A lot of people thought the March 2 opinion piece by Charlotte Allen in the Washington Post – you remember, the one where she riffed on how women really are weak and stupid after all -- was outrageous. There are 1,182 comments on the original piece and 1,183 of them are negative (that's a little joke but, you know, math is hard).

The Washington Post’s ombud, Deborah Howell, agrees – and she offers a second opinion, too, at no extra charge: it wasn’t funny, either.

“Thousands of women -- including this one -- were offended by an Outlook opinion piece last Sunday by writer Charlotte Allen. Complaints flooded my in-box, letters to the editor, the comment board linked to the article on washingtonpost.com, and the blogs. Outlook editors thought the piece was humorous and knew it might be controversial, but they were stunned at the outpouring of outrage.”

The hook for the piece was the fact that a few women have fainted at Barack Obama rallies. That and the “screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say 'we women,' of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex …, “ Allen wrote, citing studies which purported to show that women are bad drivers and do have smaller brains.

But revel in your weaknesses, sisters, rejoice in your maternal instincts and home-making skills and you’ll find that it’s easier to accept being dim, Allen advised.

Cue Howell: “It was breathtaking. And insulting.”

The newspaper’s Outlook section is correct to be open to all sorts of views and opinions, Howell observes. But, there ought to be some basic requirements.

“... (M)y umpteen years of experience have taught me to be wary of using humor, satire or irony about gender, race or religion. Humor can easily go awry or be misunderstood; it deserves extra care in editing and labeling.The Allen piece was offensive because it was a broadside against all women, despite her weasel words here and there. And the piece had the fatal flaw of not being funny. At all."

Howell’s column here.