Letters to the Editor
-
She has dignity
Silda Wall Spitzer showed considerable dignity in these obviously painful appearances. She has teenaged girls who, I'm sure, are going through a horrible experience at a vulnerable time in their lives, and, to me, she was modeling a woman who keeps it together and maintains her dignity.
No one knows what goes on behind the closed doors of a marriage and it's none of our business what kinds of conversations they may be having in private. I'm sure no one "forced" her to be there; she's a lawyer; she's a smart woman; she can make up her own mind for her own reasons.
So why can't we stop psychoanalyzing her and allow her to play this out the way it makes sense to her? It's not her job to represent all womanhood and everyone else's dramas and traumas at this time; it's only her job to be Silda, doing the best she can, for her own reasons.
-
some thoughts
1) To the people who keep wagging their fingers at us in this comments section, saying this is a private matter and we shouldn't even be discussing Silda Wall and why she stood up there or that we shouldn't care about it or waste our time on it and that we are prurient for caring about it and discussing it: why did you even read the article? Just bypass it if you are so above all this. Be the change you want to see, as gandhi said, and save your lectures for your kids.
2) The fact that Silda Wall stood up there does say something. The only slightly redeemable reason is if she did it for her daughters' sake. To vouch for a guy who prosecuted prostitution yet engaged in prostitution is not respectable. To vouch for him just to keep your economic situation intact, or to not have to work and be rich, is not respectable. If you truly love him for his other good qualities (good provider? intelligent? funny, idk), that is your problem, but you still have some psychological problems. However, it is hard to control who one loves and is attracted to given that people are often attracted to people's dark sides. But, I have been cheated on before and can testify to the immeasurable psychological rewards of leaving that person. I suggest she try it. It feels like getting a blood transfusion, and is good for the soul.
-
Hey Rebecca Traister!
You never did mention what kind of monster Eliot Spitzer is! You're losing your touch!
I'm thinking....hobgoblin? No, wait....bugbear!
As for Silda, I think she's very pretty, in a brainy kinda way, like Jennifer Aniston fused with Laura Linney.
She's probably standing up there during press conferences out of friendship to her husband, in spite of anger. I've heard that people who are "married" are often also "friends." Someone one told me that really good friendship means you stand by the person even during the toughest times. Yeah...I don't get it either! (What is this kooky "friendship"?)
-
How Salon handles its coverage of an Eliot Spitzer-type situation --
Alex Koppelman: How did this play out? When will this, that and the other hammer fall?
Rebecca Traister: What's up with his wife? Let's get inside her mind! Is Spitzer an orc?
Broadsheet: Are prostitutes feminists or anti-feminists? Should we condemn them or say "you go, call girl!"?
Glenn Greenwald: Why do people care what goes on in private sex lives? What's the big deal with prostitution -- it's a transaction between adults! Stop moralizing!
Farhad Manjoo: Yo, check out the Emperor's Club website and its lame graphics! Double-yo, check out the hot callgirl's MySpace page!
-
they do protest too much
I appreciate Ms Traister's comment that part of what makes the Spitzer story so upsetting is that we (the general public) bought the image of the corruption-buster. But I'm concerned about her suggestion that we shouldn't be surprised when persons with a behavior-busting cause turn out to be star practitioners of the behavior in the first place. Does that mean that we should start assuming that pacifist war-protesters are all secretly defense-contractor CEOs? or that pro-life activists are covert abortion doctor assassins? Please consider the implications of arguments like this before you make them. It's a big leap to apply the failings of particular individuals to an entire population, and is an unsettling echo of the logic of the extreme right. We don't need to be adding fire to that peculiarly illogical flame.
-
You never know until it's you
It's all very easy to sit on our high horses and say, "we'll I would leave his ass.. hit him back.. take the kids and run.." but having watched several close friends deal with their husbands' infidelities, addictions and even abuse, I've learned that the reality is always, much, much more complicated than these easy declarations imply. While we can say what we hope we would do, none of us really has any idea what until it happens to us. To say otherwise is naive and demeaning to the women whose shoes we can't imagine standing in.
-
@heyjude...
You say that Silda Spitzer is "...a woman who keeps it together and maintains her dignity."
I disagree.
I have a pre-teen daughter, and Silda Spitzer is someone I hope my daughter will NOT look to as a role model. Frankly, I think she is an embarrassment.
What is she keeping together, exactly?
A dysfunctional family with years of lying and ugly secrets? The public image of her hypocritical politician husband? The idea that a wife has to put up with a cheating, lying spouse "for the family?" The idea that it's somehow noble or honorable to stand up there and give moral support to an immoral creep?
Sorry. But to me, if Silda Spitzer was a woman who keeps it together and maintains her dignity, she'd have put herself and her children as far away as possible from a toxic wreck like her husband, and let him play out his soulless mea culpa's as a solo act, and not drag myself or my family into it at all.
To me, THAT would be showing dignity for herself and her children.
-
American Morals
Is there any other country on earth that this would have been a news story? In enlightened countries like France, and Italy, and even Japan, if a politician did not have some form of mistress it would be viewed as suspicious.
And besides - who says that Silda wasn't engaging in her own extra-marital affairs? Maybe that expression on her face at the press conference was "been there, done that - at least I was smart enough to not get found out"??