Palmer Events Center
Satire or 'A Tiny Masterpiece of Coercive Ideology?'
RECEIVED Mon., Feb. 27, 2006
Dear Editor,
In Sorry We Missed Church [“Letters @ 3am,” Feb. 17], Michael Ventura has made a rare (for him) error: misinterpreting the tone of the bumper sticker he saw in Lubbock which he used as the theme and title for his article.
The two young women riding in the car with “Sorry we missed church, we were busy/learning witchcraft and becoming lesbians” on the back were being sarcastic, not courageous.
The bumper sticker speaks in the imagined voice of women who are not at all sorry they missed church, because they're nonbelievers. It implies that such women are homosexual witches, and it implicitly equates homosexuality with devil worship. Of course, there are also underlying stereotypes about women's proper role and outlook.
This bumper sticker is a tiny masterpiece of coercive ideology that means, “Women who don't go to church are lesbians and witches.”
Such a message sounds courageous only to people in places like Austin, where it's interpreted as liberal; after all, who could be so crazy as to equate nonchurchgoing with lesbianism or devil worship?
In Sorry We Missed Church [“Letters @ 3am,” Feb. 17], Michael Ventura has made a rare (for him) error: misinterpreting the tone of the bumper sticker he saw in Lubbock which he used as the theme and title for his article.
The two young women riding in the car with “Sorry we missed church, we were busy/learning witchcraft and becoming lesbians” on the back were being sarcastic, not courageous.
The bumper sticker speaks in the imagined voice of women who are not at all sorry they missed church, because they're nonbelievers. It implies that such women are homosexual witches, and it implicitly equates homosexuality with devil worship. Of course, there are also underlying stereotypes about women's proper role and outlook.
This bumper sticker is a tiny masterpiece of coercive ideology that means, “Women who don't go to church are lesbians and witches.”
Such a message sounds courageous only to people in places like Austin, where it's interpreted as liberal; after all, who could be so crazy as to equate nonchurchgoing with lesbianism or devil worship?
Lynn Gilbert
[Michael Ventura responds: Dear Ms. Gilbert: I saw those young women, and I believe you are mistaken. I also spoke of the sticker to several Lubbock friends and their response was a whoop of admiration followed by comments like, "Those girls have some cojones!" Some of these friends have lived in Lubbock most of their lives, some for merely a decade or two; their take on the sticker was the same as mine. ps: Ms. Gilbert, "witchcraft" is not "devil worship."]