Objectify This

Geek chic is in.

Even the New York Times knows it. While in previous years that would mean that it’s already passé, Obama has ushered in a celebration of the passé – both a revival of the cult of the individual and a trumph of sincerity.

I know that it’s odd to label the onset of our largest economic crisis in nearly a century a celebration, but bear with me — I just mean that I am still relieved that Palin isn’t president.

The comedy of the Palin/McCain campaign was made possible not only by Obama’s success in the polls, but also because geek chic is in.

Just as Tina Fey’s Palin impressions wouldn’t have been funny if the wealth-blinded, warmongering Republicans had won, they also wouldn’t have been funny if there weren’t a huge victory for feminism lurking beneath the surface: you can’t get by on pretty anymore.

That’s right. We, the American people, demand women with moral and intellectual fiber. (And we demand that our politicians have thrifty yet stylish pantsuits.)

That was the lesson of the Palin-Couric interviews, and of the well-publicized hypocrisy over Palin’s self-presentation as “just a hockey mom” and her wardrobe bill. The American people think that women should be smarter than that.

In other words, there has been a sudden, and seemly inexplicable, shift in expectations for women.  But the question shouldn’t be why we think women should be smart now, it’s why we ever thought they shouldn’t.

It used to be thought that women had to choose between smarts and sex.  As Dorothy Parker observed, “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

Yet the phrase, which has doubtlessly lead thousands of girls to choose between 20/20 vision and getting blurry action, was certainly intended satirically. It was not a suggestion that women cast off their useful eyewear.

Consider that Parker published the rhyme in the same issue of NY World (August 16, 1925) as her poem Résumé:

Razors pain you,

Rivers are damp,

Acids stain you,

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful,

Nooses give,

Gas smells awful.

You might as well live.

Even without an acquaintance with Parker’s other work, we can appreciate her acquiescence to reality, in nursery rhyme form.

Parker, whose books include the ominously titled Enough Rope and Sunset Gun, actually attempted suicide multiple times — so her wry humor should not be read as empty patter.

In Parker’s day, male-female relations were not doing well. The evidence appears in her own life. In addition to suicide, she also tried marriage three times, including twice to the same man, before divorcing him for the second and last time in 1963.

Being an intelligent woman, like Parker, was difficult in an era when, as she put it, “A girl’s best friend is her mutter,” and when “Men don’t like nobility in woman. Not any men. I suppose it is because the men like to have the copyrights on nobility — if there is going to be anything like that in a relationship.”

That just sounds so backwards — how did we get here from there? The answer came to me from the least likely of sources.

I recently saw Martin Amis speak here at the Hay Festival in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, and that misogynist in this machista country had a surprising degree of insight about the state of gender relations.

He said, (and here I quote loosely) that the sexual revolution isn’t over. In fact, he claimed it was still in gestation, and that it would not reach its crescendo for several generations. I think he’s right.

We’ve all heard repeatedly that the sexual revolution was a milestone for Western culture, Summer of Love, wild orgies, blah blah. But Amis’ idea is that the seventies merely marked the conception (if the metaphor isn’t too circular) of sex as pleasure.

It’s a matter of time before sex as pleasure penetrates (pun intended, sorry) the zeitgeist enough to include discussions of gender differences in sex and orgasm in sexual education for kids. But then, it’s also a matter of time before all kids receive real sexual education, so that’s putting the cart before the horse.

The horse, so to speak, is the reclamation of sex as the form of communication and love that it is. We need a revision of sexuality as an integral part of humanity, and to do so, we need to do lots of things — accept gays and lesbians into our communities as full citizens, stop freaking out about virginity, and, most importantly, fetishize the mind.

If sex is supposed to be something more than bestiality, then the mind needs to be involved. We’re already one step in the right direction with this new Tina-Fey-is-hot, Sarah-Palin-is-stupid meme we’ve got going on.

That’s why Geek Chic gets me so excited. I can’t wait until we’re in a culture where smart is hip and hot in the mainstream. That will be the anti-objectification; the fetishization of the individuality and ability of each woman as a person and an agent. (And, if you will, a hustla’.)

I mean, forget Dorothy Parker. Until recently, even Tina Fey had trouble getting action.

According to several dubiously credible internet sources, Fey stated, “Yeah, it’s tough being smart and sexy, too. I have to say, I’m really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date. I promise you it’s true. My husband Jeff Richmond saw a diamond in the rough and took me in.” Yeah, sure, a hot, funny diamond.  Must’ve been tough to see that one in the rough.