Convenient Question Mark
When Punctuation Help Lessen Inflammatory Rhetoric
Questions marks are generally for asking direct questions. Recently they have been used by polemicists to mask their inflammatory rhetoric as "just asking a question."
Honestly, is there any harm in asking a question? Any question?
It's not so much the use of the question mark, or the use of direct questions, but rather it's a clever way of saying inflammatory things and then pretending to be innocent (It's like saying Jeopardy contestants don't give answers, they just ask questions).
There's been a recent ruckus over an article in the Washington Post by Charlotte Allen of the Independent Women's Forum in which she "wonders" whether "[we women] are the weaker sex," or "the stupid sex." It's not that she believes this, she's just asking, so it's okay, right?
Allen later asks the oh-so-innocent question "Why do [women] always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental?" Allen could very well answer answer this question herself, judging by her hysterical and superficial judgments about, say, Hillary Clinton's campaign (which she calls the "stupidest" run campaign in history).
Allen, fortunately, does not get sentimental about the days when women couldn't run for office, or vote, or write columns for a well-respected national newspaper. She proceeds to throw out similar observations, studies and innocent questions to try and justify the mysoginist out there that they're right (at one point even saying that "several...misogynist myths about female inferiority have been proven true.")
And it's alright for a woman to say hateful things about women, right? No. Misogyny is still Misogyny no matter who says it. Why is it that some people feel their hateful thoughts are vindicated if a member of the group they hate believes what they do? Is a racist correct if a black man goes on television and says disparaging things about blacks and those who help them (as Jessie Lee Peterson did in calling the NAACP a "hate group")
Misogyny in this election isn't exclusive to this election. Take the hecklers who interupted a Clinton speech by yelling "iron my shirt!" or radio talk show host Glenn Beck calling Clinton a "stereotypical bitch, the woman at a John McCain event who asked McCain "how do we beat the bitch?" or Cliff May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies calling Sen. Clinton a "vaginal-american."
And perhaps the most offensive (and least reported) of them all, Roger Stone's organization Citizens United Not Timid (the acronym is intentional on their part), dedicated to "telling the truth about Hillary Clinton." Stone has appeared in the media since the founding of the group and none of them have reported on "Citizens".
But back to Charlotte Allen's column. She is unique in her misogyny, since she is a woman. What's also unique about this is the fact that a major newspaper printed the column at the height of a presidential campaign in which one of the candidates stands a good chance of becoming the first woman President.
So here's a not-provocative question: Isn't it time to call sexist and racist people on their comments and tell them their views are not acceptable in this day and age?
