Okay, that's it. What's this butt munch's e-mail address? *yeah, that's right, BUTT MUNCH!*

I wasn't going to write an angry letter but this is just getting ridiculous. Jessica is right-- take some god damn responsibility for bad choices like this.

I wrote them a (serious) letter about the article and they're considering it for publication. If it was all a joke, I doubt they would entertain responses like mine.

Just one thing I want to say- this is a terrible, horrible and offensive pice- I agree, but can we stop calling it an article? It is a COLUMN. As a journalist, it's frusterating when the two are mixed up because an article presents facts and never has any (or shouldn't) opinion. A column is found on the editorial page and is ONLY opinion. So- calling this an article gives it WAY more credit than it is due, and well, it isn't.

Oh I get it. Not only are women dumb, we have no sense of humor! That's why we didn't "get" Charlotte Allen's hilarious joke!

Nothing shocks me anymore...
If people consider stuff like that "tongue-in-cheek" they obviously have a distorted sense of humor. I personally don't find it that amusing. I can see it being satirical... but considering her history of woman bashing I would say the comical side of her article was an excuse.
I cannot believe that a women would even consider belittling her own gender, especially in such a hateful and extreme matter.
It's obvious that attention is something this women craves, and button pushing is enjoyable to her. She is obviously uncomfortable with being a woman, probably because she cannot handle the power that one hold when they have a vagina between their legs.
I feel nothing but sorry for this women. Maybe one day she will learn how great it is when you finally realize the strength you carry as a woman. :D

Um, if it is supposed to be a joke (which I also don't buy), can someone explain to me what the joke is supposed to be? If the author was trying to make fun of the people that hold these beliefs, then this is truly terrible (and not just offensive) writing.

That ranks right up there in mischaracterizations with "Highlander was a documentary, and it was filmed in real-time."

Oh, Jessica, sweetie, don't worry your pretty little head about this.

[pats her on shoulder]

Pomfret said that being an opinion article, he’s not surprised readers reacted to it strongly. But added: “Perhaps it wasn’t packaged well enough to make it clear that it was tongue-in-cheek.�
Wow. So the women who were offended by the "women-are-dumb" editorial probably overlooked the fact that it was intended to be humorous. Dumb women.

"Tongue-in-cheek"?

Yeah, right.

Trust me, I tried as hard as I could to laugh at this column. I love laughing. I just couldn't find any line that was remotely ironic,satirical, or that didn't smack of the author's very real hatred for women.

Only if the author had some history of writing humor, satire, or anything that showed she felt the exact opposite of what she wrote, would I buy that this was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek.

Don't insult me, Washington Post. I know humor when I read it.

And that wasn't funny at all.

I would think an editor would understand the meaning of "tongue-in-cheek." The person writing it must actually NOT believe what they're saying.

I guess he just thinks misogynist stereotypes are funny.

Did I say tongue-in-cheek? Whoops! I meant head-up-ass.

This quisling male identified misogynist's e-mail address is:

charfleur@aol.com

Crooked Timber's Kieran Healy points out that "Playing against type is a market niche". There has always been a market for misogynist writings and its value goes up if it is produced by a woman. "The point generalizes to most other writing and broadcasting about classes of people by classes of people: if there are stereotypical beliefs about some social category, eventually you’ll see someone from within that category make a career by playing to type."

http://crookedtimber.org/2008/03/02/playing-against-type-is-a-market-niche/

I just figured it out: the editor's explanation is a test! If you accept his ridiculous explanation, then you are indeed as dumb as that IWF nutcase postulates you are.

My god I don't know why this of all things has set me off but for some reason this whole article and his response just pissed me right off. I can't help it, I had to write another letter!

My second letter:

Dear Mr. Promfret,

This is my second letter regarding the Charlotte Allen piece appearing in your Outlook section. I understand that you have responded to complaints about this opinion piece by suggesting that it was “tongue-in-cheek� and that those who took it seriously were mistaken about the intent of the column.

For something to be “tongue-in-cheek� the author has to be subtly mocking the viewpoint he or she is presenting. A quick review of Charlotte Allen’s previous writings show that she does in fact believe that women are less intelligent than men and that their rightful place is in the home. It is, therefore, not possible for this to be a “tongue-in-cheek� opinion piece.

Your attempt to insinuate that those who are upset simply “didn’t get it� adds insult to injury. I expect to read well-reasoned opinion pieces in the Washington Post, many of which I also expect I will disagree with. This column, however, was a misogynistic screed and nothing more. Rarely am I moved to write letters but this case is so egregious I feel compelled to respond.

Would you post an opinion piece suggesting that all black people are inferior, penned by a Klu Klux Klan member? I think not. That you deemed this appropriate and that you will not take responsibility for your mistake shows a profound disrespect for your female readers. As a born-and-raised Washingtonian I am frankly shocked and gravely disappointed that the Post has degraded to this point. This, I will point out, is why I increasingly get my news from on-line sources.

Signed,
Dr. (Fiz)

It all just begs the question, "If by law you can say it, does it really mean you should?"
Last year around this time actually, a student at Central CT State University published an opinion piece titled, "Rape Only Hurts if you Fight It". He also argued it was "tongue-in-cheek" and that if people were offended, they were somehow inferior to him because OBVIOUSLY, if they were as smart as he was, they would've thought it was funny, too.
It made me puke in my mouth a little bit.

What ever happened to responsible journalism? Is that an oxy-moron???

sorry, oxymoron is one word. Oops!

things like this are tiring.. we hear lame responses all the time such as 'oh we are just revealing misogyny or making fun of misogyny" while really they are DOING misogyny!

this is dumb sexist humour --nothing original or intelligent about it!

It makes me crazy how many people seem to think that satire is just a lifeline for those who want to say whatever the fuck they want and then be able to go, "I was kidding, dumbass," when they get called on it. If they had any idea what satirical, subversive writing really looks like, they wouldn't always be trying to pass off their whiny, petty, bigoted, narrow-minded, mean-spirited, poorly articulated ideas as something clever and ironic, because they'd know that anybody with half a brain would immediately realize they're full of shit. Is this guy really trying to convince us that he could work at the Onion for a day instead of the Washington Post and not know the difference? Asshole.

Sorry, it was damned funny, South Park funny, Monty Python funny, Richard Pryor funny-- and the fact that you're all frothing about the Klan and so on just makes it funnier.

mizz-rush,

what you are describing also happened at my university when an article called "Labia Majora Carnage" was printed by the student newspaper -- and it actually depicted me getting raped and liking it.. they said it was satire, tongue and cheek, freedom of expression, and just a joke. Yah, i don't know what happened to responsible journalism..

Jennao,

What was the outcome of that?
Over here in CT I remember the university coming to the defense of John Petroski (the author of "Rape only Hurts if you Fight It" ) and the editor of their student newspaper. The president of the university stated on the record that Petroski was "only excercising his first amendment rights" and that nobody had any real place to complain about it. Instead of firing him and the commentary editor, they decided to hire a couple more female staff writers, as if to "pacify" the situation. Makes no sense.

mgmax, when was the last time you saw a Monty Python sketch? Monty Python's humor was based, more or less, on straight-faced absurdity: returning a dead parrot, denying that the parrot is dead, running a cheese shop without any cheese, replacing every other word with "spam," having flying lessons being given by a man suspended in mid-air by a wire, being taught to defend oneself against an attacker armed with fruit. How does that have anything to do with a diatribe against women?

P.S. A few months after that controversy, a comic ran in the same student newspaper depicting a Latino girl being urinated on. It was also argued to be "tongue-in-cheek".

I've sort of been trying to care about this, but I don't. It's just the same old shit, some sad woman trying to score points with the boys by dissing on her own gender. Women are taught that we're just out to stab each other in the back, so if you preemptively hate all women, you've preemptively stabbed all of them in the back before they can do it to you! It's the move a deeply insecure person, and I frankly can't get too worked up over such a sad person.

(Oh, and I notice we've had a troll pop up, I'd remind everyone to ignore them).

Ok, I am going to argue against folks' getting distracted by the claim that the editorial's intent was humor. 'Cause it doesn't matter.

People sometimes have the notion that, if a statement is made in jest, its author is not responsible for its prejudiced content. The editor of the Post seems to appeal to this very notion.

Making bigoted jokes is a ploy for making prejudiced statements without having to take responsibility for being an actual bigot.

I do not give Allen a pass, regardless of what she has authored previously. I certainly do not give Pomfret a pass. Humor does not give you a pass to say assy things.

Peepers, you're right that humor is no excuse, but I wouldn't make it as universal a statement. Humor is an important tool in pointing out the ridiculousness of certain points of view. Actual tongue-in-cheek humor should be mocking the viewpoint it's taking on.

This obviously was NOT an example of that kind of humor. If Pomfret thought it was humor, it was exactly the kind of joke you're talking about. One that finds sexism funny. The "it's funny because it's so true" kind. And that absolutely does not make it less offensive. Quite the opposite.

Sorry, it was damned funny, South Park funny, Monty Python funny, Richard Pryor funny-- and the fact that you're all frothing about the Klan and so on just makes it funnier.

So Hitler walks into a bar...

Ah good, the old 'feminists just don't have a sense of humor' defense. Could they be more predictable?

Thanks, Geek. I'm in favor of irony and satire. I think I was interpreting "tongue-in-cheek" as "flippant," rather than "ironic," in Pomfret's statement.

Phew! I can smell that bullshit all the way up here on the cold Canadian prairies! Worse than the cow barn when it all thaws!

But hey, give the guy a kick in the nards for trying!

"mgmax, when was the last time you saw a Monty Python sketch?"

You mean, like this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyIBV-7WAKQ

"Just one thing I want to say- this is a terrible, horrible and offensive pice- I agree, but can we stop calling it an article? It is a COLUMN. As a journalist, it's frusterating when the two are mixed up because an article presents facts and never has any (or shouldn't) opinion. A column is found on the editorial page and is ONLY opinion. So- calling this an article gives it WAY more credit than it is due, and well, it isn't."

Meanwhile, now I'm reminded of the right-wing opinion columns the Boston Globe sometimes runs along with the liberal ones. Sometimes I get the impression that the Globe keeps Jeff Jacoby on as a token rightwinger in order to look "balanced." Maybe WaPo ran this column in part for that same reason? o_O

You could be right, Mina.
I would argue though that Charlotte isn't conservative, just pretty fucking crazy. Like Anne Coulter, who has been quoted as saying "This country would be a lot better if women weren't allowed to vote".
These are the kind of people you don't bother having conversations with no matter what your ideals, because their aim is to make the most outrageous statements possible to drum up circulation and profit.

Mgmax -- and don't tell me you missed the "gratuitous sexist jokes" line? THAT is what "tongue-in-cheek" means. Please point to the equivalent in Charlotte Allen's column.

Yeah, it's bullshit. You can say anything and then later claim it was 'tongue-in-cheek', but that's just dishonest and disrespectful. If it was tongue-in-cheek it would be obvious to all bt a couple, and you wouldn't have to explain. Besides, it was written by Charlotte Allen! Their saying it was tongue in cheek just makes me lose more respect from them, because now they are being dishonest.

Why the Post feels the need to publish such B.S. truly baffles me. If that is 'balance', then conservatism must be an even bigger joke than I previously thought. There are millions of men and women in this country who could have used that space to write something far more enlightening and rewarding than that.

Peepers, sadly you're probably right.

Sad because if you're right, an Editor of the Washington Post doesn't know what "tongue-in-cheek" means.

Unless WaPo seriously wants to have all the credibility of Triumph the Comic Insult Dog, they should drop the "I Keed!" tactic. Fast.

Claimining that Allen's column was a joke or satire is akin to claiming a Fred Phelps column denouncing gays is satire.

It's not satire when the writer BELIVES what s/he's written!