Letters to the Editor
-
Survivor Man
Is it too much to ask for people here to entertian what I just said - that Salon's readers are out of touch with America? That the kind of people at Salon are overly-sensitive, so far to the Left they fall in the Pacific, and don't offer much that's actually helpful to a normal, average, American?
Salon has done articles that promote homeopathy - now how out of touch with reality are you when you're promoting water as "medicine"? What am I supposed to think of their political coverage after that? Am I supposed to trust their opinion on anything - like, for instance, feminism and mysogeny - after that? It's like they don't understand how over-the-top they are - and will project their fears and insecurities - and "stress" (never forget "stress") - on everyone else.
They don't understand men. They understand their projection of men. Or they understand men that suck up to the feminist idea of what they think men should be. But real actual men? They could give a damn. Real men are the "patriarchy" - an ideology. Which no man is. We were raised - by women - to be MEN. Try to tear us down and we'll do exactly what our mothers taught us to do - fight. Why Salon's women don't get that is beyond me.
We're not messed up - you are. You dominate colleges, live longer, and, in many ways, have better lives than men (ever got your asses kicked FOR REAL?) and still you bitch, bitch, bitch.
You're pathetic.
-
Re: "helpful to a normal, average American"
So... what exactly is a Normal Average American? Can you describe this creature?
Never mind.
My two cents is that the Salon letters feature needs to be an all-or-nothing affair. Either have them or don't, but don't police them, no matter how inane or offensive or boring they turn out. Slippery-slope principle and all that. I thought the site was more enjoyable without them. By which I mean that you (Salon) shouldn't really listen to a single damn one of us (commenters) and keep publishing whatever you like.
-
The article is right on
There is to my mind, absolutely no doubt that women who write, or is being written about, on the internet is under a relentless misogynist attacks.
They are objectified, and comments on their looks seems to be par the course, no matter the relevance - it's relevant to talk about looks when debating the unhealthy looks of models, or if the winner of Miss Universe was the right choice, it's not relevant when talking about politicians or pundits. An example: every time Ann Coulter is debated, someone makes a comparison of her to a man (and normally refers to her adam's apple). Every single freaking time.
The misogyny is widespead in the "letters" (comments really) to Salon, which is why I rarely read comments to articles about feminist issues. They make me feel sick - literately. Not only because of the outright misogynist comments, but also because of all the appologetic comments. Comments of the type that "men are attacked too", or "since she is a right-wing shrill, all attacks are fair". You can see an example of this sort of comments at the very beginning of the comments to this article.
Such comments are part of the problem. They feed into a culture of misogynism, where men get away with being misogynist, because other men (and women) let them get away with it. That has to stop. We have to arrest such comments, and make clear why they are not acceptable.
-
Sexism is a handy button, so they press it.
Behold Jeff73's guide to imitating Internet Denizen Behavior,
Volume 1, 'Expressing anger:'
1. Feel anger toward a person. "That Joan-Whatever really steams my clams."
2. Make a best-guess about what might get the person's goat the fastest with the least required effort. "Women hate locker-room talk and this one seems rather uptight, so I'll 'get her back' by spewing crude sexual references."
3. Hammer away with your chosen weapon in poorly-spelled, profanity-laced comments, messages or E-mails. "Breasts, whore, slut, get back in the kitchen, Etc. Please be offended!"
4. Smirk in satisfaction as a high percentage of your targets take your intent regarding the content of your attack seriously, when you really just want to piss them off. "Ye gods, misogynists! To arms, to arms!"
Joan, were you a man who ran a horse-rescue ranch, the frothing internet hordes would send you E-mail about French cooking and glue manufacture. They don't really care about your issue. They just don't like you, and they know you'll take the bait.
-
Trolls
I truly believe misogynist trolls are only a tiny sliver of the Web population. But I can no longer say they don't matter, or they do no real harm. We have them here at Salon in politics and relationship threads; Sierra has them in the world of tech marketing.
And they even write Salon columns from time to time.
In all seriousness, Salon does get what it asks for in some ways. The content here has become more lowbrow. Salon publishes pieces they must know are poorly written and researched, invite page views from Drudge and Freep.
Farhad Manjoo is basically a troll. If you doubt that check out his screed on the iPhone, which I can summarize precisely as follows: it seems complicated so it could have some problems. Before that he was writing poorly researched articles on how election fraud didn't happen.
Camille Paglia is quite obviously a troll and is ruder than most letter writers. The only difference being that she can make "AIDS is God's way of punishing gay men" sound erudite, though it's really no different from "get AIDS and die fags." I'm sure many would be rightly offended by the latter, but the former expresses the same basic thought and appears in Camille columns.
I won't even touch DD or Cary Tennis. (What qualifies this man to give advice to anyone?)
This is what Salon misses in these recent articles about letters and civility. It's a two-way street. When you publish garbage just to make waves or incite people don't act surprised when people are excited. You called Barak Obama an uppity negro and people got a little cross, imagine! Garbage in, garbage out is at least a partial explanation.
---
As far as moderation goes, Salon has proven to be extremely dishonest in assigning editor's choice stars to letters, so there is no reason to believe that dishonesty won't extend to moderation as well.