Sexism is dead, right?

Not until this asshole keels over:

"Sexism all around us"

Published in Frank Magazine, June 7, 2011 <-- yep.

I get accused of being a sexist pig on an almost daily basis simply because I view women as sex objects.

Not all women, mind you. Just... well, pretty much all of them, now that I think of it.

Let me qualify by saying that women, to me, are many other things. Women are sentient, intelligent beings who have the capacity for good and evil, love and hate, and all of the actions and emotions in between. Just like men, they can be doctors, office assistants, or doctor’s office assistants (OK, those last two are usually women, but you get my drift). 

But, to heterosexual men — and, I suppose, lesbians, once the U- Haul is safely packed — they are sex objects on top of everything else.

There’s no getting around it. I see a woman on the bus with a great set of sweater puppies, I lose my train of thought. If I so much as glance at a photo of that voluptuous Greek goddess, Maria Panopalis, I have to spend a few minutes picturing Mike Duffy in the altogether, frolicking in a vat of rice pudding (tapioca also works in a pinch) before my heart rate returns to normal. 

For openly admitting I worship the beauty of the female form — and occasionally, against my better judgement, telling a work colleague, sister-in-law or total stranger that I’d give her five bucks for a quick motorboat (over her bra, of course, I’m still a gentleman) — I am pilloried by society. Yet Jessica Napier is somehow respectable. Toronto-based Jessica, whose weekly She Says column can be found in Metro Halifax, whips up stunningly sexist stereotypes with the ease of a Lebanese guy mixing donair sauce. If the Canucks lose, girls, your man will be too cranky to take care of business in the bedroom, Jess tells us in Girls’ Guide to Surviving the Playoffs (May 31). In Zen and the Art of Closet Maintenance  (May 17), she advises that if you can wear a different floral print dress for 16 days running, it might be time for a wardrobe cull.

Men are babies, according to Jess in Playing Florence Nightingale to the Man Cold (March 29). Being single sucks. Sometimes I cry at the hair salon. Men are big, dumb, grunting cavemen. Jessica — and many lifestyles columnists of her ilk — is turning the gender relations clock back to 1959.

If I’m a sexist pig, then Jessica Napier is a sexist pig. But you know what?

I’d still give her a motorboat. But she’d have to pay me five bucks.

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I have many problems with this article. It's degrading, pointless, and badly edited.

But as a writer, I dislike it because it proposes a target, a straw 'woman,'  that has very little to do with the underlying thrust of the piece. 

The points the author attempts to graft onto the body of the argument are products of his pet peeve: women don't want to be just sex objects (annoying, right?). But his points have very little to do with the actual words or actions of the female columnist he targets. She's just the vehicle his pet peeve rides in on.

If this piece had had the benefit of an editor, the following point would have been made: just because you hate this woman—it doesn't mean it's for the same reasons you hate women in general. 

I could discuss the author's jokey relationship with his own misogyny, but it's flaws are fairly obvious. And the writing is so bad, I'm not sure he deserves that much attention.