The Beavis and Butthead school of journalism strikes again
By NoQuarterLive on October 11, 2008 at 8:45 PM in Sarah Palin, Sexism
By Violet Socks, originally published at Reclusive Leftist.
Last weekend Slate Magazine, a Washington Post subsidiary, featured on the front page of its website a cartoon showing Sarah Palin on a stool wearing a skimpy red dress, breasts popping out, with a bible squeezed between her bare thighs. In the accompanying article, The Sexy Puritan, author Tom Perrotta mused aloud that Sarah Palin was emblematic of a new breed of Christian women who alternately boast about their pre-marital virginal purity and, once properly wed, titillate their spouses with “anal sex, fisting, and ‘masturbating for your husband.’”
Got that?
Right. Basically the article is about the contents of Tom Perrotta’s head, not anything Sarah Palin has ever done, said, or symbolized.
The New Agenda, the new non-partisan women’s rights group, sent a strongly worded letter to David Plotz, the current editor of Slate Magazine, protesting the publication of the article:
…Perrotta implies that Governor Palin has cultivated “sexiness” in service of her conservative Christian agenda. This is tantamount to claiming that she is “asking for” the graphic sexual imagery which he uses to illustrate his point…In truth, Governor Palin has done nothing to warrant such spurious comparisons, and Perrotta is merely employing the time-honored tactic of using gratuitous and vulgar sexual imagery to demean and discredit a woman in a position of power while implying that she is complicit in her own degradation.
…Have you no shame, Mr. Plotz? As the editor of Slate Magazine, you are responsible for its content, and it is our opinion at The New Agenda that your publishing of articles of this nature about Governor Palin is a calculated attempt to demean her, perhaps in order to compensate for the fact that, as your wrote in your own article, “night after night, she appears in my dreams, always as a scolding, ominous figure.” It should be apparent to all that your and Perrotta’s visions of Sarah Palin have everything to do with your own imaginations, and nothing to do with the actual woman.
In response, David Plotz sent the following reply, which lacked only an animated gif of a man’s hand patting a woman on the head:
October 6, 2008
Thanks for your note, and I’m sorry the article troubled you. Perrotta’s piece is insightful, witty, and provocative. He clearly separates the sexual sites from Palin, and no reasonable reader could possibly claim he was imputing their provocations to her. As to the larger issue of Palin’s sex appeal, only someone living in a cave for the past month could deny that it is an important element in her appeal. Conservative commentators talk about her sex appeal all the time, and with great enthusiasm; Within the McCain campaign itself they call her the VPILF. Perrotta has pointed out what is obvious to every single person who has analyzed her effect on the race—pointed out what her most avid supporters are saying about her.
Needless to say, we will not be removing it or altering it.
Sincerely,
David Plotz
Got that? Gratuitous commentary about anal sex and masturbation = “insightful, witty, and provocative.”
Now you know why that Beavis and Butthead graphic is up there.
As The New Agenda notes on its website:
Why are some men so insecure about their status? Why are some men unable to move forward from a high school-type maturity level?
Haven’t we all noticed where the attacks are coming from? It’s men who don’t feel comfortable in their own skin. Because they are insecure of their standing with other men and in society in general, they choose to strike out at the old comfortable target: women. We say “old and comfortable” as this is reminiscent of their days of adolescence.
Don’t worry, David and Tom. You can peacefully co-exist with women when you can come to terms with your insecurities. We are not the enemy – promise. Degrading and diminishing women by sexualizing them doesn’t make you a bigger man – it makes you a high school boy.
(Or the host of a major news program on MSNBC. Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
This culture of misogyny must stop, and it’s up to us to fight back. We have to start somewhere, so let’s start by letting Butthead David Plotz know exactly how we feel.
His email address is David.Plotz@slate.com
And here’s the standard contact info from Slate’s website:
Slate’s New York office is located at 251 W. 57th Street, 19th Floor, New York, NY, 10019-1894. To contact editors in the New York office, please call Noreen Malone at (212) 445-5330 or e-mail nyoffice@slate.com.
Slate’s Washington, D.C., office is located at 1350 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 20036. To contact editors in the D.C. office, please call Chris Wilson at (202) 261-1310 or e-mail dcoffice@slate.com.
For media inquiries, please contact Jennifer Lee by e-mail at press@slate.com or by phone at (703) 469-2671, or Kris Coratti at press@slate.com or (703) 469-2763.
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
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