Kiddo

What was that we were just saying about men patronizing women? That Diana (formerly David) Thomas thinks it’s nbd as long as women get their own way?

He wouldn’t know, of course. He wouldn’t know how corrosive the effect is, because he still knows it doesn’t apply to him, even if he doesn’t fully realize he knows it.

Anyway, men patronizing women.

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1337804907177512962

He obviously did it on purpose, with malice aforethought. It’s obviously calculatedly insulting, since he can’t possibly think she wants to be called either “Jill” or “kiddo” by a conceited condescending shit like him.

There was a time when I made an effort to find Joseph Epstein interesting. I found some of the same things irritating as he did (if you follow me), so I kept trying to read him, but I found him just not a good writer. Not a bad one in the sense of mistake-ridden or illiterate or anything, but just lifeless, and self-important and self-admiring with it. You can see it just in that short passage – “what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant” oh fuck off. And then “Your degree is, I believe” – if you’re not sure then look it up. If you are sure then don’t pretend you’re not. It was that kind of thing – pompous filler instead of getting to the point. Kind of like “Steersman,” if anyone remembers that Top Bore from way back then.

So he’s a crap writer, and he made a cold decision to express his contempt for the woman who is married to the president-elect who managed to defeat that sack of garbage Donald Trump – and to top it all off he pretends it’s “unpromising” for academics in education to research student retention at community colleges. That’s nice; that’s generous. Community colleges are a path to a better life for millions of people not born with a ticket to the Ivy League. Community college can be a step to getting a four-year degree and even scholarships, and they cost a tiny fraction of what the for-profit “universities” charge the students they defraud.

So…what’s his point? I guess that women should just be called Mrs. Mansname and leave it at that?

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