Newport bloggers battle over culture of sexism

There’s a pretty ugly blogger battle going down around women’s issue in the typically picturesque City-by-the-Sea.

Newport Patch blogger Charity Dash wrote a post about the rampant culture of sexism and sexual harassment that exists in the local bar scene.

“The age bracket the city thrives on (Generation Y), is inherently unsafe for its female inhabitants. As a twenty-three year old woman, I can’t walk to work without expecting street harassment. I can’t go to a bar without the fear of a fifty year old man sitting next to me and chanting demeaning and derogatory terms.

In Newport, it’s okay for the drunk sailor-bros to treat women like blow up dolls.

Newport Buzz Director Tristan Pinnock then published a frankly shocking response to her post. Here’s a sample:

Charity Dash: “We make eighty cents on your dollar. What do we know?”

Newport Buzz response: “That you would rather have children than advance your careers through your 30′s, you’re not really into engineering and you don’t like to negotiate for bigger pay raises.”

Wow. That’s not what Sen. Gayle Goldin said when we asked her the same question. Nor does it jibe with how Carolyn Mark, president of RI-NOW, might see the situation. Or anyone even slightly more socially evolved than, say, Ralph Kramden, for that matter.

Newport Buzz also writes:

I hate to be the one to let you in on this, but gender relations come down to whatever each party is willing to put up with. Men will behave as badly as they can get away with. We’d be living in cardboard boxes if we thought we could bring girls home to them.

If either of these two columns are at all indicative of how men in Newport act, then indeed the city-by-the-Sea has a serious issue indeed.