leah letter

The bizarro world of double standards

How the media portrays women differently than men.
leah letter

The bizarro world of double standards

How the media portrays women differently than men.

Hello. Women are in the news. Elena Ferrante – doxxed. Kim Kardashian – burgled. Hillary Clinton – running for president. Leah Finnegan – writing this news letter. Sluts, all of them.

When women dominate the news cycle we tend to enter what I like to call the Bizarro World of Double Standards (location: Commentary Street). Yes, the "discourse" becomes "oppressive," what else is new, because it's very hard to talk about women without stepping on the millions of landmines that Princess Diana was unable to disarm before she was murdered.

Elena. Who is she? Who cares, many say, but also, if you cultivate an air of mystery and give interviews under your penname saying your work should stand for itself well, maybe don't give interviews. It's only natural for an adoring public to be interested in the real identity of an incandescently talented author who toes the line between public and private. Is she Satoshi Nakamoto or nah? What if Elena Ferrante is a man? What if she is Thomas Pynchon's character on The Simpsons? Does that change her work? Are we angry because we don't want to recognize that as a possibility? We are very precious about women's art, and maybe we shouldn't be. Regardless, I agree with my brilliant friend, the VC John Greathouse, and think all writers should write under pennames to mask their gender and that is why I want to reveal that for many years I wrote under the name Sam Biddle.

We are very precious about women's art, and maybe we shouldn't be.

Kim. I like Kim. I do not think she is the downfall of America, unlike the editor of Mother Jones, but I also don't opt to have her content streamed directly behind my eyeballs — I have too many episodes of "Grace Under Fire" to catch up on. The Associated Press has filed no less than four stories about Kardashian's robbery at gunpoint in Paris, all of them laced with contempt, implying that Kardashian brought the robbery upon herself by sharing (actually zero) telling details of her whereabouts on her Snapchat. This is America's most trusted newswire. Here's one article, headlined "Kardashian detailed flashy Paris trip to world":

"Did the reality star provide [the robbers] with a map via Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and her for-pay phone app? In answering her teased question, she told the world: 'In a private room, after the Balmain show.'

Was it the same room at a private residence where Paris police said the crime occurred? That's unclear, for in this reality star's life, there are many private rooms, and much to share."

As details of the heist continued to surface, and as Kardashian West made her way to New York on a private jet after the harrowing holdup, one thing is clear: She was excited to be in Paris for fashion week; her Snapchats and Instagram posts were filled with exclamation points and emojis.

Damn.. the bitch used emojis. She should def die, not the cambrioleurs who robbed her at gunpoint, shackled her with zip ties, threw her in a bathtub, and made her beg for her life. Or she should at least be sent to jail for being a woman posting to social media and having boobs. Quelle horreur!

Mind you this is the same newswire that shits itself whenever Donald Trump tweets. That pretty much goes for the entire media. Woman tweets – whore whose behavior we must condemn. Man tweets – evil genius whom we must report on objectively. Welcome to the Bizarro World of Double Standards, population everyone.

Sign up to get Leah Letter in your inbox here.

The Leah Letters

Emotionally stunted stunting

Being normal

“Be yourself” is terrible advice

Can you be a good person if you don’t read the news?

Bring back irony

I would follow Martha Stewart to hell

The Bari Weiss problem

Honestly, fuck Harper’s

You don’t have to talk

When men
fear women

No justice for bad men

Opinion: Trolling is not opinion

The internet is making me sick

Just say no to media coverage of drugs

Living with ennui in Trump’s America

Alex Jones is a piece of shit, and interviewing him is idiotic

The NYT crossword is old and kind of racist

Access journalism is not for you or me

Mark Zuckerberg will be our downfall

‘New Yorker’ covers? Watercolor me unimpressed

The insidious rise of the microcelebrity

Who goes Nazi? Media edition