Letters to the Editor
Treeple
Published Letters: 304 Editor's Choice: 16
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Veg men are hot as hell
[Read the article: Real men eat asparagus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think it takes a little something extra in a man to stand up for a way of eating that goes against the manly grain. Also, it makes it easier for me to cook for them, which I like.
DurianJoe, I second your brussels love, and only add a cast iron pan and a bit of white wine.
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DurianJoe
[Read the article: Single mothers are ruining society!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've seen some of what your wife has seen, and it doesn't get much more depressing than 10 children taken away from one mother (and in all likelihood not doing much better elsewhere). And the mother still thinking she's going to get it right one of these days. (I know men who have fathered 10 children, too--this is very much a dual-gendered problem.) But I can't support your solution of mandatory birth control or sterilization. Imagine policies like this in the real world, in the hands of real people--like the Bush administration, for instance. Why stop at sterilization after one baby? Why not sterilize children of undesirable parents, say drug addicts, while they're still children? No, aside from thinking that forced anything is a more serious wrong than what it's meant to correct, I suspect that ideas such as yours would hit the ground with malevolent unintended consequences.
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On paying people to not have kids
[Read the article: Single mothers are ruining society!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kelley O, your idea is better than forced sterilization, which I am philosophically opposed to in addition to the disaster it would be in reality. But paying people to sterilize themselves, well, the first thing I thought of was that it would disproportionately affect the poor, rather than unfit parents. And the second thing I thought of: lawsuits. Imagine a 19 year old college student who needs money fast and doesn't think she'll ever want kids. Ten years later, lawsuit! People who make astoundingly bad parents will go to a lot of trouble to have children. These are just my ideas, though. I have no idea what it would look like in reality, except that it would never happen. I mean, the current government barely tolerates the idea of birth control.
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Just to agree with others, once more, again
[Read the article: My boyfriend won't give me his apartment key]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW, I had a boyfriend a few years ago who always wanted me at his place, and over time I got a larger and larger piece of the closet, but it was quite inconvenient, and I was hardly ever home, and occasionally, I wondered why I bothered.
I bothered because it was nicer to be with him in a cozy little apartment than being alone in my bedroom with mismatched roommates outside. And--this is the most important part--because my boyfriend made it as convenient as possible for me to basically live there. Step one--giving me a key!
Even if he's not a power-hungry control freak, your b.f. sounds selfish, at least. Selfish is bad enough. DTMFA!*
*With appropriate credit to Dan Savage.
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TheByzantine
[Read the article: Single mothers are ruining society!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What is your deal with DurianJoe? He is not friends with Parson Jim. He is not arguing against the best interests of the child. What he is doing, by acknowledging that behind the ravings of some seriously angry people, is an actual problem, is not objectionable. I can't be so generous to people who are so stupidly against "feminists," but the custody system isn't perfect...and when fathers get the shaft, sometimes children do as well.
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I'm looking out first for "kick-ass"
[Read the article: Looking for kick-ass female heroines?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't trouble myself with hero vs. heroine. I read my ass off when I was little, and I don't remember ever worrying about the proportion of strong males to females. My favorite Judy Bloom book was not "Are you there God? [Etc.]" but "Then Again, Maybe I Won't." (And the MALE protagonist spends an awful lot of time having wet dreams and fantasizing about naked girls--I missed a lot of that story the first time around.) I'm not 100% up on today's YA lit, and maybe it's more segregated. But, I mean, I read Sweet Valley High and the Babysitter's Club, and it doesn't get much girlier (or embarrassing) than that. I suspect that big readers are going to bump into the big books. Off the top of my head, I can think of about a dozen of those featuring a heroine. But if I had been worrying about that when I vetted some YA novels for my niecephews, I would have missed "Holes."
Maybe girls are more likely to read "boy books" than the other way around. So what? Good for girls. Be careful ghettoizing either the dead white males OR the chick books. Someone tried dissing Jane Austen a couple of weeks ago, and Amerigo was the first to take notice.
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DurianJoe, on ass-kicking
[Read the article: Looking for kick-ass female heroines?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, I thought the same thing in the context of the post, before using the phrase myself in the colloquial meaning of "awesome." I am a fan of colloquial meanings...obviously confusing here, though.
By the way, I saw that you had asked me about my brussels sprouts earlier. I didn't have a chance to respond before they closed that thread. Mainly I just pour in some white wine and steam them a bit on the stove until the liquid is gone and they are somewhat tender; and then I put them into a high heat oven to get brown. There's a bit more to it, but not much. If you're not a fan of white wine, beer works almost as well.
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A class here and there, maybe, but a major? God, no
[Read the article: Is women's studies dead?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I went to a pretty liberal U where embracing Women's Studies would have been gilding the lily, to say the least. I instinctively stayed away and am glad I did. But I read a lot of overtly feminist stuff on my own and enjoyed some of it. Cannot imagine embracing this as my discipline. And that goes for all identity studies, quite honestly. If enough people share this opinion and these departments become unsustainable, well, that's the market talking.
Also, in what universe is Christina Hoff Sommers an "anti-feminist"? I think she's an inspiring feminist thinker. It hurts feminism to shut her out of that tent. And why is there a bouncer at the door in the first place?
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Yes, LetterWriter, exactly
[Read the article: Is women's studies dead?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Separating Women's Studies from other disciplines only marginalizes what good may come of it.