Women are not consumables

Published 11:51 am Tuesday, April 12, 2016

It’s time to put antiquated language in the past. I was surprised, and then outraged, that a modern paper like The Herald would use derogatory descriptive language like “broad” for women as you did in Tuesday’s Good Life front page story on Tony V’s new phase. I realize in a bygone era this phrasing was commonplace, but not today. I might even have been able to get past it had it been in quotations, as if Mr. Verhey had used the phrase (“beer-booze-bands-broads-and-burgers’) in his interview, as one person’s view. What I’m seeing though is a writer who chose this word and an editor who approved it. It’s not cute to put women on the menu with food and alcohol, as if we’re something to be consumed. The alliteration would have been fine without the inclusion of “broads,” we all would have gotten it.

Jennifer Knittle Rose

Bothell