Maureen Dowd is searching for gender equality, truth in politics, and the perfect lipstick. She does not think the third thing takes away from the other two.  In Are Men Necessary? there are nine essays by the Pulitzer-winning columnist, each one taking a different path in the examination of feminism as the millennial odometer rolled over.

She finds she has to poke at feminism with a stick, to see if it's dead. 

Maybe we should have known that the story of women's progress would be more of a zigzag than a superhighway, that the triumph of feminism would last a nanosecond while the backlash lasted forty years.

The subject matter Dowd tackles is hardly revolutionary. She talks about Anita Hill and Monica Lewinsky, about double standards in gender relations and the increasing importance of women voters, about the Clintons, and about medical interventions chosen to achieve beauty and beatitude.

Dowd's writing is witty and political, with a hint of the personal, and I frequently found myself nodding in agreement. Unfortunately, almost just as often, I found myself shaking my head. I don't know if it's possible to write a book about feminism that manages to avoid the chick lit clichés, the home-cleaning product commercial characterizations of men, and references to Sex and the City.

When Dowd talks about women's ongoing desire to be taken care of — "The fem-freeloading doesn't change with marriage. Many professional women still want their husbands to pick up the checks at restaurants, pay the mortgage and get home by 6:30 to help with chores and kids." — she doesn't mention the chicken/egg of the situation, in that many men who claim they want professional women still expect them to do the dishes, vacuum, and put the kids to bed.

Likewise, Dowd, who received her Pulitzer for her Clinton coverage, paints a picture of a calculating, seductive Monica Lewinsky: 

The White House intern followed the old-fashioned prescription that men (and fish) are attracted by bright, shiny objects. She stationed herself, in flashy dresses and her trademark black beret, on rope lines and in the path of the presidential motorcade. She studied her prey's preferences in books and accessories, and even called an antiquarian bookstore in Annapolis, where the president had browsed, to see what he had lingered over. Told it was a book about American presidents, she bought it for him. Noting his Eurotrashy taste in clothes—those double-breasted, big-shouldered suits—she bought him an Ermenegildo Zegna tie.

Yet I was left wondering: do we know this was a calculated act? Wearing clothes favoured by the object of your affections, learning their interests so you can indulge them — these are the classics of wooing, of romance, of the kind of consideration that can make your other swoon.

There is a fine line between trying to please for pleasure's sake and manipulation, and I am not convinced that Lewinsky crossed it. Dowd, who I will admit was a more eagle-eyed observer of the affair, doesn't explain why I should believe otherwise. Later, Dowd tells the story of a Clinton adviser: 

The funniest part was when [Clinton strategist Dick] Morris tried to impress the two-hundred-dollar-an-hour hooker by showing her a draft of an Al Gore speech.

I found myself wondering why this was funny, whether it was a cheap play on a stereotype or something smarter than that. Is it circumstantially funny, as who thinks political speeches are good (paid) pre- or post-coital subjects? Or is it because Gore's speeches were not impressive to anyone? Or is the humour in the idea that a hooker would care about politics? Because if it's the third, it's a too-easy play on a stereotype.