Just when you think you've seen it all, along comes a crossword puzzle in Tuesday's edition of the New York Times, which had the clue to 31D as a “decidedly non-feminist women’s group” and the answer was the word “harem.”
According to an article by Sarah Fisher on the Truth Revolt website, even the Times' puzzle “isn't safe from charges of sexism." “That little joke has some people outraged. People on Twitter denounced the clue as 'hateful,' 'clueless' and somehow dismissive of victims of sex slavery.”
Crossword critic and constructor Michael Sharp, who blogs under the name Rex Parker, called the post “hateful. My kingdom for a female editor, or at least advisor.”
“Why is the NYT crossword so clueless about race and gender?” @dianagram tweeted.
“It's not immediately clear why the word 'harem' is offensive,” Fisher stated, but Blake Neff of the Daily Caller website defined the word as “a group of females who all share a single male as a sexual or romantic partner.”
Historically, a harem was the retinue of wives, concubines, slaves and female relatives who were kept in wealthy Muslim households.
The word itself derives from the Arabic word meaning “forbidden” and refers to the fact these women were generally kept in separate quarters most men were forbidden to enter.
“Harems, at least historically, are strongly associated with placing women in a subservient position to powerful males, which certainly isn’t very feminist,” the reporter asserted. “The Times’ clue, then, is quite literally accurate.”
Also discussing the clue was Ruth Graham at the Slate website, who claimed that crossword puzzle authors are too white and too male.” Graham then stated:
The New York Times crossword puzzle is like an elderly uncle: lovable and fun but prone to sounding out of touch. Sometimes that fustiness is charming. ...
But Tuesday’s puzzle includes a clue and answer that many solvers are complaining falls on the uglier end of the spectrum. Groan.
She also noted that “of the 47 most recent constructors for the Times, just 11 are female. The author of today’s puzzle is male, and so is (puzzle editor Will) Shortz. The constructors are also overwhelmingly white.” Of course, Graham stated, “this isn't the first time a puzzle’s un-PC cluelessness has annoyed people.”
“In 2012,” she indicated, “the answer ILLEGAL was clued with: ‘One caught by the border patrol.' The offensive use of illegal as a noun set off a brouhaha that made its way to Univision.”
During the following year, “a national puzzle syndicate apologized for using the clue ‘Shylock’ for the answer JEW,” she noted. “And in November, Shortz issued a mea culpa for the clue ‘Exasperated comment from a feminist.’ Answer: MEN.”
Ben Tausig, “an editor who has written about the dearth of women in the industry,” told Graham: “Everything from choosing which puzzles to publish to vetting clues is inflected by the ideologies that stem from that fact.”
“Crossword constructors are important,” Graham noted, but editors “often rewrite clues and are responsible for the overall tone of puzzles.”
That means the buck stops with Shortz. “I just don't think he's particularly sensitive to the current social and political nuances of language,” Sharp noted by email, “especially where women and people of color are concerned.”
“If this seem like a disproportionate reaction to a daily brain-teaser for dweebs, consider the role that puzzles play in solvers’ lives,” Graham asserted. “There’s an intimacy that accompanies any such daily ritual, no matter how ephemeral. And then there’s the fact that crossword puzzles deal in authoritative definitions.”
Tausig, editor of the respected American Values Club crossword, stated.
Crosswords “operate as a public barometer of the value of specific words. Like dictionaries, but tasked with being more nimble and playful, crosswords suggest equivalency between terms and their definitions.”
This IS what such-and-such a word means; this IS an accurate way to describe such-and-such a phenomenon. When solvers sense a gap between their own sensibilities and the puzzle’s, they feel betrayed.
“The good news is that, like dictionaries, puzzles evolve over time to reflect the culture,” Graham claimed. Constructor Elizabeth Gorsky asserts that the field “is becoming more diverse again now, at least in terms of gender.”
And Gorsky suggested there's at least one way to avoid another “HAREM-gate” in the future.
“The problem with tone-deafness is the person who's singing (or writing clues) doesn't hear the sour notes,” she said. “If newspapers want to improve their crosswords, the solution is simple: Hire people who aren’t tone deaf.”
If by that expression Graham means employing more thin-skinned liberals and feminists to create crossword puzzles, that's yet another example of how political correctness has infiltrated another aspect of our culture. Or as Graham might simply say again: “Groan.”
