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by mens_issues on 07:16 PM May 25th, 2006 EST (#1)
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I submitted the following to the Reader's Digest over the ignorant and offensive mother-daughter exchange:
"Your Life in These United States feature (June '06) regarding the exchange between a mother and daughter over a lost little girl was unnecessarily bigoted and anti-male. It is demoralizing enough for male readers to be reminded once again that they are regarded as little more than threats to women and children without presenting the daughter's ignorant comment as "cute." As the founder of an online men's issues group (Men's Issues Online), I receive many postings from men and fathers who feel that society views them as expendable at best, and stories like this just discourage them more. It's a shame that a formerly decent magazine embraced political correctness and male-bashing several years ago."
Steve
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by Thundercloud on 02:03 PM May 26th, 2006 EST (#2)
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Ah, yes, READER'S DIGEST. There was a time when they had something to say.
Now they are just yet another propaganda arm of the media.
My letter to READER'S DIGEST;
Just for the record, Reader's Digest, some years ago at a local shopping mall I found a little lost boy, I asked if he was lost and needed help, he said yes, so I took him (by the hand) to the customer service counter and he was re-united with his mom AND DAD. I did not molest him, nor did I have any desire to. I did not kidnap him, abuse him or hurt him in any way. So your categorization of "all men" is faulty on it's face. Oh yeah, and I'm an Indian too, with long braided hair and tattoo and Indian jewelry. Aren't you gonna ask if I tied him to a pole and burned him alive, or if I scalped him or some other stereotypical accusation? If not, WHY not. You seem to like to categorize people and make stereotypical judgements on them.
My experience is that if you are prejudiced towards one group of people you are likely prejudiced against one or more other groups as well. Yes, I'm calling you and your cohorts BIGOTS. And I do so with no apologies.
Sincerely;
M. Thundercloud.
Not that I think that my letter will change their minds about their bigotry.
Another experience of mine is that it is almost impossible to change a bigot's mind. You almost always have to fight them and beat them down. (Figuratively, and at times, LITTERALLY)
Thundercloud.
"Hoka hey!"
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by Sheldon on 07:52 AM May 27th, 2006 EST (#3)
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Reader's Digest is currently practising some regularly in presenting anti-male, misandric articles, but It’s regularity is making my guts gum up. There have been a number of articles of late in this magazine with this bigoted focus. The Canadian version of this magazine, for instance, came out with an article on why men and women respond to jokes differently(April 2006). To be fair, the writer himself had no bias one way or the other, but the research “given light” is indicative of the kind of mind melting, clap trap, perpetrated by scientists (I guess?) to highly dubious perfection. In it, men were compared to "chimpanzees" in how they respond to some humourous info. Women were touted as the ones who use "more of their brains to process and react" to the humour presented. I find myself thinking about the embeddedness of misandry and male hostility in our cult-"sure" and if the scientists are actually sitting put, moving various pieces around a lazy susan like centerpiece in order to find some truth in the place where they want to find it so they don’t have to move to difficultly, instead of moving themselves and finding out the truth by being dependent and indebted to what they see naturally occurring--ya know, what actual scientists do. Cultural values and norms are, while soft too, can be extremely hard to break. Many scientists throughout history have adjusted their findings in order to accommodate a powerful cultural norm. Now I feel more than a little silly comparing Newton or Eienstein to this group of researchers, but then making a ready-made implication for the reader that men are, ya know, once again, just like chimps seems a tad more ridiculous to me.
What’s even more ridiculous is that it really doesn’t view women favourably either; they state that women’s reactions are “all business”, as in, they use all parts of the brain necessary. Well, that’s great for them, to be so, what, eggheaded(?) when it comes to comedy: who wants to watch something funny with people who sit with a ball-point pen to take notes to analyse later to see if it’s funny? Well, no; women have the miraculous (actually basic) ability to do it all “quickly” in their heads. They (the researchers)frame this though in a way that seems to, of course of course of course, imply the dubious superiority of women–they must be right? I mean, they’re not the ones who came from chimps but rather descended from above: poor fallen angels– Now we’re back to pre-nineteenth century views of the inherent “angelicness” of women while existing in the present state of disarray where men’s basic civil right’s are trampled in order for women to, seemingly, be more pleased and comfortable. Despite what some commenters are saying, I don't think Reader's Digest was ever that great. It caters to whatever conventions are going on in the cultural moment. In the 50s and 60s they were probably staunch defenders of Eisenhower/Nixon and the communist witchhunt. Today it's political correctness and feminism, particularly the REAL bad one: ideological feminism (aka anti-male sows), that are given the thumbs up (a can bet where those thumbs are going up). Bottom line: reader’s digest, never did, never will, sure as hell doesn’t now have any real validity. Come on, we all new this anyway. It’s toilet reading!
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