One afternoon this week, I was putzing around on Twitter, procrastinating on work, when a tweet from Patti Stanger, the star of “Millionaire Matchmaker,” caught my eye. “Part of acting like a lady involves allowing him to be a gentleman,” she tweeted.
Hmmm, I thought. That’s just good advice. Then I thought about it for a second. Wait. What does that even mean? It sounds like a riddle. The more I thought about it, the less it made sense and the more it seemed to be zen koan-like thought farts.
Patti Stanger’s Twitter feed is filled with these thought farts. Like her Bravo show ”Millionaire Matchmaker,” she offers a melange of useful observations on dating and relationships, mixed with some truly reactionary, fucked-up advice that seeks to corral both men and women into normative gender role behavior. (In fact, we’ve debunked some of this fucked up-edness before.) Let me be clear: if people want to choose that normative gender role behavior himself or herself, that’s great. I choose it a lot of the time myself, in fact. But it’s not ethical to teach people their most successful strategy for finding love is to squeeze yourself into a box and follow the sexist script.
After the jump, let’s debunk some of Patti Stanger’s advice over Twitter … the good, the bad, and the truly WTF. Keep reading »
