Web Letters: Icons of the New Iran

There is something intellectually sick and blatantly dishonest in any society that relegates a second-class status to women. Why do most societies do it? Why does our society do it? Is this part of the stupid male DNA?

James L. Pinette

Caribou, ME

I find it sad that some figures in the US look at the chaos in Iran, and can only perceive events through the lens of the domestic American gender wars.

For the record: men have died in the Iranian civil disorder after the disputed election, as well. In fact, if I was a betting man, I'd bet that more victims of this tragic violence have been men than have been women.

A number of people have died in Iran. Western media--in particular feminist commentators--have landed like a horde of locusts on the brief and graphic video of this one woman's death, and warped what was just one of doubtless many tragedies into some sort of pseudo-feminist political football.

Many of the people who have leaped onto "Neda's" death and the roles of women in Iranian society probably, a week ago, couldn't have pointed to Iran on a map of the greater Middle East. This chaos in Iran has created more overnight "experts" on Iran than any other mess recently seen. Finally, I am alienated by the way the disaster in Iran has been manufactured into yet another ignorant, US-centric media production in the US, and I wish that the smarter editorialists and commentators who frequent The Nation's pages wouldn't participate.

Seymour Friendly

Seattle, WA