Letters to the Editor
lisaboy
Published Letters: 5 Editor's Choice: 1
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Katha Pollitt
[Read the article: The feminist who made me blush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'll tell you what has feminists' knickers in a twist about Katha Pollitt: She told the truth. If there's one thing women, who hold the word "feminist" up like a mask at a costume ball to hide their insecurities hate, it's someone who blows their cover.
I read Katha Pollitt's Internet stalker article in the New Yorker when it came out. After I finished it, I looked up her address in New York City and mailed her a handwritten note telling her how brave and amazing and brilliant her article was. I was in complete awe at her honesty and, rather than recoiling from her embarassing revelations (as I did when I read Daphne Merkin's spanking story), I respected her even more. We all should. Americans love a facade--a false, attractive front that conceals the often bitter, grim, messy realities that ALL of our lives contain--not just respected, liberal journalists.
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Once a sorority girl...
[Read the article: Campaigning while female]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sadly, this article does little else but confirm what a bunch of catty beeyatches we all are. "No wonder she looks puffy"? That line is intended to sound sympathetic, but it carries all the pent-up nastiness and condescension we're trying to pawn off on Rush Limbaugh and all the other male ignoramuses we feel more comfortable blaming.
Where's the sisterhood, ladies? Answer: There is no sisterhood. It's a myth--a fluffy, sugar-spun concoction fueled by denial. Women do not support one another. We should be OUTRAGED that Clinton is being examined this way. When Rebecca Traister started with her own critique of Hillary's flaws, I was shocked. I thought: She just couldn't resist, could she?
The only way to turn the tide against a millennia of feline backbiting and ill will is to stop the trend in its tracks.
Bite your tongue and support your fellow sisters with an open mind and a nonjudgmental heart.
Sincerely,
Lisa Boylan
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Bitterness in the ranks
[Read the article: The Brazile-Begala smackdown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While the candidates attempt to rise above the fray for the sake of decorum, their former aides are going at it tooth and nail. The Begala-Brazile smackdown was happening last night on Larry King Live, too, except with Lanny Davis in the role of defensive Clinton supporter--pouting, sniping and whining to Anderson Cooper and John King. It was pathetic.
Sad to see the former Clinton lions left to wander in a delusional house of mirrors waiting for the Clinton dynasty to reign supreme.
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Travel Drag
[Read the article: How I misspent my European vacation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The author sounds like she would have been better off continuing her provincial jaunts in the States. Her approach to travel abroad is passive, as though she played no part in making the experience fun and meaningful. As in, "So Europe, what have ya got for me?"
Travel is a give and take--a mutual experience between location and visitor--that requires the same kind of perception and sensitivity as a relationship between two people. In other words: It's not all about you.
If you can't release yourself from mundane worries about money and to-do lists that tether us to this earth, then it's better to plant yourself firmly in the safe, predictable confines of your backyard where nothing exotic can ever penetrate.
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Oh YEAH!
[Read the article: Who will save public schools? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First of all, I am so delighted Amy Reiter is back--yay--you are back, right? Second, I could just substitute Sandra Tsing Loh's name with my own. All of it, from Laurie Anderson to the ignorant fear of public schools to the Costco comparison, rings 100 percent true.
I had one disagreement, though. It is not true that when you write a check to private school your work is done. Far from it. My sons went to parochial school (until I woke up and sent them to public) and my husband and I were on an endless marathon of volunteering, canned forced socializing and fundraising. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, was too much to ask. Gift basket donations for the gala, manning the snack shack at games, teaching after school classes and digging deep into the pockets...The list was endless and the demands relentless.
I had the same absurd fear of public schools, as though I had failed my children somehow by not ensconcing them in a Friends Day School with farm animals and a babbling brook on the campus for science projects. When I walked into the elementary school in our neighborhood--for the first time!--I was greeted by Central Casting's Perfect School Secretary and so began a lovely change in my son's life. He left Catholic school mid year and never looked back. He said, "I didn't know school could be FUN."
Ouch.
Great article, great topic, great interview.