Letters to the Editor
Penelope27
Published Letters: 3 Editor's Choice: 1
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Don't do it.
[Read the article: I'm a nude dancer trying to finish my Ph.D.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The chances of your students, your peers, and your professors (people who will have to write you letters of recommendation before too long) seeing you work as a stripper seem pretty high. Even the money can't be worth that.
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A little respect?
[Read the article: Could this week get worse for mothers?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Calling the unfortunate children who were victims of abuse "feral" and "rape-children" is so disrespectful and nasty I can't believe Salon published the piece. Feral? Their conception was an act of terrible violence, but that doesn't make them subhuman wild animals. Moreover, their mother seems by media accounts to have loved them and cared for them as best she could; doesn't basic human respect for her preclude this kind of language?
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What a terrible essay.
[Read the article: The mother-daughter wars]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The essay seems like a personal response by a friend of Alice Walker's to her daughter's criticism, and while writing that kind of letter is Chesler's right, publishing it under the guise of some kind of heads-up to third wave feminists is a mistake. With respect to this line, "Rebecca: Trust me, a woman really cannot do both. The myth that we can is a dangerous one," I can only say, and I mean this in the nicest posssible way, fuck you. This is the message from a second-wave feminist to younger women? You cannot be a feminist, an activist, and any kind of decent mother? How patronizing a comment, and moreover, how utterly useless as advice. Gee, I guess I should either give back the Ph.D. I earned from a top school, or give away the two small children I've mothered with great love and devotion, or decline the job I've just taken that will (I hope) allow me to teach young women and men something about feminist scholarship in my field. Because obviously I'm reaching too high! Here's a more helpful suggestion: realize that if you want to balance your principles and your activism with your family, you should choose a decent partner who is going to do his or her share of the childrearing, who will support you in your activism and your professional aspirations. Rebecca Walker's reflections on her childhood offer valuable insight to third-wave feminists, and the take-home lesson should not be that you can't do it all, but that you can't do it alone.