Challah Back: Women should take the bad with the good of deserved equality

I was walking down Buswell Street on the way back to my apartment this weekend, when I came upon a Boston University Police officer interrogating a pair of attractive college girls. On the sidewalk between the girls was a brown paper bag and inside were several bottles of alcohol.

Assuming that the girls were under 21 and were being cited for underage possession, I thought to myself, “Hmm, sucks for them.” Don’t they know that if you’re going to bring large quantities of alcohol into a BU residence you’re supposed to carry it in a suitcase?

I perked up my ears as I walked by, expecting to hear the cop taking down the girls’ names and telling them to start packing their bags for a move to Allston. After all, as my RA explained at the start of the semester, when BU’s paying to house hundreds of students in luxury hotels across the Charles River, it won’t take much to get kicked out of on-campus housing and free up a spot for a displaced freshman.

But what I heard as I passed by were not strong words of reprimand from the officer. Instead, what I heard was a testament to the power of breasts.

“Okay ladies,” said the male officer, “I could have arrested both of you tonight, but I’m going to let you go as long as you promise me I won’t catch you doing this again.”

My jaw dropped. The girls were just going to be sent on their way? Not that I’m such a fan of the enforcement of bans on underage drinking, but this is a university that sends letters home to parents of students who steal forks from the dining hall.

Daryl DeLuca stood up and pledged during my freshman orientation that underage drinking would “not be tolerated at Boston University,” but I don’t remember any disclaimer that the policy didn’t apply to pretty girls.

While so many women stand up and demand equal rights, I think too many of them ignore the equal responsibilities that come with those rights. Women want to run for president, serve in the military and have equal funding for their college sports teams; but they also want to have doors opened for them, seats given up on the T and free drinks at bars. Women want to be able to wear sexy outfits without being harassed and whistled at while they walk down the street, but they also want to use their bodies to their advantage. How many stories have you heard of women who got out of speeding tickets by flashing a little skin, or perhaps by breaking down and crying to the officer? If they’re not using their bodies to get what they want, they’re relying on their perceived emotional fragility to elicit sympathy and have things turn out in their favor.

Even women who don’t actively participate in such demeaning actions can still benefit from demeaning stereotypes. To be fair, maybe the girls on Buswell Street didn’t do anything to encourage the officer to let them go. It’s possible that no tears were shed and no cleavage was shown. The officer certainly could have decided entirely on his own that he’d be a nice guy and let a couple of pretty girls off the hook. Maybe he would have even made the same decision after confronting me and one of my male friends. Perhaps this was just an unusually friendly member of the BUPD who would not have arrested any students that night, regardless of their gender. However, I have too many male friends who have been cited and reprimanded by the Office of Judicial Affairs, or even kicked out of on-campus housing, for similar offenses to believe that the outcome of this incident was not motivated by gender stereotypes.

It’s hard to blame the girls for accepting the officer’s decision. How many of us would stand up and demand to be punished for a crime after being told that we could go free? But if these ladies suspected that the officer’s judgment was at all motivated by the fact that they are female, then they should have asked the officer to pull out the handcuffs immediately. If these are women who believe that they ought to have the same benefits and opportunities as men, aren’t they obligated to demand the same punishments and difficulties that men face?

Now before you aspiring feminists dash off a nasty letter to the editor in response to this column, consider for a moment that I’m not the male chauvinist you may perceive me to be. I’m a firm supporter of equal rights for all people, but I think that with rights come responsibilities. While there are certainly hardcore feminists who are outraged if a man tries to open a door for them, I think that the vast majority of you ladies are middle-of-the-road-feminists who want equal rights without the responsibilities that come along with them. Sure I can open the door for a woman just because I’m a nice guy, but in accepting that favor, women promulgate the stereotype that they are incapable of opening the door for themselves.

Perhaps I ought to stop opening so many doors and giving up my seat on the T, but I don’t think that would make me very popular with the ladies. So I engage in this endless cycle of favors for women who later argue that they do not need favors, and become a disseminator of stereotypes and discrimination because I think that if I didn’t, women would think I was being rude.

I try to believe that I’m unaffected by all of these perceived weaknesses which women fail to effectively refute and think, for instance, that I’d still vote for a female president if I felt she was qualified. The only problem is that my perception of her qualifications might be hampered by the gender stereotypes that women sometimes use to their own advantage. For instance, how would a female president react if the country were attacked? Would she be bold and respond with a strong show of force, or would she be so emotionally distraught that she’d be unable to lead the country?

Certainly we’d all like to believe that a woman’s emotions would not overcome her in a time of crisis, but if women truly desire to have these stereotypes erased, then they’ll have to accept the fact that they’ll be getting out of a lot fewer speeding tickets.