I put these ‘Smoking Cat Wedges’ by London-based luxury accessories designer Charlotte Olympia on the table in response to the NYTimes article Sexism Charges Divide Surgeons’ Group. Our comment — which is now rated in the top 5 — tries to bridge the fault line that women professionals walk when dealing with stereotypes, humor and outright discrimination from their male peers.

There is an element of stupidity on the part of Dr Lazar J Greenfield, an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine and president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, praising the mood-enhancing effects of semen on women.

In his Valentine’s Day editorial for the American College of Surgeons, with 10 percent women members, Dr Greenfield referenced research we’ve called out regularly and include in our list of 32 reasons why sex is good for you.

It begins with a reference to the mating behaviors of fruit flies, then goes on to discuss studies on the menstrual cycles of heterosexual and lesbian women who live together. Citing the research of evolutionary psychologists at the State University of New York, it describes how female college students who had been exposed to semen were less depressed than their peers who had not, concluding: “So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.”

The women members of the American College of Surgeons are resigning, Dr Greenfield is out as editor of the organization’s journal and his future as the next president of the organization is in limbo. All copies of the journal were withdrawn, including the digital copy of the article, which exists anyway in cyberspace. Checking the journal website, I read that there are plans to put the journal back in circulation.

Dr. Greenfield has not issued a formal statement and could not be reached for comment, but in an e-mail to his colleagues in response to the criticism, he wrote that his editorial “was considered by the Women in Surgery Committee and the Association of Women Surgeons as demeaning to women. Despite my apologies, they brought the issue to the Board of Regents.”

As all the comments and women interviewed for the Pauline W. Chen’s article remind us, there is major discrimination in the field of surgery, a notoriously macho wing of medicine. In no way should the women’s life experiences dealing with the medical establishment be dismissed, nor their demands that Dr Greenfield’s words be censured go unheard.

Many American Women Have ‘Had It’

Many women have reached the point of having ‘had it’, dealing with men and sexism. The Republican War on Women has us all in knots, as we watch mostly American men trying to turn back the clock on women’s progress in America. Make no mistake: this IS the Republican agenda.

Two other issues can’t be ignored: 1) while the women dismissed the semen science as faulty, I believe it is correct. Psychology Today addressed it in 2011, building on Scientific American. 2) there is a social advantage to many couples in identifying ways in which they are biologically connected, beyond making babies.

True, it’s tough to having a scientific possibility that women’s moods improve with semen and that lesbian women’s menstrual cycles don’t fall in line with female coworkers, and the only significant difference between the women is semen.

In the Republican War on Women, our bodies have become fodder for probes, ultrasounds, and numerous new laws governing our sexual anatomy. Clearly, the old boys are in charge in many states.

But women can’t reject science, dismissing those ‘facts’ that we don’t want to hear. The Conservatives dismiss science regularly. Members of the House of Representatives in Washington can look us straight in the eye, insisting that God made woman of Adam’s rib, giving him dominion over us.

I attack that thinking as aggressively as any woman writing on the Internet. It doesn’t help my case or the women at MIT who have made great progress but now want to turn down the discrimination argument dial, because the men of MIT insist they only got their positions because of affirmative action.

If American women don’t want to deal with this nonsense anymore, we must move to Scandinavia; it’s that simple. In America, boys will be boys.

Back to Cat Shoes & New York Masters of the Universe

Sometimes humor helps. I will find my AOC tale of having a drunken colleague leave bruises on my arm the night I insisted that ‘no’ meant ‘no’ at my hotel door. He was mortified the next day, when I appeared at breakfast wearing my sleeveless red sheath with bruises that revealed fingerprints on my arms.

I refused to change clothes for our major presentation because I looked fabulous in the dress. And this good Catholic man with four kids and a new girlfriend subsequently went on to help me enormously in my career.

In the case of the cat shoes, I bought mine in Paris during the 80s, and positively adored them. My cat shoes were fully fitted with eyes, whiskers and tails. Wearing them on the sidewalks of New York, I knew my cat tails weren’t long for this world.

A sensible woman would have kept her cat tails for special occasions, but mine were pounding the pavement in days. Within weeks, one tail was AWOL.

I have a major pet peeve with aggressive men in New York. You know the guy — he walks in the wrong direction on your side of the sidewalk, assuming that you will get out of his way, in order to avoid a major collision. It usually works, and women not only defer but say ‘I’m sorry’ as a Manhattan master of the universe mows the little people down.

Men also get right on your backside in New York, not physically pushing you to walk faster like in Hong Kong. But men are sometimes as close to you as they can get without sexual contact, subconsciously pushing you to walk faster.

This was my case on this gorgeous sunny day in New York, when a master of the universe was bearing down on me. We were entering a crowd and I slowed down, causing the master to clip my shoes from behind. Eureka!

To his credit, this 30s guy in a suit apologized but I had other plans for him. ‘My shoes,’ I screamed in mock horror, turning to face him and looking down at the pavement. ‘My tail, where is my tail. You ripped it off my cat shoes. These are my favorite shoes, and you have destroyed them.’

He was dumbfounded, and I managed not to laugh. ‘Where is it?’ I demanded. ‘Find my cat tail. I bought my shoes in Paris for several hundred dollars. Now find that tail.’

You must understand that we were surrounded by rush hour pavement pounders in every direction. There was no way he could look for my tail. Yet I held him still on his way to Grand Central, prepared to at least make him miss his train and wait 20 minutes for the next one.

To his credit, my master of the universe did at least look at the pavement in futility.

Today, the same guy would probably say ‘get out of the way, bitch’, but in the 80s women like me used a certain amount of power over men when they were bad boys.

Back at the NYTimes, comments said that women have no sense of humor and eventually sex will come up with male colleagues. This is my experience in life, too.

No Excuses Dr Lazar J Greenfield

I don’t for one moment excuse Dr. Greenfield for his Valentine’s Day essay, and I’m the first professional woman to say that male scientists and researchers have written trash studies about women, parading them out and about as scientific fact based on male biased assumptions.

But this Greenfield episode is not a case of Larry Summers at Harvard, as at least one women commented at NYT. Summers’ pontificating on women’s lesser abilities in math and science is without any scientific basis, and subsequent surveys of gender-based test scores prove him dead wrong.

When women publicly dismiss the semen studies on scientific grounds, it send chills up my spine. Better to censure Dr. Greenfield, then have academic journals withdrawn. That’s called the McCarthy effect in my playbook. Remember Galileo.

I’m fighting the Creationists who argue millions of years of science are wrong about the evolution of Mother Earth and Phylis Schlafly, who insists that American women are the most liberated in the world, when we are one of three nations in the world with no family leave policy. America stands with Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

America is a truly macho country and I am afraid today for our young women, whose rights are being repealed. As women we must choose our battles carefully and unemotionally. This one by the women of the American College of Surgeons doesn’t feel good to me, even though I understand that the women are infuriated and why. Many American women aren’t in the mood for another dose of semen to improve our moods.

I believe there’s an excellent chance that Dr Greenfield’s bubble bee will come back to bite women in the butt. My sense of the gender landscape is that the majority of surgeons and their drinking buddies in all upscale professions will just see this action as female hysteria, political correctness gone wild, and an epic example of our legendary lack of humor.

Advocating that American women have a more positive view of the importance of healthy sexuality in our lives, I refuse to dismiss the semen science and insist that the NYTimes clarify the studies. Of course, I will be rereading them, too.

I hope this major challenge to one of America’s primary bastion’s of testosterone — the American College of Surgeons — works out well for women in the long run. I fear Conservatives will make mince meat out of us on this one, which is surely headed for the Rush Limbaugh show.

Lots of male investment bankers and other masters of the universe listen to Limbaugh. In this case, perhaps the women should have gotten out their cat shoes, viewing Dr Greenfield’s bad boys club behavior for a different angle.

My cat shoes were flat. But finding a new image of the same Charlotte Olympia designs, I see that today’s women have learned to stand taller. Sometimes it’s the only way to stay out of the bad boy muck. Anne