Shut Up, He Voxsplained

Ther e’s a longtime saying in online feminism, originally coined by Helen Lewis, that the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism (by demonstrating how bad a problem misogyny is). I have never cared for this maxim, which assigns far too much importance to random trolls. But I’ve come to appreciate it during the still-ongoing controversy over the “Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” published earlier this month in Harper’s, which I co-signed along with about 150 writers, academics, and artists. In this case, many of the responses — not from anonymous keyboard warriors but from prominent journalists and pundits — really do prove the letter’s point about an alarmingly illiberal climate in mainstream liberal culture. Read Full Article »