Letters to the Editor
MeiTai
Published Letters: 39
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Sometimes people don't want a solution
[Read the article: I'm so damned judgmental!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Instead of judging your friends, why not offer them the benefit of your good advice?
Often advice is interpreted as judging. Say a friend is unhappy dating a married man. Good advice would be to tell her to either A) stop dating him, and find someone who is available, or B) figure out a way to live with the fact that he's unavailable. But that would be seen by some as cold.
It seems that the aim for the anti-judgment crowd is that --
- a person is free to make bad choices
- when/if those choices have bad consequences, no one will acknowledge or address the active role the person had in creating his own present bad situation
This can be really frustrating, especially for friends who care about someone going through hard times, to deal with the fallout of bad choices. If you continually help bail them out, that can be draining. If you turn your back to save your own sanity, that can be difficult (plus, one is deemed judgemental or cold).
But to me, that seems like the only recourse -- to eventually realize that advice is all one can give and if it's not taken -- turn your back. If someone continually hits herself in the head with a hammer, complains about her headache, and when you say, "Hey, maybe you could stop doing that," she refuses to -- what more can you do? And what more does she have the right to expect you to do?
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Judging is necessary for people to get involved
[Read the article: I'm so damned judgmental!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When will we understand that 'we', the neighbor, friend, co-worker, family member, are the front line of defense against abuse?
True. And the irony is -- for the neighbors, friends, co-workers etc. to get involved, they must first judge that the behavior of the abuser is unacceptable. This can't happen with the "live and let live," non-judgmental ideal -- in such a case, it would be verboten to criticize the abuser, lest anyone judge him and damage his self-esteem. And of course, that's ridiculous.
People naturally make assessments of others' behavior and choices. When misfortune occurs that is beyond a person's control, that's understandable. It's even understandable when misfortune happens as a direct result of someone's conscious action. I just think it's too much to ask that no one ever thinks that a stupid choice is, in fact, stupid.
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I'm with Tina S above ...
[Read the article: A new kind of sex tourism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If it's not cool for men to engage in sex tourism, and take advantage of the poverty of third world people to get their kicks -- it's not cool for women to do it.
And yeah, so what if they think they're invisible to the men back home -- wah, wah. Not an excuse to get one out of being considered a creepy person who exploits sex workers. Like others point out -- if those women want sex, they could get it from men back home. But no, they want it on the down low -- away from their "respectable" little lives.
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What's good for the goose is good for the gander...
[Read the article: A new kind of sex tourism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... or rather more accurately, what's creepy for the gander is also creepy for the goose.
I'm kinda disappointed to see some of the oft-repeated accusations of this blog's prolific naysayers actually being realized in this thread. I'm going to have to agree with brightstar65 about the blatant hypocrisy as he states here --
3. Men going to Thailand for sex = BAD. Women going to Kenya for sex = GOOD. The hypocrisy is obvious there and another reason 'feminism' is well past its sell-by date.
While I certainly don't think that feminism is well past its sell-by date, hypocrisy does nobody any favors. The rationalizations used by men going to Russia or the Ukraine or Thailand are the same as the ones the British women are using for going to Kenya. "Nobody will have me in my native country." "The prostitutes/mail order brides WANT to be with me, it's not like if there was a better economy they'd be choosy."
Bullshit.
Both scenarios involve people taking advantage of others people's economic or emotional or psychological situation. It's exactly the same, and it makes no difference when women are doing the using. I say this as a feminist, because I recognize that women are fully human, and as such are as culpable as men can be when they do something wrong/iffy/weird/creepy/exploitative.