Fox News
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Wendy McElroy
Motivations and the fact I had known Wendy for many years made the article she wrote a real shock to me. I tried to call her. She never responded. I wrote her an email. This brought threats from one of her male acquaintances. Over the next years I was unsure what to do but began, for the first time, to read her articles. I was appalled. While claiming to be a voluntarist she was justifying domestic violence, even denying it happened, or that men were more likely to be abusive than were women. I lost all intellectual respect for her and slowly realized this should not have come as a surprise.
The first time I heard her speak publicly was at a gathering held at the home of her mentor and then lover, a psychologist who she said, had taken her off the streets when she was 16 and earning her living as a prostitute. Wendy said she had come to Hollywood to escape abuse in her address. Many of us were uncomfortable with her revelations and were grateful there were not more graphic details. She had a right to decide what to do with her life and it sounded as if it had not been a bowl of cherries but being threatened with violence did not strike me as a libertarian sort of response to my letter.
Looking back on what I endured the letter below did not go far enough by a long piece.
Wendy McElroy
Ifeminist.
Dear Wendy,
In publishing an article directly attacking the good character of my daughter and asserting the ‘victimhood’ of John Fund you have committed libel and continued a vicious slander undertaken by Fund to evade charges of domestic violence of which I of my own personal knowledge know him to be guilty. By supporting Fund in this regard you by direct implication call me a liar. I am now preparing to add you to the law suit we are preparing and the charges will also be filed in Federal court. Your own actions have forced me to do this. You should have called me directly before publishing anything. Since we are known to each other for so many years and been active in the same Movement and have many friends in common your failure to do so is inexplicable to a dispassionate third party and furthers the perception fostered in your article. To avoid a law suit and the costs associated with that I need you to rescind the article, issue an apology, send the apology to everyone who might have read it, and supply me with a list of those venues or individuals. If the article was a result of a communication with John Fund I need to know that, too. He has solicited this kind of support from others. Libel and slander are not victimless crimes. I hope you will see that an apology is owed and issue one promptly.Sincerely,
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
(805) 569-0421
