Letters to the Editor
-
the reason we don't like susan
I think people are mad at susan because her post revealed pretty clearly that any rejection she may have experienced had more to do with her personality than any institutional gender bias. However, rather than looking at herself, she blamed men in a very generalized way. Duh.
I think feminists like her do more to hurt us than Rush Limbaugh.
-
re: Mr. Man
Dude, you make my point for me when you say:
The odd-looking woman with the bad teeth could have helped you meet your deadline by showing you how to re-format a Word document.
I never once said that women have nothing to offer, i said that men are primarily interested in fucking women- not talking to them, and that few men will ever let women into the boys club. Your statement that men over 19 lose this interest in interesting to me: I know lots of guys well over that age, and it always comes back to fucking - i never or rarely here men discussing women in terms of their mind - though i often hear men talking of women in terms of their looks.
maybe you work with college professors or something - but the guys I know rank women by looks, not brains - and the ones they rank by smarts are ones they usually not interested in fucking...
-
Defending My Grammer?
The response to my letter is pretty amazing. I typed fast, so hence grammer problems, ok.. To be dismissed as being an idiot because I didn't spell check, seems a little too easy. I emphasized that my friend was a gay civil rights attorney to indicate that I was surrounded (or so I thought) by people who were tolerant and smart. In my book being gay is a good thing. As far as naming names to tell you who was there, well, that's obviously silly, and something I would never do, because I respect people's privacy. The emphasis that I put on the things that our culture values, i.e. rich, white, educated, attarctive, I put that emphasis on those things to obviously dismiss them as meaningless, when it comes to how women are viewed as despite having these obvious trappings of "power" they are chased after to be acquired as "valuable" at the end of the day. And I (To make it clear) find that these things have no real inherent value in themselves, but only that which our culture views them as being so. The level of anger and hostility at me for expressing this horrible incident and the quickness for women to distance themselves from me and blame me as the problem itself, truly shows me where we are at as a culture. It's sad. It's mean. It's well, America. God help us. I shared this story because it was painfull and horribly common. I didn't think it would cause people to attack me yet again. Scary.
-
Friend?
"I was taken to a loft party by my gay civil rights attorney friend, where their were all top players in the world of advertising, think tanks, and law. I met a group of guys, one of which attended both U.C. Berkeley and grad school at Columbia at the same time as I did. We had much in common. We chatted, drank wine and he asked for my number. I went to get my card when he promptly said to the group of the men, "That blond chick wants to fuck me, but I don't want to fuck her, so lets get out of here." And they left. My pal heard it and told me what happened. Obviously this guy was an asshole and ridiculous, and probably was pissed that all his friends had spent the earlier part of the night chatting me up, etc. etc. Obviously it was to take my power away and make himself feel great. But the real point that I'm trying to make is, that no matter how many accomplishments I have, how many degrees I've earned, how white, or pretty, or rich, or smart I am, I will always be a "girl" to men whose only real worth is whether I'm "fuckable" or not. I will never ever be a friend or a contemporary or worthy of basic respect or decency."
Susan:
I basically thought one thing about your letter:
Your "pal" is not your friend. No true friend, male or female, would ever repeat such a rotten comment to the person about whom it was uttered. Friends do not repeat mean-spirited comments made about other friends.
P.S. What that man said at that stupid party is not worth your concern. Ever. Maybe your experience connects to feminist issues, maybe not. But I know for sure that it is largely about plain old bad manners.
-
Re: re: Mr. Man
Kind Sir,
The men I know that evaluate women on "fuckability" are horrible lays (see the part in the article about female orgasm). Perhaps you should do some research on misogyny and erectile dysfunction--you probably have alrerady, I mean, you want to know what your problem is, right? How can I make this assumption? Fair is fair. You assume i am gay or a liar because I make an effort to see the totality of each person i come in contact with.
If you'd like to encounter more men who have views similar to mine, perhaps you should spend less time in sports bars and Xbox tournaments.
People like you and susan who make blanket statements about scores of people based on limited experience really tickle me.
-
Susan
Being a good person is a good thing--being gay or straight is not either good nor bad. People wouldn't find you so annoying if you used you head and thought about the shit you say.
-
susan
Being rejected by an asshole at a party is horrible and painful? You should consider yourself lucky you didn;t wind up on a date with that jerk. All that education and you haven't learned anything.
-
The Plight of Those Worse Off Doesn't Render All Other Problems Insignificant
There are a number of posts in the letters section to the effect that because these gender role, gender identity problems only affect those that have life's basic necessities taken care of then they are not worth discussing and no sympathy should be given to anyone who suffers from the consequences of them. Why not? Why is that because someone somewhere has a worse problem that all problems that are not as severe are not worth discussing? I don't think that makes sense. The readers of Salon are largely middle class. Things like gender roles are very real problems for many of them. They are entitled to have articles about them and to discuss the points in the article. What is the point of someone coming on saying in essence 'this whole discussion has no merit or meaning because many others half way around the world have larger problems to worry about'? There are posts like this all the time on Salon and I just don't understand them. If people find a topic interesting and want to discuss it that is good enough. They don't have to defend their interest in the topic in light of the problems of all the other people in the world. It is just a ridiculous standard and if everything were held to it this site would have nothing but stories of misery from around the world. If someone has achieved some material comfort and other problems arise that would have been secondary previously, they have the right to read and talk about those problems.