Web Letters | The Nation

Naomi Wolf: Wrong Again on Rape

Invisible help seen

S. Eudora Smith's May 23 article, “The Invisible Help: Why Arnold and DSK Thought They Could Get Away With It,” is now forgotten by most readers. Likewise, Katha Pollitt’s “France We Are So Over You,” and many of the other pile-on diatribes published in The Nation. However, in light of new evidence regarding the DSK affair, they need to be exhumed and examined by Nation subscribers for the agenda-driven hypocrisy and divisive slander they contain. I would submit that the writings of these so-called radical feminists, of which Pollitt and Smith are members in good standing, should be more closely scrutinized by Nation editors for misleading and inflammatory rhetoric before agreeing to publication. Is it really helpful to the progressive cause that self-styled spokespersons for half of humanity lash out at the other half with choleric and poorly reasoned attacks? Certainly such harangues are not of the caliber and intellectual heft of other contributors.

Jack Mercer

Seattle, WA

Jul 5 2011 - 8:45pm

Naomi Wolf: Wrong Again on Rape

Another proposal

I hate to ask, as a Pollitt fan, but what would be wrong with anonymity for both parties? Interestingly, there are men's rights activists who oppose that—but not for the right reasons, I'm guessing. That is, they just don't want female accusers to have that protection. After all, anonymity is the exception, not the rule, so again, what's the problem? Do we not care about our innocent fathers, brothers, husbands and sons living under the possible threat of false accusations by people who are simply angry or greedy? Besides, one can recover from rape, but how does your loved one recover from having his name dragged through the mud? Especially in a society where having consensual sex with someone (male or female) who's a year younger than you can put you on a sex offender registry for life?

Kira Barnum

Somerville, MA

Jan 18 2011 - 2:45pm

Naomi Wolf: Wrong Again on Rape

Rape politics

To attack the left for being soft on rape is simply ludicrous, mendacious and crassly sensationalist. If it weren't for the left,—and I mean starting from pre-Stalinist revolutionary Russia—feminism, contraception, gender politics, same sex politics, rape and the whole subject of sexuality would still be in the proverbial Dark Ages. For you to conflate the issue of outing the cables by throwing aspersion on our—i.e., leftist—sexual politics, completely undermines your arguments regarding rape politics, because it confuses and sidetracks the issue.

Bogos Kalemkiar

Toronto, CANADA

Jan 11 2011 - 11:33am