Letters to the Editor
JackSparx
Published Letters: 421 Editor's Choice: 16
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Most women are attracted to power
[Read the article: Are women biologically drawn to older men?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The power may be represented by age, wealth, virility, muscles, intellectualism, talents, gravitas, political position, etc etc. Posturing can also work, as we men know.
Even women who judge themselves in terms of their own agency still desire more power from their men. Accomplished women want men who have accomplished even more. Forget the studies, read the personals. Compare the age ranges in W4M to M4W...and the mentions of salary expectations. Or mentions of "must be employed, succesful" etc.
A woman's attraction to power can change over time--in high school, a muscle car or playing football helps, maybe not so much later. Woman might want one man as a sexual or conception partner (based on certain power characteristics) but want to marry another (based on other characteristics).
The notions of agency in choice can be generalized beyond mate selection. For many women, choice of a leader is sexualized and gendered--it's like taking a mate. Obama Girl satirizes younger women's fantasies about Obama, while boomer women find him too young--even though these same boomers ardently supported Bill back in the day. There was a whole genre of "I dreamed I had sex with Bill Clinton."
Look at Salon's gendered political commentary in terms of male/female agency. Obama, confronted the Wright crisis in a speech. Joan Walsh asks whether his confrontation was "enough." Clinton faces the crisis of whether to apologize for her Iraq vote, and ducks the issue. Walsh writes "Whoever sold her on that idea [not apologizing] must have been ... a man." Note the difference in agency in these examples: Obama is expected to take responsibility, the question is how he performed. Clinton's failure must be due to the men (or a man) around her. There is lesser expectation that Clinton take responsibility and exert agency than for Obama--even when the issue is the most important vote in a generation. Even when the woman is running for the most highly responsible and powerful position in the world.
Lloyd contrasts her resistance to "gender imbalances" in the workplace with the choices in her personal life (where she conformed to "cultural assumptions" and married an older man). If Salon is her workplace, or one of her workplaces, the difference is less than she asumes. The issue of imbalance in gender roles or expectations doesn't end simply because a woman is in charge.
By the way, Ben Franklin routinely lied about everything. While his praise of the attractions of older women may be true, I doubt they represent his own feelings anymore than the sober pieties of Poor Richard's represented his own philosophy or governed his actions. Dude was a fat, drunken old lecher who chased young French women. Exactly the sort feminists today would condemn. And marry.
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...compared to the search of Bill Clinton's passport files in 1992
[Read the article: The Obama passport snooping and the unchecked surveillance state]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bill Clinton's paper passport records were searched back in 1992, which necessarily involved a bureaucratic rigamarole and involvement of officials. I suspect the Obama affair was more akin to those hospital employees who could not help but peek online at Britney's medical records.
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Endorsement will influence superdelegates
[Read the article: Report: Richardson to endorse Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My guess is that Richards is the first we'll see of a series of Obama endorsements before PA.
Responsible superdelegates are making the same calculations about the possibility of Clinton winning as us plebes, and coming to the same conclusions.
The logic is starting to reverse: rather than wait and see if Clinton pulls it off, the concern now is that she will cause too much damage to Obama. It's better to try to mitigate that damage by decreasing the margins of her victories in PA, and add to Obama's margins elsewhere. More importantly, it's time to decrease the importance of the competition by putting Obama closer to the top.
Richards is the first superdelegate to play the supposed superdelegate role.
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Tina is right
[Read the article: Are women biologically drawn to older men?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Men advertise for younger women in the personals. But women advertise for older men. Men use code words to say they want "skinny and pretty." Women use code words for "rich and successful."
I think the guy who dumped Tina was an unimaginative cad, though. Personal ads are fantasies, human beings are life. Four years shouldn't challenge a man who actually likes a woman, especially a man in his thirties. Then again, maybe he was just choosing the most hurtful reason. Or maybe he thought it was the least hurtful reason.
I do think older women have a right to be bitter, as do blue collar men. Ever notice how women use the word "professional" in their personals? But, bitter and four bucks buys you a date with Ben and Jerry's. Luckily for all of us that the world makes rules just to break them.
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Darwin was an idiot
[Read the article: Are women biologically drawn to older men?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sorry, couldn't resist. I am going to re-read Darwin with this question in mind, though.
I do know that some people tend to idolize Darwin with the same lack of critical thought that they swallow Ben Franklin's bits of "wisdom." For example, it's a commonplace that Social Darwinism was a misapplication of Darwin's thought and never embraced by the scientific community. People should really read Descent of Man and closely examine the mainstreaming of eugenic thought before that nasty Nazi business.
So, I think I most agree with Tina's thoughts, but I think she's chosen the wrong champion in Darwin. Darwin was a Social Darwinist and probably would have seen rich suburbanites as another species of finch.
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Dorothy and her ruby red slippers
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton's long strange journey on Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Clinton didn't need permission from wizard Penn or anyone else to apologize for her vote on the war.
She needed only to look at the camera and say, "I voted to give George Bush permission to invade Iraq. I regret my vote." Penn works for her, not the other way around.
Despite what Walsh writes, Kerry, Edwards and other men (and women) did apologize for their votes and/or support for the war.