Letters to the Editor
weeping for brunnhilde
Published Letters: 1150 Editor's Choice: 3
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@ heddache1
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[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Like someone else mentioned previously, I think a lot of politicians are "whores" who are willing to sell themselves out to the highest bidder. Randi Rhodes calling Hillary a whore is rude and obnoxious, however, does it means she is sexist? No. Whore has become something that is used against both males and females."
Please, you're committing the common fallacy of seeing "sexism" as either/or. People do this with racism all the time and it's so not productive.
First of all, the issue isn't whether Randi Rhodes is "a sexist." The issue is whether what she said was sexist.
Can you see the distinction?
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Productive discourse
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[Read more letters about this article: Here]For any of this to be productive, I'd urge everyone, before jumping into the fray, to take a few minutes and really think about what "sexism" is.
Are we all referring to the same phenomenon? I doubt it, which is what makes issues like this utterly intractable.
Unexamined premises need to be lain bare before any productive discussion can occur.
Otherwise, it's just a lot of noise.
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@ Joan
[Read the article: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you so much for the kind words, Joan; they're humbling.
And yes, if you're talking about public/political discourse, again, it's impossible not to agree.
I had a friend years ago, a very dear friend, who first really drove home that to her, bitch=nigger.
I think I'd always sensed that, because it wasn't a word I used anyway, but I'd never really thought about it that explicitly until she talked to me about her response to people using that word.
At least since then, it's been very obvious to me that that kind of sexism, "genial sexism" as you call it (nice phrase), is by far the more acceptable of the two in "mainstream" culture.
This is why, whatever Randi Rhodes meant, she should have opted for a different word if her primary concern was sensitivity to the issue of sexism.
But clearly, it wasn't. You can argue that it should have been, should always be, but that's a separate argument.
In Rhodes' case, she was just speaking in her natural, vulgar way which, frankly, I can appreciate as a fellow New Yorker. We really are kind of a vulgar people, truth to tell.
I went to college in Iowa and was immediately struck by the winces I'd get from my foul mouth.
So I guess I'm saying there are lots and lots of layers of meaning and communication going on and we should try to always appreciate the complexity.
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@ Lucy
[Read the article: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]" I didn't think I would ever find her charming, but I'm finding I really love her when she's smart and funny and not trying to be one of the guys. I wonder if/hope that Blumenthal will have more influence now that Penn is gone."
I know exactly what you mean. I've been sucked in by her charm too, and I've disliked her for a long time (in short, because I hated Clinton triangulation, opportunism, selling out liberalism, etc.). And yet, there have been times when I've been drawn to her in ways I never thought I would be.
And yet, every time, she comes back and infuriates me. I mean really, really infuriates me.
I think the thing is, that the "being one of the boys" is just her nature by this point, and probably always has been, which is the ambition thing.
I think she's profoundly insecure, so when she gets in trouble, gets into survival mode, she just defaults to that posture, which is I think what jars so many of us.
And it makes me feel that, when pushed, I can't rely on her to do the wise thing because she defaults to survival mode.
She's had to be one of the boys to get this far, and her character's not strong enough for her to get out of her comfort zone for very long, and hence, her campaign.
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@ Joan
[Read the article: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No, of course "fucking whore" doesn't roll off my tongue, but if I were paid to talk abrasively and provocatively for hours and hours each day, who's to say it wouldn't be part of my repertoire.
Part of the problem, in other words, is that vulgarity per se is tolerated in public discourse to an astonishing degree, such that our sensibilities are coarsened to begin with, which makes it much more likely that phrases like "fucking whore" would slip out.
Two problems at hand: 1) Vulgarity per se and 2) Which vulgarity is too vulgar.
Actually, it must be something like the process of establishing sacrality.
How is it we separate the sacred from the profane?
This is certainly an interesting test case.
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@ Amity
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[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Why can't Hillary Clinton act like an ambitious, aggressive, determined politician?"
She's more than welcome to, I just don't respond to one or two and in fact, they frighten me.
I don't like those qualities in men, either.
Ambition is only as good as the purposes to which it is put and I think she puts it, in the end, to self-serving purposes.
I think all politicians do this, but it's a matter of degree.
Her opposite, in terms of ambition, calculation, dishonesty, aggression, etc., would be someone like Giuliani.
I've despised him for many years as well.
Bush, too.
I'm saying there are real similarities (imo), among those three people, and they make me cringe equally in all three cases.
Is that fair?
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@ Aka
[Read the article: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Where is the line between reclaiming language and a certain amount of self-loathing?"
For who, you, or black people?
Because if the latter, I'd suggest it's not really any of your concern.
Why would you presume to ask such a question?
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@ AKA
[Read the article: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You mistake me.
I didn't say you didn't get to have an opinion, I asked you a simple question: why do you presume?
Literally, why?
Idle curiosity, or do you have something invested in the answer?
It's really important to ask yourself that if you're really serious about pursuing the question of where the line is.
I'm trying to help you answer your own question regarding where the line is.
Or was the question merely rhetorical?