Letters to the Editor
dendrio
Published Letters: 200 Editor's Choice: 27
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Evidence for Hypothesis
[Read the article: My wife quit shaving her legs and it turns me off]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Several posters said that not shaving one's legs might be an excellent way to meet a man who isn't a control freak and/or obscenely superficial. Here's a data point for your analysis: I haven't shaved my legs since high school and shave my pits only very infrequently (when I'm wearing something sleeveless somewhere formal). I did indeed meet and marry a wonderful man who is (gasp) not a Neanderthal! As a matter of fact, I dated lots in college, before I met my husband. Some losers, some not, but none of them cared about the state of my legs.
A woman who doesn't shave is a woman who is giving a big middle finger to cultural hegemony. To some men, this kind of fiery, independent, iconoclastic woman is an extreme turn-on. In my experience, these men are not rare endangered life-forms, either. So, stop shaving and go out there and locate one of these keepers!
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Perhaps some useful reading that relates to the actual topic at hand
[Read the article: I'm so vegan it hurts]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I really cannot recommend highly enough Wendell Berry's essay "In Distrust of Movements." If one googles the title, one can find it reprinted in several places for your reading pleasure. I urge one and all to check it out because it so cogently describes many of the problems that not only the Letter Writer is confronting, but that anyone who has ever joined a cause or movement with open eyes has bumped up against. Berry is primarily an environmental activist, but his arguments apply to all movements. I know upon reading it several years ago I felt a clarity regarding my own involvement, or lack thereof, in the various progressive movements which I would otherwise be a prime candidate for.
And for everyone being incredibly rude to one another about the secondary issue of vegetarianism and veganism:
The issue of animal rights is akin to that of abortion, in that it requires taking one of two divergent central premises which cannot be proven, and from which a whole series of other beliefs flow. You either feel that humans are more important than other animals, or you don't. From that original premise, you make your logical choices. But that original premise itself is not logical and cannot be argued about. It is a value judgement and science cannot prove or disprove that other animals are as important as humans any more than it can prove or disprove that a day-old foetus has a soul. For that reason, arguing about it almost never changes anyone's mind. What does change minds are personal, intimate experiences and resulting epiphanies, and no person can impose that on another.
I say this as a commited vegetarian of 16 years. I don't preach, I don't impose, I dont' feel that there would be any point to it. And I have gotten a tremendous amount of abuse in the past couple of decades anyway. Here's a tip for the omnivores out there: Don't assume that the minute someone says they are a vegetarian that they are out to preach to you, be rude to you or otherwise dis you. Because I do none of those things, yet many people have responded to my vegetarianism with mocking, taunting, name-calling and incredibly childish behavior (such as throwing raw meat at me) . The fact that you've once before been preached to by a vegetarian does not justify in any way your nasty response to me.
Or could it be that it's just fun to mock minorities and the list of minorities which it is acceptable to mock is growing a little thin? Hm. There's a thinker.
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Rise & Fall & Rise Again
[Read the article: Decline and fall]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Said one Roman patriot to another:
"Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings...
"O, you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king...
"And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds."