Austin Mayor Responds to Men Boycotting All-Female ‘Wonder Woman’ Screening
Not all heroes wear capes. In spectacular fashion, the mayor of Austin, Texas, fired back at one man who called for a boycott of Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse cinema on Thursday, June 1.
Last Wednesday, May 24, the Alamo Drafthouse announced that it would be hosting a screening of the much-anticipated DC flick Wonder Woman, and that the evening would be reserved for women and women-identifying persons only. Predictably, news of the exclusive event had many men up in arms.
One such man was writer Richard A. Ameduri, who took it upon himself to send Austin Mayor Steve Adler an angry letter berating him for allowing such an unthinkable event take place.
“I hope every man will boycott Austin and do what he can to diminish Austin and to cause damage to the city’s image,” Ameduri wrote in a letter that the mayor posted to his official website. “The theater that pandered to the sexism typical of women will, I hope, regret its decision.”
The letter went on to denigrate women who allegedly “accept the appearance of achievement without actual achievement,” and challenged Adler to “name something invented by a woman.”
“If Austin does not host a men only counter event, I will never visit Austin and will welcome its deterioration. …Does Austin stand for gender equality or for kissing up to women?” the letter continued, ending with a personal attack on the mayor. “Don’t bother to respond because I am sure your cowardice will generate nothing worth reading.”
On Thursday, Adler likely cracked his knuckles, stretched, and got to typing up an eloquent and perfectly poised response.
“Dear Mr. Ameduri,” the letter begins. “I am writing to alert you that your email account has been hacked by an unfortunate and unusually hostile individual. Please remedy your account’s security right away, lest this person’s uninformed and sexist rantings give you a bad name. After all, we men have to look out for each other!”
“Can you imagine if someone thought that you didn’t know women could serve in our combat units now without exclusion?” it continues. “What if someone thought you didn’t know that women invented medical syringes, life rafts, fire escapes, central and solar heating, a war-time communications system for radio-controlling torpedoes that laid the technological foundations for everything from Wi-Fi to GPS, and beer? And I hesitate to imagine how embarrassed you’d be if someone thought you were upset that a private business was realizing a business opportunity by reserving one screening this weekend for women to see a superhero movie.”
Adler concluded the letter by noting that the views displayed in the original correspondence were “an embarrassment to modernity, decency, and common sense.”
So far, no response from Ameduri.