Which kinda takes the wind out of this post.

Love Broadsheet, wish Traister weren't on Salon, miss Paglia.

It is the same thing Conservatives have been doing about liberals for well over a decade. These idiots have been doing the same for feminists or any progressive. It is spreading 'cause it is easier than real reporting and helps make a piece more forceful. The Straw Man (or Straw Woman) is especially put upon these days.

And Fugue, Paglia is an idiot and a conservative posing as a liberal to discredit liberals; an anti-feminist posing as a felminist to discredit feminists. She's unreadable. I'm sure you can find her bland blathering about herself elsewere.

Not to turn this into a Paglia thread, but when she wrote for Salon, I found her to be balanced, coherent, and cogent rather than reactionary, topical, and sophmoric. Perhaps she is a conservative, but at least her thoughts were thought-provoking and challenging.

As gleefully recounted in Gawker, Virginia Heffernan sucks at her job. She's frequently lazy about facts and has broken NY Times' records for corrections. Not only was the lede a cheap, and lazy (there goes that word again) swipe at feminists, it was poorly written and off-topic. By the way, was this lede an attack on her good friend Maureen Dowd, author of "Are Men Necessary?" which is all about dating?

If you want to read good TV criticism, you're better off with Heather Havrilesky at here at Salon or Dana Stevens at Slate.

Rush Limbaugh's girlfriend? Bill O'Reilly's loofah buddy? Ann Coulter's wardrobe consultant?

Lynn, I'm glad you're back.

The NY Times has other issues with women--and other groups not accorded high status. This one has bothered me for years: at least in reporting on medicine (my field), they only talk to people with the most impressive titles, regardless of whether the specific topic is their field of expertise. E.g. the 35-year-old assistant professor who specializes in that field is not heard from, but the 60-year-old boss, whose research is on something completely different, gets quoted extensively. Guess which one of these people is more likely to be a man?

(And however you feel about the glass ceiling as it exists now, what with so many female med school graduates, the historical discrimination that affected women now in their 60s, the would-be bosses, is incontrovertible.)

And lastly, they very rarely quote patients in their medical reporting. They're just not into the little people.

I'd also like to point out that any scan of feminist periodicals like Ms. or Bitch will show that every issue covers international stories and calls to action on an enormous variety of topics.

As a magazine junkie, I also like Vanity Fair quite a bit (as well as the Economist, Cooking Light, Yoga Journal, and the Nation). I didn't think Rebecca Traister's story deserved all the criticism it's gotten. VF is - by and large - a really good magazine, with very long, highly-researched stories about things I don't usually think about. It's broadened my knowledge fairly often. It *is* sad to see it stoop this low with the Hollywood issue, and I don't think there's any harm in pointing that out.

Sure it's a gimmick and sure it happens all the time, but that doesn't mean we can't comment on it as part of our social fabric. Little things in the environment can make a big different in people's thoughts and behavior and they shouldn't escape notice.

Curiously, Rebecca Traister's article has engendered 145 comments in response. However, the post below this one, on the "bread and roses" march by Women of Zimbabwe Arise, has gotten not a single comment.

I actually find that news to be incredibly important and interesting. So why hasn't it brought about any discussion? Because there's lots we could talk about. These women are essentially the traditional, discontented housewives Betty Friedan talked decades ago, but their stakes are much higher than self-fulfillment: they're marching for their own survival, their own economic well-being, and that of their children.

So why no posts? Is it simply because we all agree that this is important? Then why isn't there a flurry of exclamations of support? Why no debate about the best way to help?

Is it that there are no obnoxious misogynist trolls whining about how if these women worshipped their husbands they wouldn't get AIDS from them?

Or it could be that neither we, nor the trolls, give a fuck, and that we scroll right on past the meat and vegetables to the junk food posts, the stupid debates that don't matter. I'm beginning to wish that one of them would say something offensive in response to a post like that, because it might draw people's attention. It all does make me wonder whether Heffield has a point. Let's prove her wrong.

Confidential to those who consider whining sanctimoniously about how the Salon writers never post about serious issues, I think women trying to do something about a 38-40 year life expectancy is pretty damn serious, so why aren't you there either?

What, exactly, has Virginia Heffernan done about the issue?

Marianna,

You're right. I didn't post there 'cause I didn't have anything I wanted to say. I know little of the situation beyond Zimbabwe's general condition. I'm heartened that they're standing up, but want to see what the government's response is before I have much to say about it.

I read your post on the subject, in the hopes that you'd start a dialog such as you suggest here, but it was just a post of support. A "bravo" for them. Not much to say about that either.

I've tried to start serious discussions in the letters column in the past, but it rarely gets taken up. I just don't know enough to offer anything substantial.

I wish I had something to offer these brave, desperate women. I wish you did too.

Please don't confuse activity on a Salon blog as any indication of how important an issue is and whether readers care. A reader can agree or disagree with an article and the comments that follow but that does mean the reader has to respond. This isn't insta-polling.