Letters to the Editor
maisieslim
Published Letters: 31 Editor's Choice: 2
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backlash
[Read the article: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not just about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, it's about what they as political figures with identities conjur up in people's minds that we are not normally privy to seeing or hearing. The sexism in this society has returned to the forefront alongside the increasing sexualization of women, and the widespread idea that men cannot control or are controlled by their lust (which is patently ridiculous). This was evident in the coverage of the Spitzer case, among others. We have 6 year old girls wearing thongs in this country, as if this were normal. Young college students believe that business meetings should be held at strip clubs, if it makes the men feel more comfortable doing business (nevermind the women that are forced to tolerate this unprofressional behavior). So, when someone calls the only woman to have made it this far in the presidential race in the history of this country a "whore" with little more than a chuckle from readers, it is disturbing. I agree with Joan: You people can all go back to Rush Limbaugh and the rest of his angry, male backlash audience where you belong. And, believe me, young women in this country are starting to wake up because they feel uncomfortable. It was fine to participate in the sexism as long as they were on the winning side, but now they see that they can never actually be on that side because they are not men. You'll see, it's coming.....whether Hillary Clinton is elected or not!
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All true
[Read the article: Quote of the day ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]yet I would say that it's less about being white than about being liberal (unfortunately that so often is the case). My students don't even know what liberal means because it's been completely detached from economic arguments----liberal feminists have always favored a law and order approach to every issue and this goes all the way back to the WCTU. The author doesn't really need to worry though because the VAW has been gutted by the republican congress and what's left goes to kevlar vests for rural police departments (no rape kits, training or sexual assault technologies for hospitals---that's SART training for anyone who doesn't know and it could help all women and men who are assaulted (black, white, immigrant, young and old) without much need for the police who are resistant to rape awareness because they need to report low crime statistics. Just as shuffling people directly to prison helps make the country look "safe" so does pretending sexual assault doesn't happen to women and men.
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Gams on Glass and Christopher 1988
[Read the article: When Pearl Buck tangoed with Mike Wallace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gams? Seriously? And, 1988 says it all....
Here's a clue:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7331813.stm
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horrified
[Read the article: My last word (for now) on sexism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]at the terrible reading comprehension skills of the Salon.com readers. is there some reason why many of you cannot read her qualifying statements about the video? about sexism? about Clinton? Jeez, I've got my work cut out for me at the college!
Joan Walsh is the ONLY person talking about this online or in the media, the ONLY journalist.
That's sad. BTW, I know most of Obama's campaigners in Illinois and they are taking the easy road just like him. Every time something bad happens about sexism, he shrugs his shoulders---he's glib, just like Elizabeth Edwards said, but won't own up to saying.
My classes are split down the middle on gender---women and men do not agree, because the Bush culture of post-9-11 has made it easy for straight white men to say and do whatever they want, and justify it as a "natural" characteristic. Take a look at the identities of all those guys featured in the video....what do you see?
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settling
[Read the article: Coming to a theater near you: Dumb arguments]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jeez! Left out of this article completely is the problem that once you settle perhaps those nagging problems that really made you break up with the guy from your 30s are not just chronic bad breath or manners but that he wanted you to move to another country and give up your career, or just give up your career, or he never really took it all that seriously, or he had weird, upsetting problems, ones that made him single in this 30s (remember the Sex and the City where Miranda dates the guy who cannot have sex without porn on the set?). Fact is, there's usually a major reason why men are single and available (unless widowed) in their 30s, and not really a good reason for why women are other than garden-variety backlash.
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Don't blame me
[Read the article: Coming to a theater near you: Dumb arguments]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for Susan Faludi, and Rush Limbaugh and red states. The fact of the matter is that the right-wing has a whole backlash curriculum for this kind of thinking, and it has been very successful. These observations come not just from watching t.v. but from watching every senior level professional trading his wife in for a graduate student, secretary or other inexperienced underling, abstinence only education, from strip clubs for business associates, from Hooters airplanes, from Girls Gone Wild, from men who shout "iron my shirts! to men who rape because they're "in the bush." We live in a sexist society---I did not create it and if anyone for one second thinks that women suffer from this but no agent is behind it, get a scientific clue! It's straight men who benefit from it, whether they tacitly disagree with it or not, and it affects everything from how women think about getting ready in the morning to how they will negotiate a marriage or a raise at work. Sure, other women participate in it but I only out of identification with the power elite---how else can one explain Phyllis Schlafly or Ann Coulter? Fine, I'm misogynist but this argument only works like reverse sexism or racism and assumes that these ideologies come out of no where and that no one benefits from them. I'm not liberal or silly enough to believe that.
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you've already lost me with baseball analogies
[Read the article: No, Hillary Clinton shouldn't be winning]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]could you try to appeal to a less masculine audience?