Letters to the Editor
-
Fawning
Asking Rebecca Traister to critically interview the author of this book is a bit like asking Lenin to critically interview the author of the Communist Manifesto.
What I loved the most about this fawning blowjob of an interview is that when Valenti says this: "There is no public space for women; the whole world is a prison where you have to be constantly aware at all times that you're a potential victim." And Traister doesn't bat an eyelash. Any woman who really thinks this way is too pathetic to crawl-out from under her bed.
Let me get this straight: Valenti thinks the reason a lot of women think that feminism is uncool is because of "propaganda", yet just basically issued one of the most over-the-top manipulative statements I've ever seen and doesn't realize that maybe it's the extreme rhetoric of moderate feminists like her that turns women off?
It's amazing- working-class women know that it's good to be on your guard when you're around drunk people. White girls like Valenti are the only people in the world who don't seem to realize this. Telling a woman to merely exercise caution is no different from telling a woman to be hypervigilant. This from a woman who 5 minutes before that the whole planet is a gulag and THEN goes-on to say: "Not changing our messages for fear of backlash has really hurt us and made us not want to own up to our mistakes as much as we should..."
And Traister sits there, saying nothing about this mix of ideas which simply don't fit together very well.