So I see that Katha Pollitt has used her superior female verbal skills to write a rebuttal to Charlotte Allen’s essay about why women are teh stupid, and there is a very disturbing trend in her arguments:

Could it be because women are mentally inferior, as proved by men’s greater ability to mentally rotate three-dimensional objects in space? Unless it’s a cute little puppy, that is, or maybe a cookie.

(…)

Who’s really the dim bulb, the woman who doesn’t see the beauty of "Grand Theft Auto," or the man who thinks Tom Clancy is a great writer?

For Allen, it’s definitely the woman: her brain is just too puny. She cannot mentally rotate three-dimensional objects in space — and that, as we all know, is the very definition of smarts….

…Now the sexists diss women as inferior mental-object-rotators. I have no idea whether this is true… but you have to admit this is a very narrow scrap of turf on which to plant the flag of manly superiority.

Now, I could be mistaken because my own verbal skills are so underdeveloped, but it seems to me that Ms. Pollitt is not taking the importance of 3D mental-object-rotating skills very seriously at all. Might I remind her that almost everything in the universe is three-dimensional? If you can’t visualize 3D objects rotating through space, how can you ever hope to assert control over your surroundings? And isn’t asserting control over your surroundings what leadership is all about?

Other people are three-dimensional. Other countries and their leaders (most of whom are people, plus a few evil robots) are three-dimensional. Terrorists (also sometimes people), bombs, and blowtorches are all three-dimensional. Even money is three-dimensional if you look closely enough.

A person who cannot picture all of these things rotating through space with the utmost crystal clarity is manifestly unfit to be president of this great nation of ours. How can they anticipate the outcomes of their actions in three-dimensional Euclidean space? How can they formulate a plan to rotate our troops home when they can’t even picture it???

Granted, focusing solely on the ability to visualize 3D objects moving around is a narrow way to gauge fitness for office. But men have other unique and valuable aptitudes as well. For example, how can a president bond with foreign rulers from many different cultures without speaking the universal language of fart jokes? Sure, it can be done, but it requires, like, diplomacy and shit, and who has time for that?

In fact, I attribute President Bush’s near-unbroken string of foreign policy successes to his unparalleled mastery of the fart joke. One pull of his finger and world leaders (evil robots excepted) are putty in his hands. (Yes, I am assuming that all non-evil-robot world leaders are male – what kind of insane country of madmen would accept a ruler without elite spacial manipulation skills?)

So, to sum up: We totally need a guy president. If we do not have superior 3D object manipulation skills – and possibly some ninjas – in the Oval Office, the terrorists and evil robots will have won.


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