Letters to the Editor
achilleselbow
Published Letters: 293 Editor's Choice: 16
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HesterEastman
[Read the article: "Anti-Abortion, but Pro-Date Rape"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not sure if anyone said it shouldn't be allowed, but Amazon customers should absolutely be able to say "this offends me, your customer, and I won't shop here if you carry such offensive products".
Uh huh. This is exactly the same argument the right-wingers use. There's a difference between 1) avoiding a product because it offends you, 2) avoiding a site whose whole point is to carry products for everyone, and 3) organizing a directed campaign to remove certain products. It's because of tools like you that all Nintendo games released in America were watered-down, ridiculously censored versions, it's because of tools like you that people couldn't go see Marilyn Manson play in their town, and it's because of tools like you that the political discourse in the media is restricted to banal soundbytes because ads from groups too far outside the 'mainstream' might 'offend' some viewers (customers). I can only hope that you offense trolls will die out with the Boomer generation.
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@Smith
[Read the article: "Anti-Abortion, but Pro-Date Rape"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Enjoy your petty mindless snark while you can. I'm sure you were equally ecstatic when Amanda Marcotte got fired from the Edwards campaign because some people found the comments in her other blog 'offensive', or when no one wanted to distribute Fahrenheit 911. Hey, it was just people freely exercising their right to be outraged and to shut down other people's expression with their outrage, right? And, come to think of it, since we live in a society where pretty much all dissemination of goods and information is profit-driven, that means that all companies should only provide goods and information that are sure to offend as few people as possible, right? So the next time some pro-lifer objects to a newspaper running Planned Parenthood ads or a Muslim objects to a cartoon being printed, you'd better stand up and applaud their right to do so.
Of course you don't bother to address the main point, which is that Amazon Marketplace works the same way Ebay does, so the item being "on their site" isn't the same as them actually selling it. And yes, living in a free society means that adults should have access to 'offensive' material without the interference of petty soccer moms with a high school education and no understanding of irony.
Snark and condescension is no substitute for intelligence or a coherent argument. Just a suggestion.
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Words and meaning
[Read the article: What the Pregnant Man didn't deliver]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let's leave aside our agendas for a second and look at the argument here. When we call someone a male or a female, there are three distinct meanings to the word:
1. Inborn, primary biological reproductive characteristics (ovaries, womb, sperm, etc.)
2. Secondary sex characteristics (breasts, body hair, voice, etc.)
3. Social gender cues (hair, clothes, mannerisms, etc.)
Until recently, we could get by assuming that all three of these would correlate along the male-female axis. Now, this assumption is being challenged. On the one side, you have those who stress the first category as all-important and that individuals who deviate from their primary gender in terms of secondary and social characteristics are simply defective specimens of that gender. On the other, you have those who claim that people should be called whatever gender they want to be called, and that someone can be male or female based on 2) or 3) alone.
Both of these views are wrong. The first is wrong because it makes an unjustified assumption in prioritizing the biological/reproductive aspects. What if you don't plan on having kids and look like a man or woman in every other respect? Unless you are the religious type, there is no justification for assuming that not following your 'biological calling' somehow makes you defective.
The second view is wrong because it fails to understand that language is constructed by society as a whole, and neither individuals nor minority groups have an absolute right to redefine it as they please. You can't just lump a male-to-female transgender and a 'normal' biological female under the category of "woman" and expect the rest of society to ignore the difference. I have absolutely no problem with transgendered people and believe they deserve full legal protection and access to the procedures they need. But as a straight man, you damn well bet that I would distinguish between a regular female and a transgendered one when it comes to sex. I don't think anyone has the audacity to claim that this makes me a bigot any more than not wanting to have sex with men would make me homophobic. So there's at least one important difference that would be denied by giving both the label of "woman" and insisting that there is nothing more to be said.
The obvious conclusion is that "male" and "female" are no longer adequate to describe all the possible configurations and we need more precision. The new pronouns mentioned in the article are a good example, as is Judith Butler's distinction between gender (biological) and sex (social), but these tend to lump 2) and 3) under the same umbrella, and there is obviously a big difference between a woman who dresses like a man and one who has had her breasts removed. So we need six terms instead of two. Now if we could only agree on them.
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For the record...
[Read the article: What the Pregnant Man didn't deliver]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...Gender Identity Disorder is officially classified as a mental disorder, which is what allows trasngender individuals to undergo therapy and helps for insurance purposes. On a more philosophical level, it's pretty hard to claim that you don't have a disorder if you feel uncomfortable with the body you were born in to the point that you need to modify it. That's different from simply cross-dressing or acting like another gender, and there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that it is neurological. The point is that 'disorder' simply means a deviation from the standard norm and, just like we say about depression or ADHD, shouldn't carry a stigma.