Re: “Presidential endorsement: Sarah Woolf” (9.3.10)

The Tribune sounds downright patronizing when they tell a female political candidate to control her emotions. It is as stupid and condescending to tell a woman so accomplished as Sarah to “control her emotions” as it is to assume that emotionality might hinder anyone as “forceful and rational” as she. Of all the campaigns I have watched throughout my life, I have never seen a woman run for office without watching her suffer subtly insidious language aimed at her gender. The Tribune may be entirely unconscious of how loaded the words “too emotional” are in this context, or perhaps it is intentionally trying to load its endorsement with a back-handed warning: “Just to remind you, she’s a woman. And you know what that means…” Either way, from a university publication and from intelligent people of my generation, I expect more.

– Darrah Teitel