Perhaps people who work to be on the right side of the truth sometimes just let themselves go off the rails. That could account for a fairly vile op-ed that appeared in the NYT yesterday.
I wrote a response which the Times did print. They also told me how to send off as a more formal letter to the editor. Here is that version:
Merkin’s op-ed piece:
Dear Editor,
The appearance of this article is puzzling. On Dec 29th, an article in the NYTimes held that “sexual harassment has been endemic in blue-collar workplaces from the moment that women entered them and continues to this day, according to interviews with more than a dozen employment lawyers, academics and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission workers, as well as dozens of women who described such incidents.” Yet, without any research beyond discussions in supermarket lines, Merkin maintains that those of us not at the Golden Globes think the #MeToo movement is just political correctness that’s gotten out of hand. What happened?
Clearly, Merkin and her sources are not blue-collar workers. This perhaps makes it even more likely that they’ve had the training – which comes from all angles in our society – that women are supposed to please men, as a slightly older op-ed piece claimed.
She says, “The women I know — of all ages — have responded by and large with a mixture of slightly horrified excitement (bordering on titillation) as to who will be the next man accused and overt disbelief.” The women I know have very different perspectives. To see some of them, try beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com or Feministphilosophers.wordpress.com.
Anne Jacobson
Houston, Texas, & Oxford, England.
713-xxx-xxxx
The author is a senior research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.
Feminist Philosophers 