Days Of Whiney And Roses
Why are there so few women op-ed columnists? Maybe it's not due to discrimination, but self-discrimination, as in, women like Heidi Schnakenberg just can't take the heat. Here's an excerpt from her sniffle, "Hating The Hate Mail," on Alternet:
As a young woman, I stepped out into the treacherous waters of opinion journalism, and was amazed by the lack of civil discourse and the intensity of personal attacks that I received via e-mail, letters to the editor and on Web postings.Subjects such as women's issues, racism, anti-war politics, environmental matters and virtually any topic deemed "liberal" inspired some vitriolic comments from readers that I will mention here. I was called everything from "bitch" to "whore" and was often addressed as "sweetie" or "honey" before a launch of expletives. Most attackers took the position that I was just a cute, dumb, college student (even though I was in my late 20s) in an effort to discredit me and I was most reliably attacked by a collection of right-wing Web sites and right-wing men who sent me letters.
Needless to say, I ran out of the gates, trail-blazing, and came back a wounded animal. The experience solidified my "attack and retreat" explanation of the low numbers of women in opinion journalism.
The presence of female opinion journalists has remained virtually unchanged over the past 25 years, with only 10 percent to 20 percent of all op-eds in the country being written by women. Only about a quarter of nationally syndicated columnists are women and they tend to be white and right-wing.
While numerous professions--science, medicine and even journalism--have seen a sharp rise in female participants, opinion journalism doesn't seem to budge. In my case, I was attacked, and then retreated into self-censorship for a period of months and in that darkened room I found no mentors and little support from editors.
Oh, boo frigging hoo. I started out giving free advice on the street corner, syndicated my column myself, and heard from editors only when they didn't get my column some week or wanted to drop it. When I started earning a living, I started paying an editor. I turn to my writer friends when I'm having a hard time. One phone call to Nancy Rommelmann or a breakfast hearing how Cathy Seipp bitchslaps editors who try to take advantage of her, and I'm good to go.
My hate mail is one of the highlights of my job. One of my favorites is when somebody begins their letter or e-mail with "Dear Bitch." Okay, "bitch," I get it -- but maybe you want to lop off the "dear" just this once?
Here's the pussyboy hate-mailer of the week, who uses an anonymous e-mailer to send me this message, complaining about my (research-based) contention that straight men who want tail that doesn't have a penis attached on the front should avoid wearing thong underwear:
In a message dated 5/17/06 9:48:11 PM, anonymous@panta-rhei.dyndns.org writes:You're just a feminest who probably hasn't been fucked by your boyfriend in the past several years, or just couldn't convince him to put on a thong, so you have to take it out on the rest of us men who wear them.
You'd probably like it if I sat my bare thonged butt on your face and made you suck my big fat juicy cock!
Woman do love they guys in a thong, otherwise they wouldn't be buying them for their boyfriends.
In the comments below Whiney Girl's piece, here's what I posted:
I'm a syndicated columnist, and I get lots of hate mail, calling me "bitch," "cunt," and more for my non-traditional views on love, sex, dating, and relationships. My attitude about the hate mail? Big whoop. I laugh at it and send some snarky reply; typically making fun of them and correcting their spelling for telling me to "sit on my 'cok'." My reply: "Um, that's 'cock,' and no thanks."In short, if you can't stand the heat, go back to the kitchen.
UPDATE: I left a couple more comments below Schnakenberg's piece. In response to some other commenter's remark:
"She writes that other women journalists have been followed - and for a woman, that is particularly threatening. "
I wrote:
Yeah, I write love advice, and I've gotten death threats. When I get one, I call the FBI and try to duck if I see barrel flashes. As they said in The Godfather, "This is the life we've chosen." For goodness' sake, stop whimpering about it.
> and for a woman, that is
> particularly threatening. "
How would you figure that? I bet just about any guy would say that being followed would be a particularly threatening experience.
Crid at May 26, 2006 6:44 AM
I was once called a bleeding cunt and a bitch in the same sentence.
That was a special day.
Men are always telling you to suck there coks, but women (and gay men) tell you you're ugly. Once I wrote something suggesting that maybe the worldwide mourning of Princess Diana was just a teensy bit over-the-top, and some nasty bitch wrote to say, "I notice from your photo that you are quite plain. No wonder you resent the attention paid to a great beauty." That's pretty typical.
Nance at May 26, 2006 6:52 AM
Damn, I wish that guy would have sent you a pic of him in his thong so that you could post it. Lena, me and you ladies could have a nice old time exchanging meows about it.
Patrick at May 26, 2006 7:27 AM
I'd like a few tidbits on bitchslapping editors!
That Julia at May 26, 2006 7:33 AM
Well, what, specifically? One thing I learned from Cathy was to get around these stupid kill fees when the magazine changes their tone. I'm a professional writer, and a quality-obsessed one, so anything I write and send out is going to be "publishable." Hence, I cross off "If this piece is not published," and write "If this piece is not publishable." Also, I don't accept this "we're going to pay you six months from now for a piece you wrote today." I just let magazines know that's wrong (without telling them they're hideous, unethical creepazoids, exactly), and that I expect prompt payment.
Amy Alkon at May 26, 2006 8:22 AM
Thanks for ponying up for my bitchslapping RDA. (I need it because I work in tech support.) And I would bet you could tell them they were hideous, unethical creepazoids in such a way that they'd never realize you had done so.
That Julia at May 26, 2006 10:21 AM
Editors, in general, edit for the sake of editing -- because that's what they get paid to do. In my experience about 25% of book editing, and only about 10% of magazine editing, is actually an improvement.
When I'm sent edited copy for review I simply revert edits that I think are unnecessary. I very seldom comment. Once a book copy editor changed "...couldn't care less" to "...could care less". I made an exception in that case!
PS. Authors who put in their acks "My heartfelt thanks to my editor without whose hard work this book would have been a piece of shit" are WIMPS.
Stu "El Inglés" Harris at May 26, 2006 10:39 AM
Well, the most helpful thing, probably, is being willing to walk away. It's conveyed in how you deal with them. Because I don't rely on magazine articles for the bulk of my income, I am quick to rip my byline off any article that gets edited into something that isn't up to my standards. (A good editor makes a piece better; he or she doesn't just rewrite it for the sake of editing, as Stu notes.)
Amy Alkon at May 26, 2006 10:56 AM
I find it difficult to accept her basic premise, that these attacks are due to gender. I'm not saying it's not accurate, but it doesn't seem to be well supported. Her apparent sample size of male editorialists is two...one of whom apparently receives similar volumes of vitriol.
The kinds of folks that write anonymous hate mail are going to attempt to wound people. Being called a c* pushes a lot of women's buttons, so they'll use that and hope it works. Likewise calling straight men f*s or gay men bad dressers. It's not necessary misogynistic or homophobic, just someone trying to lash out in the way they've learned is most often effective. Allowing yourself to be easily manipulated by that kind of bad behavior reinforces it, and gives your attackers an easy victory.
It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to see one of these bullies that's trying to provoke me into an emotional response struggle to keep their cool when I make it clear that their uninformed opinion of me has no validity to me, and I regard as unworthy of debate anyone who resorts to that tactic.
Alan at May 26, 2006 11:14 AM
I'm with you, Alan, and even if the attacks were due to gender...who cares? White guys probably get attacked for whitemanthink (whatever that would be)...people go for whatever jugular they can find. If you're so thin-skinned that that leaves you in tears on the bathroom floor, well, there are plenty of ladies' dress shops where you'd probably be much more happy.
Personally, I just get pissed off when I write a highly sourced, very logical column and somebody's too dense to get it or too attached to their dumbass illogical beliefs. And even then, unless I look back and see that I haven't been clear, that's their problem, not mine, and I delete or snark back accordingly.
Amy Alkon at May 26, 2006 11:57 AM
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