HMM: “I suppose that I chose to write out of a fear of handling more concrete and dangerous forms of power.”

I’m sure that, somehow, that fear is the fault of the patriarchy. Plus, from the comments: “You get the feeling that if the NYT cut out the ‘Women bitching about something’ articles they’d lose 25% of the newspaper.”

In her classic, Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness — and Liberalism — to the Women of America, Myrna Blyth notes that according to research, when women complain to each other their brains release the bonding chemical oxytocin, while men do not experience the same phenomenon. That explains a whole lot about women’s media.

UPDATE: Flashback to this piece by the late, and much-missed Cathy Seipp.