Letters to the Editor
cdunlea
Published Letters: 154 Editor's Choice: 35
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WS is BS
[Read the article: Is women's studies dead?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]so long as it continues to perpetuate a political agenda that excommunicates unbelievers or anyone who doesn't toe the party line. The honesty of a real academic discipline just isn't there. For example, among other liberal disciplines such as history, you have Marxists, conservatives, revisionists, intellectualists, materialists, Weberites, etc, where advocates of different philospophical approaches coexist (mostly) in disagreements. That does not happen in Womyn's Studies. Frankly, it's crap.
I'll believe that feminism is dead when laws punishing men, especially in domestic cases, are repealed. In Massachusetts, for example, an unsubstantiated claim by a woman to the police that her ex-husband hit her will lead to a restraining order that directly impacts custody, visitation of children, the ability to obtain a firearms permit, job screening and further credibility in court. I said unsubstantiated. A 209A order may be issued without witnesses, physical proof, or even evidence the man was in the vicinity at the time of the assault, and cannot be appealed. That law didn't just get on the books by itself.
So, yeah, I'm all for gender equality, but not the inequality WS programs push for. I see them as similar to madrassas in educating the next feminist militants, and as toxic to society and reasoned discourse.
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Huh?
[Read the article: Is women's studies dead?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Research shows that fields in which students major have nothing to do with their first job after getting their college degree."
I'm guessing that few students who majored in Womyns' Studies were hired as engineers or accountants out of college.
You may be a good teacher, I'll give you respect for that. But the perception of the discipline on Main Street as being controlled by old-guard radicals didn't just spring fully grown from the head of Zeus (or Hera, I guess). The fact that WS claims itself a "discipline" by its nature politicizes it in a way that history, sociology and others are not. For example, as one poster here previously stated, nobody in WS suggests that there are limitations of any sort on women, whether they relate to leadership, work, family, or anything else (save perhaps Paglia, who considers herself a maverick and others consider outside the fold). Ideas like that are off the table to even consider, because of the tautological outlook of the field. It would no more be considered a valid topic of discussion in most WS departments than a Liberty University professor challenging the divinity of Christ. It ain't happening.
As a grad student I took a class taught by a WS-type feminist who taught as an historian--"Womens' History". It was a great class, and taught me quite a few things that broadened my understanding of the period as it related to women's social status. But when one embraces WS as a major, as something to specialize in for its own sake, the overall objectivity of the student has to be questioned.
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Baby machines
[Read the article: What do you say about a pregnant man?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"In the future the process can probably be automated completely."
Sure...but it won't. Until the hardwired psychology of men and women are reprogrammed, they'll still be doing it the old fashioned way. Nothing wrecks a man's self-esteem like being impotent, and nothing ruins a woman's like being infertile or miscarrying. Oh, sure, many women happily say they don't need to have kids to be complete, etc., but when a woman realizes that she's infertile--that is, it's no longer about a lifestyle choice, but a deficiency in her reproductive system beyond her immediate control--she feels depressed. Some get over it, some frankly don't.
As for men having babies...what possible good could come of that?? What kid wants to be known as the kid who came out of Daddy like a freak?
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Reset are NOT the problem
[Read the article: Whatever happened to the great ARM reset crisis?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem is not the resets--they still account for a tiny percent of the foreclosures, which are still small overall--but the FEAR in the marketplace on the part of lenders. That fear is caused by a number of factors: government investors retreating from risk, mortgage insurance companies on the verge of insolvency (why aren't you talking about that, BTW??), overexposure in declining markets and, oh, yeah, the FEAR of the Great Reset Explosion of 2008, whenever that comes.
Declining values, caused by banks unwilling to lend because of declining values, are causing this catch-22 cycle of death.
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Hello?
[Read the article: And now we must praise Tracey Ullman]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"For too long women have been barred -- largely through self-censorship -- from participating in the wild and wonderful world of ugly humor."
You need to get out more, Eleanor. Gilda Radner, Margaret Cho, Roseanne Barr--never heard of 'em, I guess.
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Ramsay's chops
[Read the article: In memory of Gordon Ramsay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Having worked in many kitchens of various stripes, I can say that Ramsay's language is very much par for the course in any fine-dining establishment. Often the kitchens with the foulest mouths are in restaurants frequented by celebrities, Supreme Court justices and CEOs. As Bourdain points out in Kitchen Confidential, the restaurant subculture is united by the horrible language and screaming assholes who make some of the world's best food.
As for not being able to take care of himself in some "blue collar establishment", well, Ramsay grew up in a council estate (read: ghetto projects) in southern England, lived with a drunk father, took care of himself after age 16 and tried to play professional soccer. He worked his way up getting screamed at. You might not like him, but he's earned his stars and traditional chefs are still trained like him.