Though Sufia Khalid’s column about bimbos last week (“Girls won’t get anywhere until they stop dressing as bimbos,” March 28, p.7) sparked a heated feminist debate in the letters section, I was disappointed not to hear from any hardcore feminists in the subsequent letters to the editor. For those of you who stand for absolute equality of the sexes, fear not. Your voice deserves to be heard.

There can be no doubt that the battle for equality has advanced light-years since it began. However, I find that certain aspects of our society are based on archaic systems of belief. For example, the segregation of bathrooms by gender only reinforces the idea that one sex is inferior. By promoting the belief that on an excremental level men and women are fundamentally different, we only lengthen the road to equality. We have taken this step forward in other aspects of our lives. Men and women often prefer different foods, but we eat at the same restaurants. Our clothes are different, but we shop at the same outlets. Why, then, can we not defecate in the same toilets? Is the implication that one gender is more sanitary than the other? I have been to enough dorm rooms of members of both sexes to confirm this is not the case. I call upon all people to rise up for your right to use any bathroom you choose. Rise up, fellow citizens, to fight for what men stand for, and what women sit for.

Selective Service too, is an issue which is astoundingly ignored among most of the feminists I meet. For a group of people whose ultimate goal is social equality for the genders, I am continually surprised at how I have never heard a feminist complain about her right to be systematically chosen to die for her country regardless of the cause. According to the Selective Service System website (www.sss.gov), “Selective Service law as it’s written now refers specifically to ‘male persons’ in stating who must register and who would be drafted.” The fact that this law still exists in modern times should be outrageous to anybody who considers himself or herself a feminist. I certainly believe that women should not be excluded from this process. Women have fought for too long to be considered equal to give up their struggle at this frontier. For those feminists who are true to your beliefs, keep trying. You are fighting a war you can win — for your right to fight in a war that America likely cannot.

There are those among us who still choose to live in the dark ages of gender equality. They will berate me as an idealist. They will confront me with arguments based in reality, such as “Women have certain monthly needs, necessitating separate bathrooms. And boys smell worse,” or “Women shouldn’t be drafted because they are more important than men; they only have 300,000 eggs after puberty, and men make on average 50,000 sperm a minute” (true, by the way). Well, chauvinists, my response to you is that you are the slave owners of today. Please attempt to see through this veil of ignorance and stigma. Attempt to live progressively, even for a single day. Shed a tear for those women forgotten by Selective Service. Use a public bathroom meant for members of the opposite sex. Follow these steps, and I assure you, you will never see the other gender the same way again.

Brian Pinto SMG ’09