Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________THE NANNY MURDER BY CAMILLE PAGLIA (11/11/97)

When Camille Paglia was asked to comment on the reduction of British au pair Louise Woodward's murder sentence, she took the occasion for an amazingly insensitive, churlish attack on the dead baby's parents. Apparently basing her opinions on watching TV interviews, Paglia finds that Matthew Eappen's father is "arrogant and condescending" and his mother not only "snippish and prudish" but a "brittle, narrow, perfectionist, head-cut-off-at-the-neck, WASPy, contemporary careerist."
Even if Paglia had personally known the Eappens, and thus had an honest basis for her opinions, their personalities are hardly germane to the question of Woodward's guilt, or the propriety of reducing her murder conviction to manslaughter and setting her free. Paglia seems to have taken the view, apparently shared by others, that Louise Woodward's potential loss of freedom was at least as great a tragedy as the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. And her pejorative "contemporary careerist" and demand that the Eappens share responsibility for their son's death because they left him in the care of an 19-year-old smacks of conservative dogma that sees all working mothers as selfish women more interested in money and status than in the welfare of their children.
For a parent it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a more wrenching, traumatic experience than the death of one's child. But this fact was obviously lost on Paglia, whose idea of discourse on the subject displaces reason and sensitivity with attack and insult.
-- Dennis Hathaway

SALON | Nov. 17, 1997

R E C E N T L Y+| IT'S CLASS, STUPID! BY RICHARD RODRIGUEZ

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_______________THE NANNY MURDER BY CAMILLE PAGLIA (11/11/97)
	When Camille Paglia was asked to comment on the reduction of British au pair Louise Woodward's murder sentence, she took the occasion for an amazingly insensitive, churlish attack on the dead baby's parents. Apparently basing her opinions on watching TV interviews, Paglia finds that Matthew Eappen's father is "arrogant and condescending" and his mother not only "snippish and prudish" but a "brittle, narrow, perfectionist, head-cut-off-at-the-neck, WASPy, contemporary careerist." Even if Paglia had personally known the Eappens, and thus had an honest basis for her opinions, their personalities are hardly germane to the question of Woodward's guilt, or the propriety of reducing her murder conviction to manslaughter and setting her free. Paglia seems to have taken the view, apparently shared by others, that Louise Woodward's potential loss of freedom was at least as great a tragedy as the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. And her pejorative "contemporary careerist" and demand that the Eappens share responsibility for their son's death because they left him in the care of an 19-year-old smacks of conservative dogma that sees all working mothers as selfish women more interested in money and status than in the welfare of their children. For a parent it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a more wrenching, traumatic experience than the death of one's child. But this fact was obviously lost on Paglia, whose idea of discourse on the subject displaces reason and sensitivity with attack and insult. -- Dennis Hathaway SALON \| Nov. 17, 1997