Letters to the Editor
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The hilarious Merely Mortal Male
I enjoyed reading these letters but I can't resist commenting upon Merely Mortal Male's early contention that women use their husbands as security guards. I pictured a guy with a AK-47 patrolling the perimeter.
I have two large assertive dogs, a shotgun and two pistols, and an inhome security system, and I need a husband for what? Last time there was a strange noise, I saw to it.
The only time I could have used a security guard was years ago when I was getting a divorce. My ex-husband was dangerous and owned guns. I also could have used a food taster. Who says women are the only ones who like poisons?
Now that I consider myself lucky to be alive, I consider protecting myself my own responsibility.
Merely Mortal Male stop reading those mercenary magazines and step into the 21st Century. The only thing you have been right about so far is that women should be moving in to higher paying male jobs. However, they need to focus upon those jobs that won't soon be outsourced. If they encounter illegal harrassment, they should sue.
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Repetitive "boring as hell" men
Emily, I loved the poem. Especially the boring reference. All the men in my family whom I have known have been eventually boring.
My father ranted about communists and Mexican aliens. He grew angrier the older he got. He hated the mayor, the sheriff (a Mexican!) and Democrats.
One brother has his disabled wife helping him build a garage, but he refuses to lift a finger in the house. I fear her lupus will become worse with the pressure he puts on her and he doesn't give a damn about her lupus or the cervical pain in her neck. He says all the money is his to control and even determines how her disability check is to be spent. He hates feminists, "Mexicans and niggers and chinks." He thinks the money our mother has should be spent as he sees fit because "Daddy made that money." He ignores the fact that my mother made her contribution by working a near minimum wage job and keeping her children fed and the house amazingly clean.
My other brother does not speak to me. That is because I am educated. My parents committed the crime of helping to pay for my college education. I cannot help it that he never wanted to go to college. He hates all the things my other brother hates plus his ex-wife, vegans and vegetarians and PETA people and Jews. Oh yes, he hates me too.
Grandfathers have been mentioned. My paternal grandfather beat his wife, my paternal Grandmother. She never left him. She made most of the money, which wasn't much, doing domestic work because he was an undependable drunk. She bore him nine children. My maternal grandfather was also a drinker, but a bit more controlled. He raped all three of his daughters. I do not know if he raped my grandmother. She never said. However, she did try to leave him. She did not drive and she had never worked outside the home except in my grandfather's business, but she travelled by train to Arkansas to ask her father to allow her to come home so that she did not have to live under tyranny and horror. Her father told her that she made her bed so she would have to lie in it. She did.
Them were the good old days. Thank God for feminism. Do I consider women who minimize other women's sexual traumas feminists? No. I do not. I am just glad, so glad that both of my grandfathers died before I was born.
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Psychology Today: Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature
I love the way that evolutionary biology ALWAYS gets trotted out to explain male behavior...regardless of whether in SPECIFIC CASES new male employees were harassed the way new female employees were. I have read of many cases where the specific intent of the male workers was to intimidate women to the point they would quit. You know, not show up at work the next day, thereby maintaining the men-only workplace. They weren't trying to have "casual sex" with these new female employees, they were trying to get them to QUIT.
Please, try and explain this in terms of evolutionary biology. The example you gave from Psychology Today does not address this documented-in-case-law scenario.
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Thanks, Anonymous.
I stole it from Billy Joel!
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chris1988
I agree that some of feminism is a major industry. My previous comments were attempting to highlight Roiphe's position within said industry.
My problem isn't that Roiphe is making money; my problem is the conditions under which that money is made and the conditions that arguments like Roiphe's perpetuate. Those conditions include Roiphe presenting a supposed "alternative voice" about gender inequality, when, in fact, she is simply saying the material conditions of the world are just fine thanks, and that the only problem is women's attitudes towards those conditions. Her glib response about being unhappy three hours after picking up Legos misguidedly attends to the 'victim', instead of focusing on who benefits from the work of picking up the Legos. I find nothing alternative about Roiphe's argument. What I think is more "alternative" is to focus on those who benefits from women (or men) doing more than their fair share of the housework. So Roiphe is also obsessed with victimhood, at the expense of ignoring who benefits from such inequality, and, most disturbingly, she is making a career off of telling women to change their attitude. This, to me, sounds more like Oprah Winfrey than feminism.
I can see how Roiphe feminism would be attractive to some women. It is much more difficult to make systemic change in society than it is just to smile while you pick up the Legos.
I'm not suggesting that Roiphe (and others like her) shouldn't have jobs in academia or shouldn't sell books either. I'm merely responding to the ideas Roiphe presents in the interview and the biographical information Traister offers about Roiphe. I think if you suggest Roiphe has every right to be included in "feminism" and to make money off her books, then I certainly have a right to critique the message she's attempting to sell.