a walled world where women would live among themselves. A world like the one of the Amazon tribes.

Turns out the Amazons may have been women warrior tribes located in the Donesk area of eastern Ukraine. Rad!

See the photo essay here

Dahlia Rideout’s Divine Caroline post

No, I’m not going to see “He’s Just Not That Into You,” as I’ve detested the concept and the book since it first came out. But I don’t need to. I’ve read enough to learn the whole plot of the movie. And I actually skimmed the book (there aren’t many words in it) when it was on the giveaway table at the San Francisco Chronicle.

What’s amazing, actually, is that comedian Greg Behrendt (and co-author Liz Tuccillo) have managed to make millions with a book based on a six-word phrase that is so self-explanatory a book could only be redundant. And it is! I think women read it just to go, “No, really, is that all you have to say?” Yes, it is!

[[EDIT: To be fair, I should note that Liz Tuccillo is the co-author of "He's Just Not That Into You," and I'm told she penned most of the book. But my tirade is directed at Behrendt because he's always smarming about how he came up with the phrase when he was a "Sex and the City" consultant and posing as a relationship expert on TV.]]

(Seriously, are you going to listen to this guy?)

Here’s my problem with “He’s Just Not That Into You” — it’s a lie. It’s not just a lie; it’s a bald-face, hateful attack on single women — particularly those single women, like so many I know in urban centers, who’ve had a long chain of relationships that didn’t succeed or even really start.

One reason this bumper-sticker slogan is so appealing is that it’s so obvious, a.k.a. “common sense” — what I refer to as “bus-stop logic.” Say, if you pour your heart out to a random stranger at the bus stop, said random stranger would come out with the simplest, most surface conclusion. An example of this would be, say, if a straight woman ever had trouble dating a musician (take heed all you musician guys out there), it’s because “he wants a woman in every port.” Women want rich guys, and men want bimbos, so on, so forth.

Reasons people buy into it

Like every good lie, “He’s Just Not That Into You” has a half-truth to it, and that’s also why it’s been so hugely successful.

This is the part that’s true: Getting worked up about a potential lover to the point you’re anxious, desperate, needy, or overly eager will get you nowhere — and this applies to all genders and all sexual orientations. Worrying, panicking, overanalyzing, waiting for the phone to ring are a potent recipe for sabotaging any budding romance. And it is likely he’s not even worth the turmoil. I know, I myself have snuffed out many sparks projecting a future that didn’t exist onto some poor, unwitting fellow. And we all, men and women, do it. I would advise any woman feeling forlorn about her love life: Have confidence, calm down, stop worrying — about whether you’ll get married or if this or that dude likes you — and take a breather from the pursuit. It’s surprising how effortlessly things work out when you’re just busy being your awesome self. And, I, too, have to remind myself of that on a regular basis.

But this whole “He’s Not That Into You” phenomenon takes that premise, which would I would sell as “Don’t Worry, Don’t Care, as He’s Probably Not Worth the Fuss,” and gives it a nice misogynist packaging.

Why the book is sexist

For one, most obviously, the phrase starts with “he” and is most preoccupied, as most things in our culture, with what a man thinks and experiences. How “he” feels gets almost God-like importance: The Great Collective Male Mind has spoken.

For two, the book and movie suggests that single women are stupid, always barking up the wrong tree. But see, thing is, most straight women are very good at intuiting when guys want them. If you come from a less-progressive part of the country, you’ve been subtly socialized your whole life to pick up on nonverbal signs of interest in men. Because not even 60 years ago, getting married was very very important for women in our culture.

More than that, though, this power, which makes the patriarchy quake in its boots, would entirely undermine American consumer culture. If a woman feels desirable and powerful and able to assess a man’s interest, you can’t sell her skin-fixing creams, weight-loss programs, lip-plumping gloss, tanning beds, hair-removal devices, breast implants, self-help books (ahem!), so on, so forth. Million-dollar industries are built on women feeling insecure and women doubting their own finely honed instincts.

So “He’s Just Not That Into You” handily perpetuates the patriarchy’s stranglehold of consumerism by telling women: 1. You are not desired or loved (even though you’re desirable – because Behrendt has to give you a reason to keep reading). 2. You can’t trust your own judgment. Neat, huh?

For three, the movie and the book, at least, suggest that a woman cannot be happy unless she has a man who is hopelessly devoted to her, giving her all his time and attention, ready to pop the question. It plays into this notion that men always have the upper hand because women want marriage and commitment, and men want freedom and lots of sex. But a man in love? Oh like Prince Charming, he will read your mind and fulfill your every little wish, rub your feet, buy your tampons, hand-feed you chocolate.

Lastly, “He’s Just Not That Into You” commits the sin it’s accusing women of: Presuming to know what any given man is thinking in any given situation. Because you know, a comedian who has never been trained in psychology has superior knowledge and understanding of a relationship he’s not in, involving people he’s never met.

When guys who like you act like they don’t like you

What’s funny is that even the episode of “Sex and the City” blamed with starting this whole cult ends up poking holes in the premise, when Miranda invites a date in and he begs off of it. She demands that he admit he’s “not into her,” and he says, “I’m sorry, I would like to come in; it’s just that Indian food we had gave me diarrhea. Gotta go!”

One comment I’ve heard from guys I’ve dated, more than one, is “I’m so into you that it terrifies me.” But the logic of the book doesn’t have room for this complexity, as buys into this fake-love premise that if you are a special-enough, magical-enough woman a guy will fall so madly in love with you, he will automatically get over all his issues, all his bad relationships, all the terrible things women have done to him, right? Because guys never get hurt, don’t have fears, and they certainly don’t cry.

If he loves you, he’ll come back to you

My first real boyfriend here, on our second date, invited me up to his room to watch TV, and finally worked up the courage to say, “I like you sooo much. I like you more than any girl I’ve ever met in San Francisco.” I was feeling breathless and giddy because I was terribly insecure at that point in my 20s, and I’d never gotten a speech like this from a boy I liked sooo much. Then he concluded with, “That’s why I can’t see you anymore.” See, he was set to move far away in seven weeks.

I was inconsolable. I went home at 3 a.m. and couldn’t sleep. At 3:30 a.m., I realized Mom would be getting up, so I called Oklahoma and wailed on the phone. But it wasn’t my mom who finally calmed me down. It was Dad, who gave me the best nugget of romantic advice I’ve ever gotten: “If he loves you, he’ll come back to you.” Wouldn’t that be a much nicer book? Not to suggest anyone should sit waiting by the phone or tolerate overt jerk behavior. But again, don’t panic. What’s meant to be is meant to be. You can put your interest out there so much, then you just have to let go to find out if it will come back to you. The boy did, in fact, email me a few days later and ask me to watch a movie with him – and before we knew it we were swept up in a whirlwind of young love.

When life can’t be summed up in six words

There are, I’m sure, other reasons for my history of failed romances: At times, I’ve been confused by people-pleasers or guys who succeed in their career by making people feel special. Oftentimes, men have built up these elaborate fantasies about me and don’t know quite what to do when they’re confronted with the real me. I’ve been lured into traps set by players, and I’ve also managed to make myself off-putting to guys who would be interested by falling into a weird, overeager, insecure zone. I’ve encountered men too busy wrestling big, scary demons like mental illness and childhood abuse. But it’s not as though he was “meh” every single time. And no woman should ever have to feel like every tumultuous, unpredictable failed romance she had was simply met by a shrug on the other end.

If he loves you, he’ll come back to you, but sometimes it’s too late. That’s the other disappointing aspect to this “He’s Just Not That Into You” film. It doesn’t even stick to its own flimsy logic, as a least two of the women end up with men who weren’t that “into” them. What would make this an awesome movie is if a heroine just said, “You know forget this guy; I’m moving on.” Then she went on being her fabulous self, and eventually met a great, thoughtful man to date. Or even figured out she was just fine being alone. At the end, the previous lothario would come back and say, “I figured out I am really into you,” and she’d say, “Sorry, Charlie! You had your chance, and now I’ve had some time and perspective I see you really weren’t that great in the first place.”

Other great related articles:

My hero Rebecca Traister takes on ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ the book

Jezebel smacks down ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ the movie

‘Not That Into You’: The wrong advice for the Obama era

Everyone Agrees: Women Are Hard to Read

Good review of a real sex therapist’s rebuttal: ‘Be Honest — You’re Not That Into Him Either’

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