Do Maine reporters recognize sexism?  

We read: Cynthia Dill’s “stridency … has doomed her party’s chances of winning the three-way race” (“U.S. Senate race: Democrat Dill stands her ground, then and now,” Oct. 14).

Your characterization of her comes with news of the shooting of the Pakistani girl struggling for life after being shot for blogging about female education.

And the “dilemma” of men who paid for sex with a woman trying to prevent the embarrassment of publicity of their crime.

Heretofore, “A Sexism Primer” for your Sunday Telegram front-page writers (all men), editors (all men) and others who don’t understand why describing the female voice as “strident” and paid for with her credibility are sexist.

Sexism is implicit:

• When the articulate, bright U.S. Senate candidate Cynthia Dill is described as “strident” for speaking when others cower or silence themselves for fear of political reprisal.

• When a woman who speaks out is held up for public rebuke with demands that she prove her credibility, while the man is not.

• When a girl is shot for blogging about the need for education.

• When a woman in the sex trade video-documents that she is not the only participant, and males who were equally involved hire attorneys to make a legal argument that they weren’t really there.

The sexist stereotypes:

• A woman turns people off when she speaks out, is tolerable when she doesn’t, is less credible than the man, is deserving of public shaming and when she becomes intolerable can casually be seen as “of no use to anyone.”  

• Violence because the victim is a woman, in many cultures, is justified.

• When she is victimized, compassion is tempered.

I haven’t seen one compassionate word for the woman who reportedly had as many as 150 sexual partners — who was “pimped.”

The cultural legacy of sexism tolerated in any form is sexism tolerated. Period.

Susan Cook

Bath

Keep reproductive rights in mind at the ballot box

The hardest part of this coming election, for me, is the possibility that we could, if more social conservatives are elected, lose much our right to reproductive choice in this country.

I’m not sure that enough of us are thinking about this: access to contraception, birth control, family planning, sex education, reproductive health and abortion rights.

Not to mention what it was like before Roe v. Wade, in 1973, when it was hard for the young, the unmarried, the poor, the rural, to get contraceptive help, much less have an abortion if needed.

Abortions were dangerous and hidden, whether you were young and single, already had enough children, were in a place where a child would not be supported or chose a life without children. Whatever your reason, you were trapped, in a society that would not help you.

Younger women may not realize how serious this threat is, that the far right has been chipping away at family-planning clinics in many states, and succeeding in making it harder get contraceptives, and more and more difficult to have a safe early abortion. Many men think it is none of their business, or not as important as the other heavy issues we are dealing with.

But access to contraception, and safe abortion if that fails, is crucial to quality of life for women, the children they have, the men who care, their families and communities. It matters to the whole country, in health and savings and education, in people being better able to take care of themselves. Don’t let us lose our family-planning clinics and access to reproductive choice.

Beedy Parker

Camden

GOP state Senate hopeful espouses extremist views

Most of us would probably agree that the deep divide between Democrats and Republicans is one of the major problems facing our society.

This does not just apply to Washington or Augusta, but also to us regular people. We need to relearn how to talk and listen to the other side, and stop voting for people who are divisive, unwilling to find common ground with the opposition, and have no positive vision for the future.

At a meeting for the candidates in Hartland, I asked state Sen. Doug Thomas, R-Ripley, why he scored lowest in the Senate on the environmental scorecard of the independent group Maine Conservation Voters.

He wanted to answer referring to a specific bill. I chose L.D. 852, Land for Maine’s Future, a $5 million bond issue that helps protect working farms, forests and waterfronts.

The bill enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support. Thomas was one of only six senators out of 36 who voted against the bill. His reason was money, he said.

When I think of people who bought a farm for little more than a song in the ’60s and ’70s, or Gov. Baxter, who bought Mount Katahdin, it seems a no-brainer that this $5 million would be a wonderful gift to future Mainers who otherwise are mostly inheriting problems from our generation.

This is a vision for the future that I share, apparently, with the overwhelming majority of the voters and state representatives and senators.

Here are some exceptions: Sens. Doug Thomas and Debra Plowman and Rep. Ray Wallace, who has the dubious distinction of a flat zero on the scorecard. He is even OK with BPA in baby bottles, although it “might cause some women to grow little beards,” as Gov. LePage says.

This kind of extremism cannot help us overcome the great divide. Let’s elect people who can talk and listen to and reason with fellow Americans of differing opinions. Candidates Herbie Clark, Dave Pearson and Dusty Dowse are such people.

Harry Akkermann

Harmony

Americans can’t afford four more years of Obama

At a campaign event in Fargo, N.D., on July 3, 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama stated it was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” for George Bush, over the eight years of his presidency, to have “added 4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over 9 trillion dollars of debt. … $30,000 for every man, woman and child.”

Apparently the words “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” do not apply to President Obama, who has managed to increase the national debt by more than $5 trillion in just three years (more than $51,000 for every man, woman and child).

While President Obama stated that President Bush had increased the debt “by his lonesome,” the truth is Congress has much to do with controlling (or not) spending and borrowing.

Can we afford another four years of a president who thinks he can borrow and spend his way to prosperity? Can we afford to send people to Congress who agree with his policies?

I support Mitt Romney for president, Charlie Summers for the Senate and Jon Courtney for the House. All three have strong business experience and solid ideas for cutting spending and borrowing, thereby reducing our national debt. Please consider the future of your children and grandchildren when you vote Nov. 6.

Helen A. Shaw

Rockport

Support for gay marriage at variance with Scripture

William Slavick’s opinion on same-sex marriage is not in keeping with traditional Christian teaching (Another View, “Bishop does not speak for all Catholics on same-sex marriage,” Oct. 3).

The Bible teaches us to love others; however, it also teaches us that homosexuality is a sin along with a host of other sins. In many places in the Bible, it specifically says that homosexuality is wrong, and nowhere does it say that homosexuality is acceptable.

Maybe William Slavick is doing what the Bible warns us not to do, and that is to add to Scripture.

David Ryder

Portland