Flotsam

So, the other night, The Nearly was watching an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher as I sat across the room chuckling at my site stats, which had just informed me that some fine person had happened across my blog by searching for the word “Slutbitch” (you’ve come to the right place, my friend). Bill Maher was making jokes about Harriet Miers, and I wasn’t paying him any mind, until the focus of his jokes shifted from her politics to the fact that she is “unmarried and childless.” Specifically, there was a bit about how once when Harriet bent over it was thought that she was ‘showing some thong,’ but it turned out to be a cobweb. And next came the quip that probably the only balls Ms. Miers handled had numbers on them (a reference to her tenure with the Lottery Commission—haha!) It was about this time that I got well and truly pissed right off.
Now, I am not a fan of Ms. Miers—both for political reasons and because of her lack of credentials…if you’re the producer of a theatrical production and you need a leading lady, you don’t cast the coat-check girl just because she’s right down the hall (although our President wasn’t in any way qualified for his job, so perhaps he does not view Ms. Miers’ dearth of judicial experience as a stumbling block).
But none of that is the point.
The point is that I am sick to death of the emphasis on the marital state of a Supreme Court nominee. I have had my fill of the Old Maid jokes and of the images of her as a crone-y crony. If said nominee were a man, the standup riffs of talk-show hosts would not center on how long it had been since his last sexual encounter. Justice Souter is also “unmarried and childless,” but he gets the rakish term “bachelor,” a term that implies a sort of playboy-ish quality, a sort of nudge-and-a-wink rapscallionism, while the intimation is that Ms. Miers hasn’t been touched since the Carter administration, if ever. A Google search for “Harriet Miers Unmarried Childless” turns up a scad of documents musing on her status as a single non-mother, while a search for “Souter Unmarried Childless” only turns up articles about Harriet Miers.
I started in on a tirade about this to The Nearly, fuming that a 60-year-old unmarried and childless man nominated to a position of power would not have his personal life caricatured in this way—I don’t remember hearing anything about whether John Bolton is married. There were jokes about his mustache and the fact that he looks like a cross between Captain Kangaroo and some mad sea captain, but nothing that approached the pointed scorn that Miers’ unmarried state has drawn.
The Nearly responded that these jokes are partly due to the way Miers looks: like the woman on the Old Maid cards, so powerfully frumpy that she appears in some recent photos to be a time-traveler from the late 1980s (although, in her defense, her frumpiness is no greater than that of most other female Republican politicians). If she looked like Arianna Huffington, or even Hilary Clinton, argued The Nearly, Bill Maher wouldn’t be making jokes like the one about ‘cobwebs.’
I agree. In that case, Harriet Miers would be portrayed as a ruthless, ambitious man-hater who garnishes her morning cereal with the testicles of her frightened male underlings. And god, the Lesbian jokes! An attractive, unmarried 60-year old woman? She must like pussy!
As it is, her frumpiness keeps the jokes in the “can’t get a man” category.
Perhaps equally disturbing is the tendency of the media to “marry off” prominent unmarried women to the men they work for—as if to underscore that their power is actually negligible, that they are merely the pawns of powerful men. Condoleeza Rice is the example that comes to mind. Also “unmarried and childless,” she is portrayed as a fawning syncophantic devotee of the president, unhealthily attached to him, in a way that is a little pathetic, like a schoolgirl with an inappropriate crush on a teacher. Miers is already being characterized this way. And again, my problem with this is that it undermines the seriousness of the cronyism charges that have been leveled against her.
As a Democrat, I am embarrassed by this behavior. I want my party to focus on the real issues surrounding her appointment, not snipe ineffectually about her singleton status.

I know, I know: End of Rant—others do that sort of thing much more skillfully than I. This isn’t a political blog, after all (it’s all about Me! Me! Me!).
So here is something more on-topic–a scene from my weekend that only you lovely infertiles will properly appreciate:
Yesterday I went to a wedding. It was lovely—the groom is Italian, and so the service was done in both languages for the benefit of the dozens of Italian relatives who had flown over for the occasion. During the reception there was much hand gesturing and cries of “Bella!” and pinching of cheeks—the whole thing was so reminiscent of an Olive Garden commercial that, suspicious me, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Italian relatives coordinated their performance on the plane over, merely to confound the stupid Americans.
There were over 200 people at the reception, including one, and only one, pregnant woman. Vastly, vastly pregnant—due, in fact, the day before. Guess where she was seated for the dinner?
Oh, no, I haven’t concocted this simply for your amusement!
She was seated at my table.
At the other end of the table, you ask?
No. There were 250-plus chairs at that dinner, and she spent the evening in the one directly across from me.

Buon Appetito!