All posts tagged "Assumption"

I think one of the ongoing problems with the term "misogyny" is that, for many people, it conjures up strictly images of those men (and some women) who exhibit a really obvious hatred of women---people who say rape victims were asking for it, the scary dudes who troll Salon Broadsheet and seem to think every woman is out to castrate them and steal their wallets, wife beaters and pimps, the anti-choice protesters who scream vile shit because they blame women for all their life's failures. Because of this, people who exhibit a more patronizing attitude towards women are assumed to be well-meaning if misguided, and don't get treated like misogynists. Frankly, this troubles me, in no small part because condescending assholes often let the uglier hatred come out if challenged, and also because the assumptions the ones affecting a "well-meaning" pose promote are just as damaging to women as overt hatred.

In the midst of bemoaning the fact that smart people might be in charge soon, Joseph Epstein says the following:

[rebelmouse-image 24748275 original_size="262x350" expand=1]Thank you for writing this post, Ezra, seriously. It's been bothering me that in both debates we've seen so far, it was just assumed that the government is going to have to tighten its belt because of the recession. You don't need a degree in economics to see why that's a bad assumption. You just need to have a very basic understanding of history to know what Keynesian economics are, and that one of the principles is that the government should increase spending in a recession to stimulate the economy. The way that everyone is carrying on as if they don't know this is baffling.