Friday, October 9, 2009

Feminist Fridays- Conservatives criticize Feminists for Letterman Confession


So as I'm sure you all know, David Letterman had to make a very difficult decision the other day when after being black-mailed for money he was forced to confess to having an extra marital affair with a woman in his office. As if that wasn't bad enough for him and his family, immediately following the confession several conservative groups have called out feminists for not criticizing David for his behavior with these women especially in light of  their reaction to the Roman Polanski case. This is condescending in a number of ways, starting with the fact that it assumes that women in the workplace are innately intimidated enough by men in power that they would be pressured into having an affair with their work superiors and couldn't possibly be strong or independent minded enough to have a consensual relationship with co-workers. Which as far as we know is exactly what happened between David and his co-workers. The other problem I have with their comments is because of the fact that this kind of thing happens all the time and is done by all different kinds of people and to lash out at feminists for not being angered by it implies that it is only men in high powered positions that initiate these affairs. Such is not so, not at all, even in this particular situation there is no reason to assume that even the women involved in these affairs were not the ones that instigated these interactions. Neither fact is true in the case of Roman Polanski giving a 13 year old girl half a Quaalude and champagne and having sex with her without her consent, or the consent of the law. That is not to say that in my own mind I don't pass a small amount of judgement on Mr. Letterman but that is not what needs to be discussed in a public forum. Not even in the context of what it is that he does, never once has it been part of his job description to preach faithfulness within marriage or even any type of sexual conduct, he's not even in any position of leadership like a politician, he's a talk show host. In fact the only thing that SHOULD be spoken about for women is the fact that conservatives have called bullshit on feminists for this when they have repeatedly called Letterman's wife ugly and now are equating Letterman's consensual, LEGAL affairs with grown women to the rape of a 13 year old child. All for the sake of trying to call feminists bad liberals. Can anyone say H-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y? However, this is all completely obvious and gives us the ability to call sexism on them making this a perfect induction to our Feminist Fridays.
 

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