Dear E,
This afternoon, I was very disappointed to see my own words, as well as those of other women here, taken out of context from this thread and used elsewhere as a weapon in someone's personal and bizarre vendetta against some of the women here. No one is banned from this thread (well, not YET), and had someone wanted to seriously discuss anything about The Yellow Wallpaper, or any opinion voiced here, he would have been welcome. What I saw was a petty, mean-spirited use of this thread to forward a personal agenda in an underhanded way.
Virginia Woolf said something to the effect that when a topic is controversial, one cannot hope to arrive at the truth, only show how one arrived at one's opinion. This courtesy was not extended us; I happened on my name by chance, and found our words dragged piecemeal from their perches in an attempt to belittle and insult us. It was rather like chopping words from the newspaper to write a hate note; the truth was sacrificed to achieve the goal.
In a small way, in retrospect, this is an example of the sexual condescension we have been discussing. There is no respect for our views or our ideas, and from the posts to us and about us, it's obvious that the intent is more to hurt or beat us than to communicate with or understand us. t was an interesting, if disappointing, realization. |
