battle of the titans.

nicholas kristof on sexism vs. misogyny. this one's been around for a while, i guess, and off my radar. i don't know kristof well enough to arrive with an opinion of his work already in place, but i can't tell whether i'm intrigued by the question--it's one i'd never thought to ask--or irritated by it. kristof seems (or professes) to be seeking out a useful lens rather than looking to create a neat arithmetic or argue arbitrary distinctions, and i like that move (despite his apparent desire to find the "root" of women's world-wide oppression. good luck with that). still, it's hard to imagine anyone successfully isolating misogyny and sexism as separate factors, much less vaunting one over the other as a more generally applicable concept--and a chicken/egg argument about the overdetermined nature of the oppression of women is exactly the kind of thing that makes me want to reach for a pitcher of martinis.