The Lilith Blog

February 27, 2008 by admin

Achievements in Inclusiveness

In all the post-show analysis of this year’s Oscars, someone has finally noticed that the traditional gender-segregation of awards is not, well, natural. Sarah Churchwell writes in the Guardian, “Although supposedly we no longer believe that separate is the same as equal, we still segregate entertainment awards along gender lines. Imagine the uproar if we had Oscars for best performance by a black man in a supporting role, or best leading performance by a Jew.”

Of course, the trouble doesn’t stop there. As Churchwell notes, the alternative to gender segregation isn’t too appealing, either, since “awards which do not segregate on the basis of gender tend to overlook women altogether.” Case in point? The Nobel Prize in literature, which women have won only 10 times in 107 years. If there were only one Oscar category for “Achievement in a Leading Role,” it’s a good bet that women would be underrepresented.

The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication released a study last week evaluating the gender balance in Oscar-nominated films of the past thirty years. Overall, it found that for every speaking female character in a movie, there were about three speaking males, and for every non-white speaking character, there were roughly four white speaking characters. The factor that had the most impact on these numbers? “With a female director, the amount of female speaking characters jumped from 27 percent to 41 percent.” Only three women directors have ever been nominated for an Oscar, and none has ever won the award.

This has been a pretty crappy time for women and film in general (and no, the wild success of Juno, and Diablo Cody’s shiny new Oscar, do not make up for it). It only adds to my love of Helen Mirren that she said as much to the intolerable Regis Philbin during their brief tete-a-tete on the red carpet. The roles being written for women are not as rich and interesting as those being written for men (see the forthcoming The Other Boleyn Girl, which may star two bankable actresses, but is all about them competing for a man). I loved (loved) No Country for Old Men, and greatly admired There Will Be Blood, but those are only two of the most obvious examples of prestige films that imagined worlds that were basically devoid of women. These are legitimate visions, to be sure, but let’s look at the flip side. A movie that focused so relentlessly on women would be read as a deliberately feminist statement; it would be about women. These movies that hone in on men’s lives and experiences are understood to just be about people.

Really, it sort of blows my mind when I think about the odd stab at gender parity represented by having awards for Best Actor and Best Actress. I’m actually less interested in what this says about equality than in the very basic idea that, apart from “leading” versus “supporting,” there are two kinds of people who act in movies: men, and women. I’m certainly not advocating the creation of acting (or any other) awards based solely on identity, and I’m not in favor of abolishing gendered categories at the Oscars (not yet, anyway). But I do like when the lines start to get a little blurry. Consider Cate Blanchett’s “Best Supporting Actress” nomination for her portrayal of Bob Dylan. How do you begin to categorize it in these terms? And really, what’s the point in trying?

— Eryn Loeb

The Lilith Blog

February 25, 2008 by admin

Memory: Banishment or Salvation

I’ve been getting really into forgotten histories lately. In my academic life, it’s taken the form of some real decided interest in Yiddish literature from America, which I think has a lot to teach us about the development of Jewish identity in America. Every time I hear about second-versus-third-wave feminism throwdowns, I worry that we’ve either forgotten our collective history, or we’re buying the media’s version of a reconstructed history. Just moments ago, Austria won the Oscar for a film about the Nazis, and I wonder how we can balance remembering with putting that knowledge to use in the fight against anti-Muslim violence and bigotry in Europe today.

And then there’s the political version of forgotten histories, which the New Yorker hits out of the ballpark this week. Paul Kramer’s brilliant article on the issue of torture—standing in for the larger questions of imperialism and exported democracy—in the Philippine-American War is, really, an article about Iraq. Except—it’s not, it’s more than that. I don’t like to write about the Iraq war, because I feel so unqualified to say anything, but an article like this can prod even me into a statement. Read it, and learn how America’s problems aren’t in any way new—in fact, they’ve been dealt with before. And we’re ignoring everything we might have learned.

Somehow, America is in a position of having forgotten our history, and we’re looking at repeating it. (In fact, according to Mark Twain, we don’t repeat history so much as we “rhyme” it.) I don’t know how we managed to do this, because we haven’t been around that long. We strike quite a contrast to Israel, which can’t seem to forget or even maneuver its recent history at all. Usually, I think that’s a bad thing. Once you read Paul Kramer’s article, you may agree that awareness of our histories—even when they’re unpleasant, even when they make us uncomfortable or even make us fight—is totally imperative.

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

February 25, 2008 by admin

Chief Rabbi to Singles: No Pre-Marital Sex, And We Really Mean It This Time!

The latest “trend” in premarital sex amongst modern Orthodox singles has garnered Chief-Rabbinical condemnation:

In an attempt to stem a trend of quasi-condoned premarital sex among young modern Orthodox men and women, Israel’s Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger has issued a prohibition against allowing single women to use mikvaot (ritual baths). In a letter dated January 24 and addressed to the rabbis of the Land of Israel, Metzger warns of a trend in which young modern Orthodox men and women use mikvaot to circumvent one of the severest prohibitions connected with sexual intercourse.
“It is absolutely prohibited to allow a single woman to immerse herself in a mikve,” wrote Metzger. “And it is an obligation to prevent her from doing so.”

The JPost article explains the halacha [Jewish law] involved in the issue but the basic gist is that by going to the mikva, single women make it (debatably) more halachically okay for themselves to have sex (see here for one single woman’s confession about engaging in this practice). Rabbi Metzger maintains — and surely the majority of other Orthodox rabbis would agree with him — that regardless of whether premarital sex can be technically acceptable from a Torah law perspective, it’s still completely unacceptable from his perspective, that is, the perspective of Rabbinic law, which banned premarital sex for its own sake — it is bad, wrong, forbidden in and of itself, not just because of technicalities involving menstruation.

The debate over the merits and demerits of premarital sex, however, should be regarded separately from the debate over mikva use amongst single women. The latter is more nuanced and, as such, bears some similarity to the debate over abstinence-only vs. comprehensive sex education (a debate largely held in the Christian v. secular arena that has recently opened up in the Jewish conversation).

Most educators on both sides agree that teenagers should not be having sex, but comprehensive sex educators acknowledge that they might, and in the event that they do, should be given the means to protect themselves. Proponents of abstinence-only education, on the other hand, say that giving kids information about contraception and STD prevention will only encourage them to have intercourse.

Similarly, the Rabbi Metzger camp says that premarital sex is prohibited and that we should not in any way enable single men and, especially, women to have sex. Perhaps Rabbit Metzger believes — naively, many would say — that the prohibition of niddah bears so much halachic weight to that it will deter women — unable to release themselves from its clutches without using the mikva — from having sex. Allowing unmarried women to use the mikva is only encouraging illicit behavior.

But others, like Prof. Tzvi Zohar of Bar-Ilan University, argue that some singles are probably going to have sex anyway, and the community should not prevent them from doing it in the most halachically fit way possible. To continue the sex education debate metaphor, shouldn’t we give people the means to protect their souls, as it were, rather than dismissing them completely as sinners whose sins can’t be mitigated?

To take the argument even further, why shouldn’t consenting adults who are fully aware of the relevant halacha have sex in whatever way see fit?

And that is, of course, what makes this debate completely different than that over sex education. We’re talking about adults, not children.

I’m not arguing that mikvas should put up a welcome mat inviting in single women, and they certainly don’t. The practice is already banned. Rabbi Metzger was just reiterating the ban, since apparently people had stopped listening. Even still, it’s been my understanding that mikva ladies do not knowingly allow single women in. But a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy seems more befitting of adults, who have the right to make their own decisions. From a halachic perspective, it’s certainly better than unmarried women having sex without going to the mikva, and it’s better then single Jewish men “sowing their wild oats” with non-Jewish women, who are halachically “safe” from the laws of niddah.

But this insistence on barring single women from using the mikva brings up an unrelated but perhaps even more important question. Why can any man or boy use the mikva whenever he wants to spiritually purify himself while women are only allowed to use it within the very specific context of niddah? There’s no good reason why, if I’m feeling in need of a little spiritual cleansing, no matter what my age or marital status, why I shouldn’t be able to use the mikva.

The only reason is fear of what bodily defiling such a spiritual cleansing might lead to. And that fear — why is there so much fear? — results in rabbinic authority’s unwillingness to give women control over their own bodies.

–Rebecca Honig Friedman

The Lilith Blog

February 20, 2008 by admin

Baby Bites

There’s a lot going on out there in foodie land these days – a giant, mostly symbolic meat recall by Westland/Hallmark Meat Company (ahem, 143 million pounds), the OU declaring that food from a cloned animal is kosher (seriously? yep.), Martha Stewart acquiring (eating up?) chef Emeril Lagasse’s media properties – it can put your head in a tizzy.

But the thing that caught my attention today was a new blog on Fit Pregnancy’s website, “Mom Appetit: We Are What I Eat.” Each blog post details an aspect of author, Zoe Singer’s “journey” as an eater for two: soy or no soy? grazing or meals? what do you eat when you’re too nauseous to eat?

Compared to some of the zinger stories above, a blog about eating while pregnant seems pretty mundane. But reading through the posts got me (a 20-something who is not considering having kids yet, but recently acknowledged it is within the realm of possibility in the next half decade or so) thinking about the power of pregnancy on the expectant-mother’s consumer choices.

In many cases, it seems organic food becomes crucial. Eating a pesticide-drenched apple on your own is one thing, but choosing to eat it while pregnant brings up a whole different set of ethical questions. Food diversity also becomes a big concern. Pre-baby, chinese takeout or scrambled eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner seems perfectly acceptable – not so once you’re nourishing a growing being. There is so much research out there about foods that are potentially dangerous or particularly beneficial for a fetus, that – if you read any of that stuff – it’s almost impossible NOT to think about what you put in your body while you’re feeding someone else.

Of course it’s possible to go overboard with these concerns – and much of the “official research” out there is contradictory and potentially bogus. But I think there’s a food lesson to be learned from pregnant women: perhaps we should all eat as if we were nourishing not only ourselves, but someone else whom we cared about.

–Leah Koenig

The Lilith Blog

February 19, 2008 by admin

Costco Lessons

My husband and I decided that what was missing in our lives was a Costco membership. And so we went, babes in the woods, with our two babes in tow.

Here is what we learned:

1. Costco on a weekend afternoon is the suburban equivalent of a mosh pit.
2. It costs a minimum of $50 to become a member. Membership buys you the privilege of spending more money.
3. Think carefully before you buy a pallet of toilet paper. True, toilet paper is something you’ll always use, but you may prefer to keep your assets more liquid. (If you don’t mind tying up your money for a year or two, note that CDs give better returns.)
4. Some people feel they need 6lb. cans of corn niblets. I don’t understand it either.
5. Cement floors do not make for a comfortable shopping experience. You will discover this when you are as far from the doors as possible, which is also approximately when your child will need to pee. My own child decided to deal with this by placing a hand inside his underwear and clutching himself.
6. Unless you work as greengrocer, avoid the produce department. I don’t see how it is possible to consume a flat of mangoes before they rot without developing dysentery, but evidently there are legions of Americans out there with bowels made of sterner stuff than mine.
7. Not only are Costco’s containers of grapes huge, the grapes themselves are huge. You know how there are grape tomatoes? Well these are tomato grapes.
8. Guacamole is sold in boxes of three tubs. The label suggests eating one now and freezing two for later. Who freezes guacamole?
9. Melons come in pairs. Seriously.

–Claire Isaacs

The Lilith Blog

February 14, 2008 by admin

The Vagina Monologues

This week marks the tenth anniversary of V-Day, Eve Ensler’s international movement to end violence against girls and women. In its lifetime, V-Day has raised $50 million, and the organization gives away more money than any other group to fight violence against women (still, what they give annually amounts to what’s spent on about ten minutes of the war in Iraq).

It all started with a play: the now ubiquitous Vagina Monologues, which Ensler wrote and performed off-Broadway beginning in 1994. V-Day was founded 2 years later, on Valentine’s Day, when a star-studded benefit performance brought in plenty of dollars and attention. Since then, the play has been translated into 45 languages and performed in 120 countries. “The most radical play I ever wrote was the one that was accepted into the mainstream,” Ensler told an audience at the New School last week.

To me, that’s the most inspiring part. My mom and I first saw Ensler perform the Monologues at a tiny New York City theater in 1999 or 2000. Afterward, I went home and taped Ensler’s headshot up on my wall, and wrote my college admissions essay that same year based on the premise of the play. I’ll confess to having become somewhat disillusioned with V-Day in recent years, probably due mostly to having overdosed on its particular style of hot pink enthusiasm back in college. I’m also uncomfortable with the idea that to keep women from being violated, we have to treat our vaginas like the eighth wonder of the world instead of, you know, a body part. But that doesn’t mean I don’t admire what Ensler has done, and is doing. Listening to her triumphant pep talk last week (part of a speaking tour aimed at rallying the troops for the tenth anniversary, and encouraging everyone to come to New Orleans in April for a super-deluxe V-Day event that will “reclaim the Superdome“), I was struck by the way The Vagina Monologues has managed to become a mainstream sensation without sacrificing its edginess (though the degree of it has certainly changed, and not only because its content has become more accepted).

It’s easy to forget that there are lots of places where “vagina” is still a dirty word. Luckily, every once in awhile someone comes along to remind us that some of those places are major U.S. cities! This year it was the Seattle Times, which refused to run an ad for the Monologues because the vulva-centric artwork was not “appropriate” for its audience.

The best part? The ad — which seems pretty tame to me — was created by the National Council of Jewish Women’s Seattle office, which is co-sponsoring performances of the play. And the poster version had already been hanging in several area synagogues without protest.

A tenth anniversary edition of the Monologues is out now from Villard. Unlike the slim, deckled edge volume I once bought in a theater lobby, this substantial paperback reads like a primer on the V-Day ethos, with a new introduction from Ensler, sections outlining the history of the movement, testimonials from those involved in it, and a timeline of victories. There are also five new “spotlight monologues,” composed in response to particular kinds of violence against women in specific places and situations: transwomen, the Comfort Women of Japan, women in Islamabad who have had acid thrown in their faces. It sometimes feels like Ensler is writing the same monologue over and over again, and the tone of them — pain and despair, tinged with hope — becomes a little predictable.

Stories of abuse may not always translate well to the page (they probably fare better onstage), and I realize that’s not the point. In her talk last week, I was mostly encouraged to hear that Ensler has chosen a new word to impress upon the public: femicide. “Femicide” acknowledges that violence against women is not random; it is systematic, a pattern. “Naming femicide allows us to treat the issue fundamentally rather than remedially,” she said. The word may be even
more controversial than vagina. One high-level UN official already told Ensler it made him “uncomfortable.”

— Eryn Loeb

The Lilith Blog

February 8, 2008 by admin

Worshipping at the Altar of the Jewish Dating Gods. Or, Jews of the World Unite, on JDate!

In one of those seemingly random convergences of synergies, the current issues of both Lilith and the online Jewish women’s mag 614 feature articles on JDate. In different ways, the publications explore the huge impact it and other Jewish e-dating sites have had on how the Jewish world hooks up.

Before I go any further, I have to admit I’ve never been on JDate. And, after reading this month’s Lilith cover article, boy am I glad. As Susan Schnur writes it, it’s not pretty out there. On the other hand, several of the people closest to me have met their significant others on JDate and are in very committed and happy relationships, so I can’t help but think it’s for the good. So the underlying question is, as always — Is JDate good for the Jews or bad for the Jews?

The answer is, undoubtedly, good for some and bad for others. Another way to put the question, more practically — and bluntly: are more or fewer Jewish babies being born because of Jewish e-dating? Surely the world will never know. But let’s take some guesses, just for fun.

Perhaps it’s fewer, because you can’t make babies over the internet. (Reproductive technology is not that advanced … yet). As Schnur suggests in Lilith, people are spending more time fussing around the internet, hemming and hawing and being nitpicky over potential partners, instead of just choosing someone and hopping into marriage and babies. The plethora of dating options that the worldwide web provides causes some daters to hedge their bets and take more time to explore the entire field, until they find that elusive Mr. or Ms. Right. Or don’t. In the meantime, precious eggs are going to waste.

But that’s not just a Jewish problem. JDate doesn’t exist in a Jewish vacuum. The whole world is e-dating. It’s not a choice between JDate or internet-less dating, but between JDate or Match.com (or e-Harmony.com or one of the numerous other dating sites serving the general population). So in the world of internet dating the mere existence of JDate and its ilk is a definite boon for the Jews, a haven from the wider world of e-dating, where, if one is not vigilant, one is as likely as an unsuspecting college co-ed to haplessly fall for a non-Jew (shudder).

And it would stand to reason that people who meet on JDate are likely, when they do procreate, to raise their children at least nominally Jewish. Why bother signing up to meet other Jews as potential mates if you don’t want to identify as Jewish?

In fact, a couple of the articles in 614 made me realize the potential that JDate has as a unifier of the Jewish people — across denominations, affiliations, levels of observance and commitment. Michelle Cove recalls how the process of filling out her JDate profile made her reevaluate her religious status and consider how far to the right or left she would be willing to go for a potential partner, while Marnie Alexis Friedman writes about her experiences dating men of different observance levels and denominational affiliations from herself. Implicit in both of these pieces is the idea that JDate supplies individual Jews with easy access to meeting Jews who are different from themselves. Though individuals might, the website doesn’t discriminate based on affiliation or practice. It’s one of the few forums in which Jews are Jews, and that’s that.

It’s come to the point where, no matter how irreligious or unaffiliated a person is, just joining JDate — an expression of desire to meet someone Jewish — is itself an act of religious devotion. So, next time you’re feeling frustrated with JDating, just think of that monthly subscription fee as a ritual e-sacrifice on the e-altar of love.

–Rebecca Honig Friedman

The Lilith Blog

February 8, 2008 by admin

Happy Birthday, Judy!

Judy Blume turns 70 next week, and The Guardian profiles the author for the occasion. “I’d imagined her as a busty Jewish mamma, dishing out advice in gigantic, homely portions,” writes Melissa Whitworth. “But in person she’s delicate and small, with the body of a ballet dancer. She’s wearing a loose-fitting turquoise shirt and black capri pants. Her hair is in a short, girlish bob. With her high cheekbones and wide, easy smile she could be mistaken for Jessica Lange.”

When I was a kid, I had some interesting ideas about what some of my favorite authors looked like. But I never had any illusions about Judy Blume. On the back of my 1981 edition of Tiger Eyes (a hand-me-down from a favorite babysitter) was a black and white photo of the beaming author, with what I assume is the Sante Fe desert to her back. The portrait was sort of an odd juxtaposition with the painting on the book’s cover, which featured a sallow-cheeked girl, looking seriously haunted.

I read that amazing, unsettling book about a thousand times. Actually, I don’t think I read any of Judy Blume’s books just once. I studied the tense friendships in Just As Long As We’re Together until the yellow paperback fell apart. Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, with its paranoia and Holocaust ghosts, spooked me deliciously. I read and re-read Deenie and Iggy’s House under my covers with a flashlight. Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret may be considered Blume’s ultimate classic, but it didn’t have the same impact on me as the others. It featured characters memorably chanting, “We must, we must, we must increase our bust,” which sure resonated with me as a kid, but all the stuff about menstruation didn’t shock me as much as it might have. By that point I’d already learned about periods from some other novel that I was too young to really understand.

I pored over the famous sex scenes in Forever; spent tent cents on a copy of Wifey, one of Blume’s “adult” novels, at a garage sale, but never got around to reading it: my well-meaning mother thought it was a little too advanced for a ten-year-old. I was lucky that there were plenty of other steamily intriguing paperbacks in the swivel rack at our local library. Thanks to Norma Klein, there were books even more unabashed in their sexuality than Blume’s, with titles like Beginner’s Love, Love Is One of the Choices and It’s Okay If You Don’t Love Me. I didn’t know at the time that Klein had died in 1989 at the age of 50, after a brief and somewhat mysterious illness. And I’m not sure how conscious I was that both of these masters of Young Adult fiction were Jewish.

Blume is maybe best known — and people are most grateful to her for — her frank talk about sex, which many of us read before we knew quite what we were reading. In that spirit, Rachel Kramer Bussell recently interviewed Rachel Shukert, whose memoir Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories comes out in April. They talk about a piece Shukert wrote for Heeb about Jewish women and blowjobs, which can now be found in Best Sex Writing 2008, edited by the ever-prolific Bussell. Shukert reflects, “I don’t necessarily subscribe to the theory that if you eat like a pig, that must mean you’re great in bed, but I think there’s some kind of link. I think it’s appetite, and more than that, it’s a kind self-determination that Jewish women have, which I think we actually acquired from never being part of high society, from never really being seen by men as these kind of dainty flowers.” The whole thing is worth a read.
–Eryn Loeb

The Lilith Blog

February 7, 2008 by admin

Introducing: The Domestic Agenda

I am a mother. I am other things too, of course: a woman, a wife to M, a sister, a daughter, a friend, an American, a Jew, an editor, a reader, a consumer—but ever since my son N was born six years ago, what I am, primarily, is a mother. In the course of an average day I nurse and care for R, our 14-month-old girl, and wage what my mother calls “the battle against entropy.” I wipe little behinds and fold laundry. If I can get dinner cooked, more’s the better. It is not glamorous work, but at its best it is deeply satisfying and joyful. At its worst, it is stupifyingly dull, exhausting, and demoralizing. I try to appreciate the little things: a visit from a friend while the baby naps, a good book and the time to read it, a smile on my son’s face when he gets off the bus in the afternoon.

I am also a writer. It is hard to write at 1:19 a.m., especially with the repetitive melody from the baby’s noise machine coming through the monitor. I am worn out, tired from a day of clashes and truces with a testy first-grader, tired from a day of trips up and down the stairs with a 23-pound baby, tired from a day that begins with one mess and ends with a different one.

Simone de Beauvoir was right: The soiled is made clean; the clean becomes soiled. Again, and again, and again. I feel lucky, though. I can write now because M is cleaning the kitchen. Actually, that’s not quite true—if he weren’t cleaning the kitchen, I’d still be writing, I’d just have a dirty kitchen.

Soon M will go up to bed and the house will be mine. The rest of the day it’s not possible to follow a thought through to its end, to sit still and reflect. Before my children were born, I was a long-range planner—I even had a five-year fold-out calendar insert for my Filofax. (Nothing I wrote down on it has actually come to pass.) Now I live one day at a time, not out of any spiritual practice, but because that’s all I can manage. M doesn’t understand this, doesn’t recognize the woman who greets with genuine surprise the event she has known for weeks was coming.

–Claire Isaacs

The Lilith Blog

February 7, 2008 by admin

Keeping Quiet

Some writers would say I’ve officially made it. No, I’m not making a million dollars a year as a freelance writer yet (and word on the street is, I probably never will). But yesterday, while reading the most recent issue of PresentTense magazine, I saw that I got slammed in a Letter to the Editor. That counts for something, right?

The article I’d written was called “The Death of Eco-Kosher,” and it highlighted why I think, despite its good intentions, eco-kosher is actually a troublesome term for health and environmentally-conscious Jews, strictly observant Jews, and those folks who fall into both categories.

My dialogue-partner/the-guy-who-ripped-me-a-new-one, had no particular beef with my argument because, from what I could read in his response, he completely missed the point. He started in about “Contrary to Koenig’s implications, most Jews would not like to see Kashrut elided with a fair-trade eco-agenda” (I didn’t say that – in fact, the word “most” didn’t appear in the article at all), and “Furthermore, many people do not take nearly as kindly as Koenig seems to think to being lectured by ostensibly tolerant liberals on what is and isn’t ethical” (I would absolutely never assume such a thing).

The point is, on the one hand, I’m completely delighted to have someone get so riled up about something I wrote. In a sense, that’s the best compliment to a writer – knowing that someone either cared enough or was provoked enough by your words to actually sit down and pen a response. On the other hand, the way in which this reader responded to me was particularly irksome.

It’s pretty clear to me that he’s got some serious baggage around “liberal Jews,” and depending on where he’s coming from and how he grew up, that’s totally understandable. But his method of making his point was so hostile and obstinate, I couldn’t help but be reminded of those jerky guys (and sometimes girls, but less so) in college who would argue just for the sake of arguing. It also forced me to remember how I would respond to those guys – with flustered silence.

I’m not about to say that stubborn debating and trying to run intellectual circles around one’s opponent (while often not saying much of anything) is an inherently male trait. But I will say that growing up female and in the midwest, I feel like I was explicitly NOT taught how to argue in that way. I was taught how to make a rational point while hearing and acknowledging the other person’s point of view. And while I think that’s the higher road to take in any debate, I find it leaves me ill-equipped to respond in a satisfactory way when situations like this arise.

After some internal debating, I’ve decided not to write in a counter-response to the reader (I suppose I’m writing one by posting this – but I somehow doubt the reader reads a magazine like Lilith!). Ultimately, I don’t think it’s worth my time to argue with someone who can’t hear me. But I’m not entirely at ease with the decision – there’s still a small part of me that wishes I was indeed better at responding in kind to this sort of attack because, in truth, taking the high road often leaves your opponent feeling like he/she won.

To read my original article in PresentTense, click here.

–Leah Koenig