没有男人不行吗？

Maureen Dowd is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist¹ for the New York Times who tackles tough topics for a living. Now she's entering a potential mind field with her second book, it's called "Are Men Necessary? ".

I like the cover by the way. Maureen Dowd. Nice to have you here. How are you doing?

I'm good Matt.

Despite the fact that, I mean, clearly the title of this book is gonna get a lot of attention. But why do you want to write about men and women gender² in America?

Well, because I have been writing about things like torture, and fake reasons to go to war and a lot of heavy things for five years, and I thought it would be fun to change the topic to gender wars. Cause we haven't talked about where men and women stand, and a long time in terms of what worked and what didn't work, starting with the sexual revolution.

Right on the back cover of the book, (Right. ) you're pretty honest about what you hope to accomplish with it. Do you mind if I rea. . . read it to you?

"I don't understand men. They are a most inscrutable bunch really. I admit I have no answers, but for decades, I'd love to ask him the questions, I possess no special wisdom about redemption , in matters of sex and love. I'm not paddling a theory or slogan or a policy. I'm as baffled as the next woman. " So if you don't have answers, what are the questions you wanna ask?

Well, that was before I saw the Panamanian mating, yes, that's all we need. Er. . . There are many questions which is starting with feminism in the late 60s or early 70s, when I came of age, we (were) supposed to protect women from being sex objects and economically dependent and caring too much about their looks and we travel this trajectory³ where women have gone in exactly the opposite direction.

Yeah you write about the fact that here we are today and a lot of women starving themselves to death and going through plastic surgery to look like that Barbie model you are supposed to get away from.

More of the women on the show, Yeah. And yeah, so we started out, you know, denouncing Barbie. Well they did, that's why I never really related, because they were trying to take all the stuff that women love, like fashion, and high heels, and shopping, and demonize it. So now, we have gone a little bit too far in the other direction where feminism has been replaced by Nazism⁴, and women are overly obsessed⁵ with looks.

So we have gone from June Cleaver⁶ in the 50s , a perfect housewife,to the bra-burni(ng) burning feminists⁷ of the 70s to, how would you describe them today?

Well, now plastic breast and padded bras, and instead of not shaving their legs, they'd like the lace on the hair of their body, everything is exactly the opposite.

So are you disappointed in women today?

Oh no, I think it's like great progress, we started out aping men, we were going to dress like them and work like them, and have sex like them, and then we have to stop and say no, we want to relate to the world like women. So it's definitely progress. It's just access which is of very American trait.

You know, it's funny because physical appearance is something you write about a lot in your book, and yet you are someone who's got a lot of ink over your own appearance. She had been called the vixen and the bombshell, in the articles I've read, you've been accused of being someone who uses your feminine charms to, to kind of get what you want. How do you plead?

Well, Ok, so in the book I do a lot of gender blending, so what about you, are you a vixen or bombshell?

I don't know what is the equivalent term with the, . . , I probably wouldn't fit the characterization.

I mean I think a lot of women tune⁸ into your show to see you. .

Oh Yeah! You're a raven⁹ here and a vixen about it. .

But I didn't write a book about it. So, just curious, do you plead guilty in the fact that you have also taken to some of these things in terms of physical appearance.

No, that's the point of the book, that in early feminism they didn't allow women to like glamour¹⁰, and fashion, and all the things we like.

So It's ok now!

Oh, Yeah, the only difficulty is if it goes too far in women, goes so far back in retro-terms and being so obsessed with looks. So they don't even know who's getting on the Supreme¹¹ Court.

Talk about that what you write about men ok, where men stand right now. Do you still believe when you talk about a study, a British study, from the 20s or so? where it's basically smart men, powerful men don't want women with high IQs by their side. Do you still believe that?

Oh, well I agree with Katie, I think strong successful women can get men. Look at Katie, men are falling all over her. It's not that , it's just a little trickier¹², a little harder than we might have thought at the beginning when it was a road to utopian equality. Because a lot of that things we did to fascinate men, like having high power careers, and, you know, the snappy 40s be entered which Katie is an expert at that, ended up some man find that dreaming, that's awesome¹³.

Intimidating¹⁴!

Yeah! I meant a lot of men, Sarah Silverman has an article in Radar¹⁵ this month, it's about when she was at the stand-up Comedian¹⁶ Club, you know, she wanted it to the comics, because they had a sheer passion, but the comics wanted it to the waitresses cause they were in odd. So a lot of men, you know, like to be with women who're in odd of them, but that's no problem, then you just look for man who like to banter¹⁷ and play.

When you work for paper like the New York Times, you write a book. Is it a harrowing ordeal¹⁸ to open the paper and read the review of your own book inside of it?

Well, I did actually. . .

Cause I didn't think it was all that wonderful of a review.

No, oh, Well, I never. . . I never read anything about myself, but my mum had a great saying "In cases where people were being catty about you which is just put out the saucer of milk. "

Get ready for the , yeah. .

I'd let her complete the sentence, all right. Maureen Dowd , thanks so much.

Thanks Matt.

Good to have you here and if you like to read next except from the book. It's called "Are Men Necessary? ", you can go to our website at today. msnbc. com.

1 columnist   

n.专栏作家

参考例句：

• The host was interviewing a local columnist.节目主持人正在同一位当地的专栏作家交谈。
• She's a columnist for USA Today.她是《今日美国报》的专栏作家。

2 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

3 trajectory   

n.弹道，轨道

参考例句：

• It is not difficult to sketch the subsequent trajectory.很容易描绘出它们最终的轨迹。
• The path followed by a projectile is called its trajectory.抛物体所循的路径称为它的轨道。

4 Nazism   

n. 纳粹主义

参考例句：

• His philosophical eyes were obviously shortsighted by the evil influence of Nazism. 显然，他那双哲学家般的深邃的眼睛也被纳粹的妖氛所眩惑。 来自中国文学部分
• Nazism suppressed all three movements as degenerate. 纳粹把所有三个运动都作为颓废艺术而加以镇压。

5 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

6 cleaver   

n.切肉刀

参考例句：

• In fact,a cleaver is a class of ax.实际上，切肉刀也是斧子的一种。
• The cleaver is ground to a very sharp edge.刀磨得飞快。

7 feminists   

n.男女平等主义者，女权扩张论者( feminist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Only 16 percent of young women in a 1990 survey considered themselves feminists. 在1990年的一项调查中，只有16%的年轻女性认为自己是女权主义者。 来自辞典例句
• The organization had many enemies, most notably among feminists. 这个组织有许多敌人，特别是在男女平等主义者中。 来自辞典例句

8 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

9 raven   

n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的

参考例句：

• We know the raven will never leave the man's room.我们知道了乌鸦再也不会离开那个男人的房间。
• Her charming face was framed with raven hair.她迷人的脸上垂落着乌亮的黑发。

10 glamour   

n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住

参考例句：

• Foreign travel has lost its glamour for her.到国外旅行对她已失去吸引力了。
• The moonlight cast a glamour over the scene.月光给景色增添了魅力。

11 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

12 trickier   

adj.狡猾的( tricky的比较级 )；（形势、工作等）复杂的；机警的；微妙的

参考例句：

• This is the general rule, but some cases are trickier than others. 以上是一般规则，但某些案例会比别的案例更为棘手。 来自互联网
• The lower the numbers go, the trickier the problems get. 武器的数量越低，问题就越复杂。 来自互联网

13 awesome   

adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的

参考例句：

• The church in Ireland has always exercised an awesome power.爱尔兰的教堂一直掌握着令人敬畏的权力。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了.

14 intimidating   

vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词)

参考例句：

• They were accused of intimidating people into voting for them. 他们被控胁迫选民投他们的票。
• This kind of questioning can be very intimidating to children. 这种问话的方式可能让孩子们非常害怕。

15 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。

16 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。

17 banter   

n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑

参考例句：

• The actress exchanged banter with reporters.女演员与记者相互开玩笑。
• She engages in friendly banter with her customers.她常和顾客逗乐。

18 ordeal   

n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验

参考例句：

• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。
• Being lost in the wilderness for a week was an ordeal for me.在荒野里迷路一星期对我来说真是一场磨难。