_______________ IS TIME BRAIN-DEAD? BY JANELLE BROWN (06/25/98)
	Janelle Brown's piece on Time magazine's "Is Feminism Dead?" made me cringe over her depiction of "young feminists." Perhaps, as an old woman of 30, I just don't understand these young gals. Brown asks, "It's not that the Third Wave doesn't care about equal pay, day care, birth control or the political ramifications of gender power dynamics -- but how many new ideas can really be contributed to these much-belabored dialogues?" I would hate to see what would happen if today's feminists threw up their hands and said, "We have no new ideas. These issues are boring. Let's move on to something else." Brown then devotes a good-sized paragraph to a direct quote by Debbie Stoller, depicting ERA-era feminists (via a tortured metaphor of regressing '90s feminists) with the worst kind of stereotypes -- "wearing mumus and birkenstocks ... dress like men ... will ignore the actual reality of our everyday lives." I suppose I should throw out my copies of "Fat Is a Feminist Issue" and "The Female Eunuch" because they are so out of touch with the actual reality of many women's lives. "How can we claim it all: the theory and the fashion; the sex and the equality? That's what young feminists today are working for," Brown writes in conclusion. I say, speak for yourself -- leave the platforms at home and don't denigrate those women who gave lifetimes of effort to lay the foundation for substantive work by the next generation of feminists. No, the Time article isn't perfect, but Salon's reaction compounds the debate instead of clarifying it. -- Sarah Grove San Francisco, Calif. Generation Xers have transmuted feminism into a painless, brainless cluster of behaviors that resemble the empty-headed, "he's a hunk" narcissism of the '50s. Personally I'm sick of meatless, anemic looking women with false smiles adorning the entertainment periodicals such as Time and Newsweek. I'm also beginning to become skeptical of the myriad of sexual harassment suits being filed for outrageous amounts of cash. In my opinion it implies women are helpless, vacant little urns unable to deal with the situations that may, or may not, be brought on by lecherous assholes. It seems that the fruit of painful feminist struggles is being reduced to Ally McBeal's bony hips desperately gyrating with a hydrocephalic hologram that is supposed to be a baby. It sucks. -- Ron Anguiano
_______________ A JOKE TOO BAD TO PRINT? BY DAVID CORN (06/25/98)
	The kid-gloves treatment given Sen. McCain is not an isolated instance. Stories about Bush that were as absurd and improbable as those freely passed on about Clinton never surfaced in the "respectable" papers. In the waning months of the 1996 campaign, Newsweek and the Washington Post spiked the stories they had about Dole's old girlfriends. This despite the fact that Dole was passing himself off as a paragon of "family values" and asking "Where's the outrage?" Where, indeed? -- Edward Furey Isn't it possible -- and even highly probable -- that in omitting the Chelsea joke, newspapers were doing their best to spare the first daughter's feelings? No doubt Chelsea heard it somewhere, but seeing such a cheap shot printed in every newspaper across the country could only add injury to insult. For the first time in recent history, the press, it seems, has chosen to exercise admirable restraint. -- Darcy Lockman New York City I know that McCain's joke was simply a cheap shot, but at least McCain has the balls to say, "I'm sorry," unlike Rush Limbaugh (remember his January 1993 "joke" about Chelsea being the White House dog?) Rush blamed his staff. And as far as I know, he has yet to even say, "oops." -- Ross Sauer I would like to know why Salon didn't comment that while Sen. McCain apologized to President Clinton, he did not bother to apologize to the three women, at whose real expense, the joke was made. I am disappointed by your magazine's failure to point this out. -- Jean Hontz N E X T+P A G E+| More responses to "I'll take religion over gay culture" by Camille Paglia