Editor:

I am writing in response to Jared Whitley’s inaccurate analysis of National Women’s Week on March 27, “Naked Women are Good Enough for Campus Feminists.” His comments epitomize the very reasons why events such as National Women’s Week are still necessary to foster equality for women.

First off, Whitley claims that it is just as hard or even harder to be a man than a woman. He cites the fact that certain departments in the university offer more scholarships to women than men. OK, fine, I’ll grant him that, but let’s look at why.

It’s a fact that elementary school education, high school counseling, even parental encouragement aim to push boys to more profitable and better paying occupations than women. There are structural, unseen forces in our society that stifle women’s opportunities to excel in certain fields, which makes these policies necessary. To claim that allowing a more level playing field for women equates to privileging them or giving them special handouts is an almost inane analysis.

As for Whitley’s claim that feminists have a double standard because of the pictures displayed on a certain feminist Web site, (what Web site is this-www.playboy.com?) I have two responses: First, feminists don’t decry allowing women to express their sexuality. Rather, they question the context of such displays. Who is doing the looking, for what reasons and for whose gratification? Whitley really doesn’t grasp the contextual significance of whatever images he is referring too. Second, women have struggled for a long time not to allow men to dictate what is best for them. The term for this is colonizing, which is what Whitley should have titled his piece in the first place.

Patrick Lagua

Senior, Political Science and Gender Studies