Middle-of-the-road writer

I am writing to clarify a few of the sweeping absurdities presented by the Elliot Levy article entitled,”Women should take the bad with the good of deserved equality”.

Let me just apologize on the behalf of the female population for being given physical “assets” that so obviously allow us the “privilege of getting out of speeding tickets” and,as your article so brilliantly articulated, for getting out of “underage drinking charges” with the “power of breasts”.

If you think our bodies have not been the MAJOR source of struggle for our entire Western lives, you should try to live like one. “Why?” you ask do women feel their bodies have acted as entrapping devices on their lives? Oh, that’s easy! Maybe it’s because in the Western world, yes even in the RADICALLY EQUALITY SEEKING TIMES WE LIVE IN, women are still very much imprisoned in the cultural myths applied to our bodies, which are thought of primarily as our identities.

If you think for one minute that we women revel in the fact that our bodies have been the primary attribute designating our treatment in the workplace, in academia, in politics, or on Buswell, you are wrong.

As a result of you being blessed as a born male, living in not only a male-centered society but also a male-centric mentality, it is not surprising that you should feel jealous when occasionaly the means by which a woman is so often degraded (her body) becomes the code by which she is given the upperhand over you and your drinking buddies. It is quite natural for you to demand and even require the utmost of preferential treatment in all matters even in those concerning getting away with as much as you can under the law.

However, I have a question for you. Since you are so obviously an upstanding citizen of the law, why didn’t you write down the license plate of that squad car so that you could report the (most-likely) male cops and the blatant sex biased discrepancies they were guilty of.

One of my hypotheses: you could not bring yourself to look at the males in this situation as negligent because then that would distract you from your own narrow-minded misogyny. Who is more guilty, the cops for letting their hormones and/or paternal instincts govern their actions or the females, by virtue of being female and therefore being judged and treated differently as a result of their physical appearances. It is no shock that females are and have been traditionally objectified by Western culture, but I ask you, is it the fact that the women were let off easier than hypothetical male counterparts in a hypothetical simulated situation what should really be judged, or is it the larger structure of institutional sexism/female objectification that should be taken note of and criticized?

Also, your ideas of feminism are pretty skewed. What would you know of feminism, which as Webster defines is the “doctrine advocating for women the same rights granted men”. “Rights” are not the unlawful privileges you speak of and are jelaous of. Rights are a woman walking down the street with a case of beer and NOT getting stopped by a barrage of men, which frequently she is accustomed to and harassed by.

In addition, the end of your article where you present a pedantic idea that a female president during this wartime climate would be either of two very ridiculous extremes: “bold and respond with a strong show of force” or “be so emotionally distraught that she’d be unable to lead the country” is quite laughable. Is the first woman president supposed to be Xena or Oprah? Not all of us are bloodthirsty humans or tearfilled saps. Be realistic and place your sexist framework for action over the ideals and plans of the current MALE president’s actions. Which category does he fit into? Is either of your scenarios going to end the war? Does Bush’s endocrine system/genitalia ensure that he is more sensible to govern our country?

I have a suggestion for you. Try to live one day in the shoes of a woman, literally and figuratively. See how clear cut and easy it is for you to place yourself and all of us women in the categories of “hardcore feminists” or “middle-of-the road-feminists” or even “the power of breasts girls”. See if you can hack being ogled and “ay mami”ed every few feet of a three block walk. See if you can for one minute realize that it is very deserved when a female is actually given a little more leeway than the everyday male; she has to put up with a significantly larger amount of prejudices than you and other males, which is the one thing your column (implicitly)expressed well: it showed that sexist ideals are very much alive in urban centers even in a setting such as this where higher-learnng is to be stressed and educated, open-minded people should exist but questionably do. I do however have faith, that is why I wrote this piece.

Marie Suchan and the ILP females and James femigrrl@bu.edu CAS ’03