Dear Editor,
I agree with the main premise of the piece “How Not To Be A Sexist Pig” — namely that attitudes ignoring or justifying behaviors like catcalls are wrong. However, for a piece that criticizes the unfair judgments some men feel entitled to make about women, it seems disturbingly full of generalizations of its own that relegate all men to the “sexist pig” category.
The piece, for example uses “us” to refer to women and “you” to refer both to men with demeaning attitudes toward women and men who (like many of the students and professors I know here) respect women as individuals. Every male, this language implies, either actively demeans women or cannot treat women as fellow human beings without a lecture on why disrespect toward women affects him personally. In saying, “The only difference between men and women is that [women] have to fight for our rights. Don’t make the battle harder for us,” the piece also presents men and women as enemies, or at best dismisses men as anything more than obstacles to women’s success.
Of course there are men who need to hear exactly how their ignorance and disrespect affects the women with whom they interact, or how their actions have relegated the women around them to a place of powerlessness. This piece addresses well some attitudes that reduce women to physical bodies without individuality or dignity. Unfortunately, it seems to ignore that men are also individuals, many of whom do respect women and are anything but “sexist pigs.”
Sincerely,
Abby Erlanson