Thursday, March 17, 2005

More on women opinion writers

Mike Peterson, educational services director of the Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., responded to JPROF's earlier posting concerning the dearth of women opinion writers and why women may be less comfortable than men in slinging their opinions around. He makes several good points worth considering and has a word of criticism about Maureen Dowd's logic.

This issue has sparked some varied discussion lately. A good roundup of the current debate can be found in Dahlia Lithwick’s article “Girl Fight: The marginalized debate over women opinion writers” on Slate.com. Lithwick, a senior editor at Slate, says most of the comments about this have come from women themselves. Few men are taking part:

And so a clutch of women are left on the pink margins of the page, to wring our hands and, well, discuss among ourselves. The subtext will thus remain that anyone choosing to speak out on this is somehow hysterical or overemotional; that this is not a "serious" problem since serious people (i.e., men) aren't addressing it. All of which practically guarantees that nothing will be done about defining, measuring, or redressing the issue in the long term. Claims that no man wants to step on the landmine of political correctness, gender stereotyping, and identity politics should not justify bowing out of the conversation. Maureen Dowd, Deborah Tannen, and Anne Applebaum are smart, serious people. They have taken the time to initiate a conversation. They deserve serious responses from men and women alike.

She’s right. Men should join in – as Mike Peterson has done. Here's Peterson’s entire response.More

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

2 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Profession

Hi jprof

After reading a good blog I tend to analyze it to see what the person behind it might be like.

I've been in the goal setting business a while now and just like most people with experience in different areas of expertise, I can tell a lot about a person just by speaking to them or reading something they've written.

You haven't wrtten any goals on paper for awhile have you? And if you have I'll bet you haven't looked at them for a long time. Right?

Goal setting is hard work, and harder still if you don't have short range goals, mid range goals and long range goals.

I think you'll agree that few people really take the time to set goals of any kind.

When is the last time you really thought about setting some real goals, or are you like the vast majority of people who just "hope for the best"?

You already know successful people aren't "just lucky", they know how to set effective goals and reach them.

I was like that once, you might be also.

How about changing all that.

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There's a ton of FREE information and who knows, this little insert in your blog might well change your life!

Happy New Year!