Your Opinion
We recently received this Email from a new Israeli fan. Please weigh in on what has become “The Great Piece Battle.” (Note: the piece pictured below is actor Yehuda Levi)
Hi Guys,
Love your blog which I just discovered today.
I was reading it together with my boyfriend who is American and wanted to know why you refer to guys as “Pieces” he thought it sounded derogatory. Like you see men as a “piece of meat” and not as humans.
I am a Hebrew speaker and I guess you are making a direct translation from the slang word “Hatih”. I explained it to him, but he still thought that calling a beautiful man a “Piece” has a demeaning connotation in English.
I love the concept of your blog and would hate to think you are not getting your message across because you are turning your readers off with words that may be perceived as sexist towards men..
Best wishes,
Eran
April 12th, 2007 at 10:18 am
If only sexism against males were the problem in the Middle East. For sure, I’d like more Arab men to view me as an interesting “piece of meat” rather than as their enemy…
Plus, consider this: Treehugger.com is a huge environmentalist blog, with its name taken from what used to be a “bad word”. Just think how “queer” and “gay” were bad words that became legitimized over time.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:43 am
I had always considered your blog title to have a double meaning, in a very clever, whimsical way. The graphic of the puzzle pieces and the presumably “gay friendly” photos of handsome young men combined to give the message that peace even in the abstract required recognition and inclusion of all. I wonder if presented in another venue of say photographs of children, clerics, or housewives being represented as “pieces” in a larger puzzle called peace the blog would be critiqued in the same fashion.
April 13th, 2007 at 3:27 am
Mideast Piece=Mideast Peace, through erotic attraction.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Hi, Middle Eastern Arab living in South Africa now, good job with your blog think its time you all have some peace and enjoy the pieces,
April 16th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Before jumping over here to check out your site (I’d just finished the, ahem, piece on Israel21c) I took ‘piece’ to probably refer to a kind of objectification. To be sure, the article seemed to quote a couple of lines about soldiers and other forms of heat in the region. (The prospect of pics of gorgeous men admittedly also drew me. Reckon I’m that kind of man.)
After noticing the puzzle pieces and then the inquiry from Eran about the slang “Hatih” (the origin of which I’m still not clear on), I started thinking of the use of “piece” for a person as a kind of “(a good) catch” or the idea that as pieces, humans should look for the ways in which we complement one another.
Food for thought either way.
And while here, I’ll add my own round of applause for your efforts to unite people. The world needs more of that and less division.
Cheers.