By: sumac

sumac — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 22:16:29 +0000

I think it’s a mistake to omit the little qualifiers — “many,” “most,” “some,” or “tend to be” — in statements about groups of people. Better than “Men are taller than women” is “Most men are taller than most women.” Why ask Danny DeVito to get things off the high shelf, when Uma Thurman is standing right there, tapping her foot?
Some young women don’t identify as feminists, and some young women do. Some young people aren’t turning out to vote, and some young people are. Some young people care “where the boys are” and some young people don’t. I think the “some” allows people not to feel wrongly targeted.
Of course, what makes these statements actually useful are NUMBERS.

By: tanita

tanita — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 20:23:26 +0000

Wow.
Indeed, hadn’t heard about this until now, so the “sorry for offending” thing is especially troublesome and the apology, hackneyed. It does interest me how people can fail to be specific.

And as for Ms. Steinam herself – I did wonder what was up with that throwaway comment which essentially was “you young girls are just following the boys, none of you are serious about politics.” In which case, what? and where did you get that? It’s too bad she didn’t break that down.

By: Andrea Todd

Andrea Todd — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 18:19:59 +0000

I believe the problem with both apologies is that they are disingenuous. I spoke with the Land’s End executive, who I requested return my call after pulling up my account history. She apologized profusely for “what this meant”, i.e. losing my business. The only thing Land’s End is sorry about is losing money, and they didn’t come out and apologize for that. They apologized for “offending customers”, which carries with it a moral weight. If you read the interview that was cut it didn’t even mention abortion, and Gloria’s work as an activist has been about improving lives for women on ALL levels–and throughout the world.

Gloria’s apology was also disingenuous because it wasn’t one she needed to make, in my opinion. I believe she meant what she said and Pew data backs it up. Young people are proving they are not serious about Bernie Sanders; they aren’t coming out to vote. Turnout is well below 2008 levels, especially with young voters. And young women are cautious about using the word “feminism” to describe themselves, and while the majority of Americans support legal abortion, they are quick to add “in certain circumstances”. While those circumstances are undoubtedly varied, the fact that a disclaimer is necessary at all demonstrates a change in attitudes. Perhaps Gloria should have arrived with more of these facts at hand. But the interview itself was off-the-cuff. Maher was flirting with her and admiring her appearance and outfit and introduced the topic of Sanders by “wondering” if young women were just rejecting their mothers by not supporting Hillary. Gloria was on the show to promote her book, and I don’t recall that the book was mentioned. To my ear, Gloria was pointing out that young people (away from home for the first time, either at college or in the workplace) tend to influence each other, shape and adopt beliefs and values that are possibly for the first time different from their parents. Maybe I am hearing what I want to hear, but that’s not an outrageous statement to make (let alone offensive). Moreover, so far it’s true, and if young women are offended by the statement that they are not serious about supporting Sanders they ought to prove the statement wrong by actually voting.

I don’t think of Gloria as a journalist. I know she was one, but she has been an activist for a very long time. Activists have agendas and are generally open about them. I don’t believe Gloria should have apologized at all, because while what she said was a generalization it’s one that’s backed up by numbers and data.

Both apologizes were lame. Both were disingenuous.

Comments on: Little Gloria in the Vortex of Sorry

By: sumac

By: tanita

By: Andrea Todd