Taking a Look at Our Economic Woes

By emphasizing the nerd girls' appearances over their scholastic accomplishments, Jessica Bennett and Jennie Yabroff, who attempt to disprove the stereotype that smart girls are unattractive girls, miss the point entirely. Women in professional or academic settings should not be characterized by their level of sex appeal at all—it shouldn't matter. Of course a pair of pink pumps doesn't instantly diminish a Nerd Girl's interest and abilities in science and math, but why do we focus at all on her choice of footwear when she is engineering the technology of the future? Bennett and Yabroff's piece is only one example of the media's preoccupation with women's appearances in the midst of outstanding academic or professional achievement.
Sarah Turrin
Haddonfield, N.J.

In "Revenge of the Nerdette," Jessica Bennett and Jennie Yabroff imply that it's good to be intelligent, as long as you are also very sexy. What about girls who weren't born with supermodel looks or who just don't fit in with the rest of the crowd? The term "nerd" has a lot of meanings: that you don't conform to a stereotype; that you like to watch the new "Battlestar Galactica" instead of "Gossip Girl," or that you are creative, imaginative and not always obsessed with your looks. We already know that it's OK for women to be smart. How about sending out the message that it's also OK for us to look different as well?
Johanna Miller
Watsonville, Calif.

Why Men Don ' t Like ' Sex '
Ramin Setoodeh's dismissal of gender stereotyping while simultaneously suggesting that the "Sex and the City" bashers "aren't just poor sports, though they probably like to watch them on TV" is ludicrous ("Sexism and 'Sex and the City'," June 16). Is it beyond his understanding of feminism (which I will admit sometimes falls into the right places) to accept disparagement of a film that unabashedly embraces a cosmopolitan consumer caricature of women, an antiquated and demeaning ideal of romance and sexual personalities that are reminiscent of Hemingway's Brett Ashley? Perhaps the critics are coming down on this movie not because of their jealousy of sisterhood (which we can only guess that men despise, typical pigs that they are, because they lack the emotional depth to understand it) but rather because of its reflection of a grown-up fluff culture of princess dreams and pouting, one that they hoped we had moved far beyond.
Owen Alldritt
Washburn, Wis.

First I'm a sexist for supporting an African-American male instead of a white woman for president; now I'm sexist because I hate a show that features superficial, gossipy, materialistic, whiny women. Ramin Setoodeh plays the gender card instead of considering whether shows like "Sex and the City" perpetuate stereotypes that actually fuel sexism.
Eric Kumbier
Ann Arbor, Mich.

A Relationship That Rocks
I pretty much disagree with every aspect of George Will's assessment of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ("As the Oceans Rise," June 16), but when he brings up a commentator's comparison to the Everly Brothers, I pause. Will's intention is to mock the two Democrats as one and the same, but the fact is that Don and Phil Everly had had a simmering feud that finally blew up publicly at a concert in 1973. They did not record together for the next 10 years. Furthermore, the Beach Boys feuded, the Beatles feuded, the Eagles feuded, and yet they all managed to create soaring, wonderful harmonies. Barack and Hillary have their differences, but if they can get together and meld them into that same kind of harmony, what a glorious song for America that would be.
Jeffrey S. Ganeles
Utica, N.Y.

Correction
In "Why It's Worse Than You Think," we transposed the last and middle names of the former CEO of Wachovia. His correct name is G. Kennedy Thompson. NEWSWEEK regrets the error.

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