It is a terrible truism that certainly minorities, including gays, suffer prejudice in the United States. From what I've read, Dr. Denton was the target of an endless barrage of cruel remarks because of her sexual orientation -- and undoubtedly because of the high station she managed to reach, chancellor of a prominent university. It should go without saying that all this is all terribly unfortunate.

(I'm curious whether the persecution she received because of her orientation was the, or a, reason for her apparent suicide; it seems very difficult to tell from the information released to date.)

At the same time, irrespective of personal characteristics many top executives have been severely criticized when it came to light that they had done precisely what Dr. Denton did: renovate their own homes with large amounts of institutional monies.

In Dr. Denton's case the amount was $600,000. Further, giving her partner a university job not only seems to have been an end run around anti-nepotism laws, but the job -- as this Broadsheet article neglected to mention -- paid $192,000 annually, according to the NY Times. For these reasons it is quite unlikely that the harsh criticism she received for doing this is attributable to her sexual orientation. (No doubt, her homophobic enemies joined this particular fray, making it worse. But it strikes me as disingenuous to suggest that

One lesson evident from this sad episode is that malfeasance by top executives is not limited by sexual orientation.

Jessica Valenti didn't even get the bogus fact correct. From the June 5, 2006 Newsweek, which has a retrospective article about the notoriously alarming and mistaken claim in a June, 1986 Newsweek story:

In the story's most infamous line, NEWSWEEK reported that a 40-year-old single woman was "more likely to be killed by a terrorist" than to ever marry.

That's 40, not the 35 mentioned in the "'Strident and proud" interview* with Katha Pollitt**.

What's that you say? Was it, "Who cares!" ?

Funny, that's what I thought you'd say. Who cares about a little fact you didn't bother to check? Nobody. Hey, this is Salon, where feminism-related stories have no standards they are required to hold to, since those poor little feminists, they've suffered enough without the added burden of having to be professional in their profession.

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* Note: Is this letter disproportionately harsh for just one little mistake? Only if we ignore the massive mountain of "errors" -- or more accurately, "who-caresies" -- made by Salon whenever it's covering feminism.

** You actually think Katha Pollitt is only quote-strident-unquote, not genuinely strident? This suggests you haven't been reading her column in The Nation..

The author of this piece ends with:

There's got to be a way -- even a "gossipy, tongue-in-cheek" way -- to get young women's attention without disrespecting them in the process.

Ms. Rockwell may not be aware that women who get very intoxicated are potentially subject to far worse indignities than a police department warning that their panties could become visible if their skirt rides up.

Which is, by the way, accurate. The police department piece could have been a lot more explicit, mentioning that the intoxicated woman could be the victim of rape, even murder . . . which is also accurate. Probably the reason they didn't use this strategy is that they know that warnings of terrible consequences tend to get dismissed as too improbable, but warnings about relatively minor but embarrassing consequences are more likely to be heeded.

And what in the world is the author's reason for thinking that the police department is not also trying to decrease the risk posed by potential perpetrators of exploitation of intoxicated women? I bet they are already aware that a public service announcement requesting that no one exploit an intoxicated woman could be counterproductive, as in giving some evil men ideas they didn't have before. Anyway, frequent news stories (originating from the P.D.) of apprehended perpetrators probably serve this purpose more than anything else the police department can do.

Just remember: Instead of seeing this police department campaign, etc., as being benefical to women, always latch onto any excuse to complain about anti-woman threats. That way you will gain a great deal of credibility for your eternal vigilance. (Or not.)

I haven't seen the movie yet (hadn't even heard of it before), but what a thoughtful, well-written review this is. Thank you, Stephanie Zacharek!

It goes without saying that rape is a horrible, horrible, crime.

And the article cited, by Ruth Rosen, gives a number of specific examples of rape in post-U.S.-invasion Iraq. Every such example is horrific. Most have been well-reported in the past.

But Ms. Rosen does not present a smidgeon of evidence of any kind indicating that this is an unusually widespread phenomenon. In fact, she acknowledges that we have no way of knowing the extent of this crime in Iraq.

(This lack of evidence is, of course, not evidence that the phenomenon of rape is *not* unusually widespread in Iraq. It just doesn't tell us anything.)

It's hard to see the point of writing a whole story about the unusually widespread phenomenon of rape in Iraq without a smidgeon of evidence that this is an unusually widespread phenomenon. Unless Ms. Rosen's goal is to lower her credibility.

And in light of that, it's hard to see the point of Broadsheet's citing this article.