It's Funny Because It's True

Feministing pointed me towards an obnoxious article with a very cute name in today's New York Post. Actually it's more of a book report on what appears to be a truly half-hearted attempt to explain why women are such liars. Not only are they liars, but they are good liars. Dirty, good liars. So watch out because the next time some woman tries to tell you something she'll probably be lying. How do you know a woman is lying? Her lips are moving!

Apparently Susan Shapiro Barash interviewed 500 women who responded to a posting on Craigslist to get some cold, honest (how can we be so sure?) answers straight from the source for her book called "Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie." As it turns out, if her interview subjects are to be trusted, women lie for all kinds of reasons. Some lie to keep together loveless marriages, some lie to hide dissatisfaction with a job, and some lie because they are cheating on their husbands. And then, some even lie to cover up a cold truth in order to protect a loved one.

As shocking as these reasons for deceit might be (she didn't want her kids to know that sometimes she wished she had never left her career to start a family!?), what is even more shocking (though, I guess it really shouldn't be given it's the Post) is how an article about a book about why women lie is called, "Miss-Leading: The Truth About Gals' Serial Fibbing." Hold on a minute. So really, it's a book about how women are compulsive spewers of falsehood? Someone interviews 500 women, asking them why they lie, and The Post wants its readers to interpret the answers as evidence that the female of the species is indeed more manipulative than the male?

I smell some holes in this mismatched bag of logic. Am I mixing my metaphors? Or am I being plain dishonest? Does that even make sense? I just don't know anymore.

In perhaps my favorite section of the article, its author, Susan Edelman, talks about "the lying to yourself" category of lies. She borrows an example from Barash's book and explains that Hillary Clinton's public denial of her husband's infidelity is a prime example of when a woman lies to herself. Hillary Clinton publicly announced that any accusations that Bill might be sneaking around with some woman named Lewinksy were political attacks and nothing more. Later she acknowledged that he had in fact been cheating. What a dirty liar. Enough to make a person sick with righteous indignation. If the way she handled her husband's infidelity doesn't prove that women surpass men as masters of the manipulation and distortion of all that is good and true, then I don't know what will.

At least we are being accused of being better at something, I guess.