Advice columnist for The Monthly Uterus and film critic for The New England Journal of Anger, noted expert on dating behavior Ab'gail Dykeman deconstructs the year's top films.

While Best Actor nominees revel in roles like self-made billionaire businessman, heroic war-time lifesaver, successful playwrite, musical legend and boxing coach, their Best Actress counterparts seem to have a few more hurdles in their way to the Oscar.

Best Actress nominee Annette Bening is notable for being the only woman having a good time on film this year. She kicks some toned, young butt as the outmaneuvers her rival in Being Julia. But her character, a smart, talented diva, still has the requisite flaw -- she's aging. And in the world of the film -- London's West End in the 1940's -- that's as bad as being dead.

Which brings us to the second Best Actress nominee, Hilary Swank who stars in Million Dollar Baby. Part Rocky, part Terms of Endearment, Swank trains like a guy and triumphs as a champion -- but oops, falls into a coma and begs for death. As in a Pedro Almodovar film, the more pathetically paralysed she is, the better we like her. That's what being a woman is all about!

Pretty, abused drug mule, Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) and hapless, discredited, convicted abortionist Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) both nestle safely in the victimized woman category that we hold so dear. Watch their eyes well up as life deals them another bad blow. Ooooh, we have to look away.

We'll turn to Kate Winslet who plays a woman we can really identify with -- a girl in a relationship gone bad. How bad? Well, so bad that she opts for a lobotomy rather than remember the details. Now that's a bad breakup. We've all been there.

So, to recap this year's role models... fuck it. Why bother. Let's just slit our wrists. Or better yet, call the plastic surgeon, fill our vaginas with balloons of cocaine, feed lye to the nearest teenager, get punched into a coma and sign up for elective shock therapy. We're women, damn it. Hear us whimper, watch us die.

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