Ruth Marcus hits back at Federalist columnist for his gratuitous sexism/ageism toward her
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/02/ruth-marcus-federalist-strega-nona-insult/
..."Eddie Scarry, a writer for the conservative website the Federalist, was unhappy with my column about Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Grahams warning of riots in the streets if former president Donald Trump is prosecuted over the classified information he had at Mar-a-Lago. When I clicked on his piece, the dePaola reference appeared as a strikethrough Strega Nona look-alikecolumnist Ruth Marcus which I took to be a kind of sorry not sorry way of hurling an insult without having to own it.
Sorry not sorry, but that wont work. My column was an argument about ideas about how prosecutors should deal with public response to controversial cases. Disagreement on the merits is fair game; bring it on. But why are looks relevant? What is it that impels Scarry to go there?
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But Ive been thinking a good bit recently about the toxic intersection of misogyny and ageism, so this time Im going to speak up. Im going to speak up because there are a lot of women who might be less well-established in their careers, less confident of their abilities, less resilient. Who would be too worried about the backlash and, frankly, too embarrassed about having been described as old and ugly to call out the Eddie Scarrys of the world.
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Im going to speak up because men, by and large, dont have to put up with this crap, and because women, too often, are cowed into silence. If were quiet, the abuse continues. If we complain, we are strident harridans.
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Scarry, it turns out, isnt new to this game. He had his 15 minutes of fame in 2018 when he tweeted a photo of newly elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez well, specifically, of AOCs backside with the snarky comment, Ill tell you something: that jacket and coat dont look like a girl who struggles. Scarry ended up deleting the tweet, but not, apparently, learning from the incident."...(more)