--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > We are in agreement that Olbermann's comment was way > out of line.
We are not in agreement about *why* he was out of line. We are not in agreement that his remark was irrelevant to this current controversy because he was speaking of a public figure. > I wasn't playing along with Barry, I was the first person > to bring the question up. You most certainly were not; Barry was. He had already made three hysterical posts, and several other people had also weighed in, before you had said a word. You came in very much in the middle. > What we consider nitpicking is different. I don't follow your > feud with Barry too closely and miss many posts between you, > so I was genuinely alarmed that it had gone as far as a death > threat. Perfectly reasonable to ask me to clarify, although if you'd read the traffic in between my post and your response, you'd already have known what it was all about, because Barry had 'fessed up and even quoted his own post. > I was relived to find that it was not true. You were relieved to find out that it wasn't a *literal* death threat. > We also differ in perspective about women's issues. In my > environment there are cultural issues of how some countries > treat women that make me feel that most of the sexist language > in the US is nitpicking. In many cases picking someone's > language apart for signs of sexism is an excuse to argue. It > falls into the area of being "touchy" and being easily > offended. As I said, you're in disagreement with most of the people who are genuinely concerned about the treatment of women in this society. That the treatment of women is worse in other societies is not an excuse to indulge manifestations of misogyny in this one. > The tie to woman's violence for people posting here is > bogus IMO. The posts on this forum don't exist in a vacuum. They represent attitudes that are, unfortunately, quite widespread, which most who are concerned about women's issues believe perpetuate, reinforce, and encourage a view of women that leads to their mistreatment by men, up to and including murder. There doesn't have to be a direct connection, Curtis--such that one of the men here goes out and abuses a woman because he's read an abusive post--for the attitude represented by such posts to have harmful consequences. In whatever context it pops up, however it manifests itself, that attitude should be criticized and condemned by those concerned with women's welfare, in the same way those concerned with the welfare of minorities react to racist and bigoted attitudes. Casual racism is no longer acceptable in this society. Casual misogyny should not be acceptable either. > But guys say all sorts of things to each other when competing > for power. Any woman who wants to fight men for political power > had better get off the sexist claims real fast if they want to > be taken seriously. Most of the other countries we have to deal > with in difficult issues are completely sexist. Nobody is > changing the rules to make way for anyone too delicate to deal > with sexist comments. They need to understand the difference > between sticks and stones, and words. We understand the difference. We also understand the connection, as you apparently do not.
