There is very little about women, other than the pantomimes we've sold to men, that really recalls the whole lie about our being the "fair sex."
We're not fair, and contrary to the lies we tell ourselves, we love to tear each other down. It's like a drug.
If you doubt any of this, you need only look at all the cruel things that have been said about Hillary Clinton and now about Sarah Palin and her pregnant daughter. No matter which end of the political spectrum you stand on, you know that there have been horribly nasty, catty things said about these women merely because they are women aspiring to a position of power.
It's not new. And the worst things are said by women, usually.
We're good at the duplicitous bitch crap. It's genetic.
Which is why I am so very happy to sit in front of the television with a giddy, glazed look upon my face and behold the unadulterated, cleanly distilled essence of female cattiness with no disguises and no pretenses that it's anything but that: a bevy of women competing in the way that is socially accepted and expected of us: by trading petty insults and undercutting each other's value in a competition that is geared toward judging them solely for their looks and their ability to smile in a bikini while it's 50 degrees outside.
If I have said before that I love America's Next Top Model, I will say it again: I love it.
And chiefly, I love it because it's not pretending to be anything but what it is: a celebration of unabashed, making-money, tacky-as-all-getout, catty, gorgeous-and-not-so-gorgeous womanhood (and featuring a transgendered womanhood from PG county this cycle!).
There is no glass-ceilinged pretense that this is a contest where women's brains will be appreciated or will be required to do things that might make men uncomfortable –such as running for public office or trying to legislate things having to do with those pesky, deceptive words like "equality."
Apparently, making men uncomfortable is genetic, too.
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm! 
I am so frustrated with the way Palin is being treated that I really shouldn’t even begin to say anything, but yay for your post (and I think I need less Internets and more TV).
I couldn’t agree more with what you’ve said. You’ve just said it way more eloquently then I ever could!
Men are more comfortable with women playing the “bitch” game with each other, than they are with women actually going after some sort of external power.
Anyway…good for you, saying it like this. 🙂
~j.b.
what Palin is going through now in the media (the sexism) has already been suffered by hillary. it seems as though men have always been afraid by powerful women. maybe one day women will be seen as equals. great post.