It’s incredibly hard to write about gender in a way that causes people not only to reexamine their assumptions in an intellectual sense, but how take a hard look at how those assumptions shape their behavior in their personal lives. If my conversations with friends are any indication, this post from Tiger Beatdown, called “13 Ways of Looking at Liz Lemon” (no such thing as an unnecessary Wallace Stevens reference), does just that. Read it and flinch:

There is — Julie Klausner addressed this recently, in her book — a persistent fantasy, among a certain variety of dude, that someday they will meet the most beautiful woman in the entire world and no-one else will realize how beautiful she is. (…) She’ll never think that, although she might be lucky to be with you, you might be pretty lucky too. She’ll never realize that, if you don’t treat her right, plenty of other men will be willing to treat her better, because she is a catch and a half. She won’t have that sort of autonomy, that sort of confidence — or so the line of thought would seem to go. When the clothes come off, she’ll make love like an ugly girl. So grateful.

Permadisclaimer: my taste in music is entirely my own and is in no way associated with the proprietor of this blog, who almost certainly lacks my sweet tooth for pop.