Sexist cartoons

Readers of the Post-Gazette knew that the purge of Rob Rogers would shift the editorial cartoons to the right. But the recent cartoons by Steve Kelley seem also to have been dredged up a time in which “women’s libbers” were oddities to be ridiculed.

In his Sunday cartoon, Mr. Kelley trots out the moth-eaten joke that feminists want to “eliminate traditional gender roles” only until the dinner check arrives. And in his Monday cartoon, inspired by Jeff Bezos’ marital troubles, two adolescent girls fantasize about growing up to divorce a rich man.

These cartoons both rely on the threadbare stereotype that women, in the end, only want to be financially supported by men, no matter how much they decry “sexism.” As the parents of two boys, my wife and I try to teach our sons that women are full, self-sufficient human beings, not parasites seeking out money. This is apparently still a debatable proposition in some quarters.

In addition to being offensive and oblivious, these jokes are also just hackneyed. Mr. Kelley appears to be plagiarizing his punchlines from an early-20thcentury humor anthology. We look forward to future cartoons lampooning battle-ax mothersin-law and lady drivers.

We are alarmed and disappointed that anyone on staff at the Post-Gazette would find Mr. Kelley’s recent cartoons either funny or critical commentaries on the state of the world today. ALISON COLBERT AND GREG BARNHISEL Park Place