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Read other letters about this article
I am not a regular Salon reader. I found my way to Waldman's piece from outside. Having now read the responses to her latest column, as well as all of her previous columns, I have to say that as impressed as I am by Waldman's writing, I'm so disgusted by the negative reactions of Salon readers that I doubt I'll be back.
I won't bother with Salon's seemingly inexhaustible supply of savants dismayed by the alarming realization that a columnist might--can you imagine?--attempt to write in a way that is deliberately provocative. Thank God we've got no rich tradition or history of that in America! Ditto the "who cares about the problems of rich white people" crowd, whose penning of such elaborately outraged letters calls into question their own argument (and guilty sympathies). But has any of you narcissistic pots-calling-the-kettle-black noticed that in, in addition to her more personal columns, the woman has repeatedly and frequently addressed many neglected and unpopular causes in her columns, from the rights of women prisoners to Medicare? No, because those columns, which seem to have barely drawn any letters at all, either inconveniently don't fit your preconceived notion of "Crazy Ayelet" or else they vainly attempt to lift your myopic gazes out of the tiny little orbit of your own navels. It's only when she holds up a mirror to your own life that you realize you don't like what you see!
I'm amazed at how self-revelatory are the letters of the people who berate Waldman for being too self-revelatory--in particular her male critics, whose ripostes rarely amount to more than "Shut up, bitch!"--and even more amazed by the total absence of reaction from these same readers when Waldman enlists their attention and sympathy to people less fortunate, less familiar, less like them.
