Letters to the Editor
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Here's a suggestion Gayle
Don't read it then.
Good grief!
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One more thing Gayle...
He's racist? I assume you can back that charge up?
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christianjb
"One more thing Gayle...
He's racist? I assume you can back that charge up?
-- christianjb"
Do you not know how to read? I wasn't referring to Maddox specifically, but to the overall trend-- and much of it is as racist as it is sexist.
And since we're not quite living under fascism yet, I'll read whatever I damn well please. And comment on it, too.
Idiot.
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Maddox the person
I've been reading Maddox's web page off and on for a few years now, and had always taken it as edgy satire, while wondering what Maddox the person was like. In the interview he struck me as thoughtful, decent, and even fairly progressive in his thinking.
Maddox's material is just over-the-top satire, in the tradition of Ed Anger's hilarious rants in The Weekly World News or many a piece in The Onion, and should not be taken seriously or literally. If there are idiots out there who treat his postings as marching orders, that's a shame.
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Gayle
I didn't realise that you meant were racist abusers in general- and not just the author that this letters page is about. My apologies, I shouldn't have disagreed with that opinion.
Otherwise, thanks for taking a controversial stand against racism and fascism.
My suggestion still stands though. If you don't like a website, then feel free to press all those other fancy buttons on your web browser- such as the X button.
Oh, and here's a clue for you. The book is called 'The Alphabet of Manliness' and features a Tarzan-like figure battling a giant ape on its front cover. Maybe the author was aiming for a satirical effect. Of course, that's just a guess on my part.
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Gayle
I didn't realise that you meant men were racist abusers in general- and not just the author that this letters page is about. My apologies, I shouldn't have disagreed with that opinion.
Otherwise, thanks for taking a controversial stand against racism and fascism.
My suggestion still stands though. If you don't like a website, then feel free to press all those other fancy buttons on your web browser- such as the X button.
Oh, and here's a clue for you. The book is called 'The Alphabet of Manliness' and features a Tarzan-like figure battling a giant ape on its front cover. Maybe the author was aiming for a satirical effect. Of course, that's just a guess on my part.
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How sad
"I didn't realise that you meant men were racist abusers in general- and not just the author that this letters page is about. My apologies, I shouldn't have disagreed with that opinion."
This comment and a double post to boot-- You really are a simpleton, aren't you?
Too bad for you.
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Thanks Gayle
Such a great way to win any argument- just call the person you disagree with an 'idiot' and a 'simpleton' and tell them they can't read. Witty too!
Yes I double posted. I left out a word in my first post. Who cares?
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Simmer Down
My question to all of you getting on Maddox about his statements regarding women is this:
Why are women as a group any more important than the elderly, babies, or the disabled, all of whom Maddox has made fun of at some point?
I personally think the premise of Rebecca's question regarding women vs. blacks was flawed and/or selfish, because why single out women vs. blacks? Why not ask the same question about kids vs. blacks, old people vs. blacks, disabled people vs. blacks?
Why is there only outrage over the things he says about women?
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Because
We are representative of over half the population. Because there is a very long history of violence and oppression of women. Because we get raped. Because we get forced into sex slavery. Because we get physically abused by men. Because we become victims of polygamy. This is in America.
For the women who have avoided the above, we still get paid less, we get rights over our bodies stripped away and if we want to enjoy in consensual but gratuitous sex, we are whores but men are not.
So before you get extremely defensive about being a man, remember the context of this sensitivity before asking, "why do we deserve this outrage?" It's mens' history towards women and it sucks and should be remembered if you do love and respect women.
Some people find it easier than others to be self-deprecating and that's great. But there are others, like me, where women-degradation is just too easy of a target and it has been one for too long. I disrespect his lack of creativity in choosing the target of humor and honestly, it's just another iteration of the same shit, different day.
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A couple of observations
about race and sex.
Women have always been about 50% of the population everywhere and at all times, and yet it took women until about 1800 to begin to oppose their legal inequality.
African-Americans in the United States and in the colonies before that, have always been a tiny minority, and yet they resisted their subjugation in a wide variety of ways from the very beginning.
The former strongly suggests, not oppression, but milennia of tacit agreement about sex roles and competencies. Otherwise, why didn't women oppose their inequality earlier? Given their numbers, they could have changed things much earlier than they did. And why didn't the great female monarchs of history lift a finger for their sisters? And why doesn't the wealth of letters and diaries left to us reveal a wide-spread understanding on the part of women of their oppressed status?
The latter suggests that blacks understood and opposed, sometimes violently, their status even though the odds were heavily stacked against them.
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Skunk
No. He is, however, a first-time book author.
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Sandra
Why would you assume I'm Maddox incognito because I defend him? He's a personal friend. I vouch for his quality of character.
Regards,
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Re: juneasmog
Look, you make various valid points about the plight of women currently and historically. But you still missed the entire point of what I originally said. By breaking it down on the female level like you did (and others have), you are more or less saying that women as a group are more important than other subsets of the population. And how is that any different from someone saying whites are more important, rich people are more important, or english-speaking people are more important? It's not.
My point is that Maddox's brand of humor and writing could be deemed offensive to a lot of groups, but you seem to assert that only what he says about women is worth addressing and calling out. I don't care if women are 50% of the population, 25%, or 75%. This isn't a numbers game. He makes offensive remarks about women, kids, disabled people, and the elderly, among many others. To call him out for what he says about one of those groups just because it pertains to you, while ignoring the others, is both selfish and hypocritical in my opinion.
Lastly, why do I have a very strong feeling that you (and the majority of his critics on here) know little to nothing about his writing and humor beyond what you read in Rebecca's piece? It's safe to say you probably have not looked into what kinds of things he has to say in their full context. A lot of you are no different from the millions of conservatives and republicans who denounced Fahrenheit 9/11 without having ever even seen the trailer, let alone the entire film.
It's foolish to break things down to the micro level in an effort to see who has suffered or been discriminated against more. Reasonable minds should be able to agree that women and blacks (as well as other obvious groups) have suffered more than enough in a variety of ways.