Since Tony Pizza doesn’t seem to know a thing about women, or very little outside the realm of his heteronormative masculinity, it seemed appropriate to respond to his latest column (“Guys, hide this column,” Sept. 22). Pizza focuses on ways to silence and ignore women, who are described as unnecessary distractions from watching football in “relative peace.”

The closest Pizza comes to speaking intelligently about gender roles at all is when he acknowledges that his entire column is an insult to women. The main content of Pizza’s column resides on the “common knowledge” of where a woman’s place is in a man’s world. For example, he implies that it’s a woman’s job to take care of household chores, while it is a man’s job to sit on the couch with a bowl of chips. He so knowingly shares, “Cooking dinner will give your significant other the impression that you find it important to help with household responsibilities.” He validates the concept that women and men should serve in separate capacities-the woman’s being one of passive domestic responsibilities and the man’s dealing with active vocations such as athletics and being in charge.

It is interesting that an article ran on the page opposite to Pizza’s claiming that maybe we have “gone too far” in the search for gender equality. Obviously not far enough, since Pizza finds it even remotely appropriate (sure enough he appropriates the entire article as a joke)?to degrade women into “cute girl(s) from local newspaper commercials” and men into conniving soft-porn addicts whose only intelligence about worldly affairs includes safety blitzes and 3-4 packages.

Is it probable that Pizza’s column is attractive to other ignorant men? Yes. Is it an excuse for his blatant use of stereotypes and degrading insults? No. The only thing Pizza accurately displays is cheap writing and his own ignorance.

Maria Gasper

Junior, Human Relations

Mitch Fantin

Junior, Psychology, Sociology