OK. Enough. I must admit I’ve enjoyed the furious Weinerian punning. It’s been a magical summer story for the New York tabloids, and victimless as well, unless you count the shmuck at the center of it, who is yet another male victim of testosterone poisoning. Wiener’s fate should be determined by his constituents. Period. But there is one stray thread here that needs attending: there was a far more important story of predatory male sexuality that was swept out of the news on Monday, as the world watched Weiner. Dominique Strauss-Kahn went to court that day and pleaded not guilty to sodomizing his hotel maid. If the maid’s story is true, this was not a victimless crime–it is, in fact, a matter of real social significance, as opposed to Wiener’s over-exposure.
The maid has said she will testify against DSK. This is an act of remarkable courage, especially in a case where the defendant has made it clear that there won’t be a cash settlement–indeed, his lawyers have made it clear that they will launch a full-scale assault on the woman’s character and credibility. There is every likelihood that DSK’s high-priced lawyers will be brutal; there is every likelihood that this will devolve into an unprovable he said/she said affair. There is a reason why you don’t hear about such cases more often — it’s because the servant, sometimes an illegal immigrant, rarely has the legal firepower, or the witnesses, to best the master. Unless there is some stunning, dispositive piece of evidence, DSK will probably walk.
I find this infuriating. As I get older, and farther removed from my own hormone-addled salad days, I find maleness–the blind, bullish insensitivity of it–to be as much a disease as a gender. And as I watch (male) politicians routinely get their weiners caught in a wringer under the most outrageously stupid (Weiner) and/or brutal (DSK) of circumstances, I become increasingly (a) perplexed and (b) convinced that we are the lesser sex. Perplexed, because even in my most obsessive hunter-gatherer period (which mostly occurred before the advent of the women’s movement), I would immediately stand down, as it were, when a woman indicated that things had gone far enough–it just wasn’t even remotely sexy to blast through the stop sign.
The vast majority of men are like me; but there is an obnoxious subset, those who believe they are God’s gift to everyone, whether everyone likes it or not. You find more than a few of these in politics. But I wonder if, in the increasing crassness of our society and the steady drift away from equality toward oligarchy, we are seeing a revival of male lunacy after the slight restraints of recent decades. Powerful athletes are more powerful; powerful bankers are more powerful. There are consequences to these delusions.
Of course, women are more powerful now–some of them–than they used to be, too. More of them are attending college than men, even in male-crazy Islamic societies. With any luck, they will be the dominant sex in a generation or two. Why luck? Because, over time, I’ve come to prefer the way women think and talk, write and sing; I’ve come to appreciate their attention to detail and their less-petulant maturity, and to envy their capacity for friendship. It is not an iron-clad rule, of course. There are plenty of obnoxious, aggressive, thoughtless and deluded women. But I’ve had a fabulous run of great women editors over the past 40 years and I’ve watched women political consultants out-think their male opponents, and women politicians outwork–and, more important–out-negotiate their male colleagues. I’ve said this before, but one of the great compliments I’ve ever received came from the editor of Primary Colors, who thought I was a woman. I can’t wait for our first woman President.
And so, I suspect that we’re destined for more free-range shmuckery of the Weinerian sort–although I’m hoping that as these beastly boys destroy themselves, there will be smart, sane women ready to replace them in the arena. And more immediately, I’m hoping Dominic Straus-Kahn will have the humanity to rein in his lawyers. Indeed, I hope someone will play for him a recording of The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, one of Bob Dylan’s greatest songs. The lyrics are below:
William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gath’rin’
And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears.William Zanzinger who at twenty-four years
Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres
With rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him
And high office relations in the politics of Maryland
Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders
And swear words and sneering and his tongue it was snarling
In a matter of minutes on bail was out walking
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears.Hattie Carroll was a maid in the kitchen
She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn’t even talk to the people at the table
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level
Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle
And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger
And you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears.In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all’s equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain’t pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught ’em
And that ladder of law has no top and no bottom
Stared at the person who killed for no reason
Who just happened to be feelin’ that way witout warnin’
And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished
And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence
Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fearsv
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now’s the time for your tears.