I’m not really sure what point Ginia Bellafonte is trying to make “Remember Misogyny?,” a little piece that appeared in the Metro section of The New York Times today, but I appreciate that she wrote it. Basically, it equates the failure of feminism with the existence of Gilberto Valle, a NYPD officer on trial for hosting chat rooms in which he discusses BBQ’ing his wife, among many other cooking activities.
Of course, it comes back to Seth MacFarlane. I think what Bellafonte tries to say is that we should be less angered by a joke about boobs than an online community of sado-masochistic cannibals who fantasize about torturing women, but angry across the board about misogyny. That’s a pretty reaching statement, leaving lots of room for dissent from commenters like Steve322, who points out that:
“Cats everyday are tortured and killed by pscyhopaths.
This, combined with the fact that there is a huge history of humans doing this (most infamously in Europe during the Middle Ages) mean that we live in a culture that fosters hatred towards cats?
Should people then not be allowed to “I hate cats” or “cats suck” because it fosters cat hate? Or when people want to publish books like “100 reasons Dogs are better than Cats”, those books should be banned based on promoting cat hate?”
Steven322’s line of thinking makes no sense, and if anything, should make us even more terrified of misogyny. But there are some real gems like that in the comments section that are really worth a read. And, if you’re following the misogyny debate currently raging, you’ll appreciate Bellafonte’s willingness to put herself on the line, and her unique viewpoint.
