Yeah, so that "How To Kill And Capture The Most Dangerous Game And Marry It" column in University of Georgia newspaper The Red And Black, lambasted by the world at large as well as our own Lindy West last week, was satire.
Amber Estes, the author of How To Find That Perfect Husband In College, said that she was sure that people would read it as satire and found herself gravely mistaken when she was the target of mass ridicule, nasty emails and general shit-onnery. Aite. Some of us suspected (hoped, really) that it was satire in the first place.
Today The Red and Black has run a response column by a UGA senior named Maura Friedman, who calls Estes' article "poorly written. "Her metaphors are tired, her quips are hackneyed and the piece reads, to me, as trite overall," says Friedman—the piece being satire, ostensibly, notwithstanding. But Friedman primarily takes issue with the fact that anyone could possibly think that the piece was serious, blaming the response on an archaic and offensive perception that she feels the rest of the country has of the South.
Dismissing [the column's] realities as a "Southern thing" is to laughably ignore the shared sexism the rest of the states perpetrate as well. Talking about how stupid this article is overwrites these experiences and stifles any possibility of taking conversations about the perceived role of women to a productive place. Just because your state has voted blue in the past few elections doesn't make it an ideal bastion of politically correct living... As a female undergraduate at the University and a woman raised primarily in the South, I'm also offended by the assertion that this column could be a serious work.
Friedman goes on to add that, had the article not been satire, attacking Estes's intelligence or worth as a result of the piece was unfair and betrayed the basic right of every woman to "pursue a life within or outside of the home... There's no one correct way to be an independent woman."
It's an interesting argument, but I'm not convinced that if the piece came from anywhere else, its extremity (and ambiguity) wouldn't have garnered a similar reaction. Now lets get back to reading Jonathan Swift while noshing on a light snack of baby flesh.
'Amber Estes' ‘husband' column should be discussed, not attacked' [The Red And Black]
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