New York Post: Jill Abramson fired for "systematically getting rid of male editors and replacing them with women"

Misandry at the Times! Misandry at the Times!

Published May 23, 2014 2:15PM (EDT)

Jill Abramson                 (Reuters/Joshua Roberts)
Jill Abramson (Reuters/Joshua Roberts)

Move over, Ken Auletta! New York Post columnist Richard Johnson has the real dirt on why Jill Abramson was pushed out at the New York Times: Misandry.

According to Johnson's Thursday column, the former executive editor was ousted for "systematically getting rid of male editors and replacing them with women":

When Abramson became executive editor of the New York Times in August 2011, just one of the eight newsroom masthead editor jobs was held by a woman.I reported in January that four of the then-nine jobs were held by women.

By the time Abramson was fired last week, that number had increased to five, and Abramson had been trying to hire another woman, Janine Gibson, as co-managing editor for digital.

This is very alarming. Abramson's clear hatred of men is very alarming to me. In three short years, Abramson managed to create a newsroom masthead that more or less reflected the gender ratio of the United States. Like, if the Times hadn't unceremoniously fired her last week, who knows how high the number of women newsroom masthead editors may have risen? Maybe as high as seven -- which was the previous number of male newsroom masthead editors that no one seemed to think about all that much. Because having an overwhelmingly male masthead just means that you hired the smartest candidates for the job. Nothing to talk about there.

But if your boss starts hiring some women, watch out because this is probably your boss:

 

“The New York Times has a point of view: ‘Women are victims, we need to remedy that, we need to promote them preferentially,’” Mel Feit of the National Center for Men told Johnson.

What a very good expert this person is. It's definitely not weird to talk to a men's rights activist with no affiliation with or sources at the Times whatsoever to weigh in on this issue.

And here is the bio for the National Center for Men:

The National Center For Men, incorporated in 1987, is dedicated to the advocacy of men's equal rights. We educate the public about how men have been hurt by sex discrimination and we also counsel individuals and families who have been damaged by discrimination against men... Welcome to our website. We hope your visit is informative and helpful.

And here is what Feit thinks about rape:

At a certain point during arousal, we don't have complete control over our ability to stop. To equate that with brutal, violent rape weakens the whole concept of rape.

And here is Feit educating Gawker's Michelle Dean about our culture's bias against men:

I think there's a sexual caste system that's being developed. I think that women are increasingly occupying the glamorous intellectual jobs, men are occupying the jobs that are dirty and deadly and dangerous, and you have to look at statistics on workplace fatalities and injuries to know that.

And here is Feit on his qualifications to weigh in on the Times' ouster of Abramson:

I am not an expert in journalism.

"The victims were the talented, hardworking male editors who were forced out, or passed over, in Abramson’s campaign of affirmative action," Johnson writes.

And just to really lock down Johnson's airtight argument about Abramson's campaign to put the lady back in "The Grey Lady," let's not forget that the Times had the fewest number of female bylines of any major newspaper in the United States during 2014, according to data compiled by the Women's Media Center.

And here's the gender breakdown of the writers featured on the front page of the Times on this day in history herstory:

And here's the archive from the last two weeks:

 Matriarchy in action, people.

 


By Katie McDonough

Katie McDonough is Salon's politics writer, focusing on gender, sexuality and reproductive justice. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.

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