2008 Woodie Awards
Views on feminism troubling
Issue date: 3/2/07 Section: Rocket Letters
I was quite troubled by the opinion piece written by Dan Klein published in The Rocket last week. The piece directly attacked the fight for women's equality. Klein labeled women that support women's rights as "man-haters." This is simply an inaccurate statement. Most of the women I know who continue to fight for equality, including myself, have male partners-boyfriends or husbands, male children and male friends, and are not man-haters.
Personally, I am a proud member of the fight for women's rights and consider myself to be a feminist. Feminism is about equality for all people-both male and female. Feminism argues against discrimination. Feminism honors and respects choices that women make for themselves. If you agree with these positions then you are a feminist.
I am one of the two women on this campus that wear the shirt mentioned in Klein's piece, and I do so with pride. Klein's comments directly prove the point made on my shirt. Just because women stand up for their rights they are simplistically accused of hating men and being narrow-minded. Might not narrow-mindedness be a better descriptor of Klein than of feminists?
I also take issue with the statement Klein makes that "…it is men who are suffering the most when it comes to being hated simply for their gender." Klein clearly has no understanding of how women are victimized in many different ways. Women are often the victims of hatred because of their sex, when one in four women are still raped, 87 out of 100 senators are still men, 5 million women still starve themselves to look "beautiful" and women's health, freedom, safety and reproductive rights are still threatened around the world.
On Feb. 15, 16 and 17, a group of women from SRU presented "The Vagina Monologues" and by so doing raised $3,000 for two area women's shelters. The Rocket failed to mention a single sentence about the show before, during or even after the performances. Even further, after the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance did a demonstration to honor the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, The Rocket published a commentary on the demonstration in which they questioned the appropriateness of celebrating an existing law that protects the rights of women to control their bodies. Several responses to the wrong-headed commentary were provided to The Rocket. None were published. So, The Rocket publishes Klein's anti-feminist garbage, ignores a huge event in which about 20 SRU students and faculty participated and over 700 people attended that benefits abused women, and fails to publish even a single response to an inaccurate and misleading piece that attacks feminists and feminism. So much for my expectation of balanced and fair treatment.
Alex McNeill
Sophomore
Political Science Major
Women's Studies Minor
Personally, I am a proud member of the fight for women's rights and consider myself to be a feminist. Feminism is about equality for all people-both male and female. Feminism argues against discrimination. Feminism honors and respects choices that women make for themselves. If you agree with these positions then you are a feminist.
I am one of the two women on this campus that wear the shirt mentioned in Klein's piece, and I do so with pride. Klein's comments directly prove the point made on my shirt. Just because women stand up for their rights they are simplistically accused of hating men and being narrow-minded. Might not narrow-mindedness be a better descriptor of Klein than of feminists?
I also take issue with the statement Klein makes that "…it is men who are suffering the most when it comes to being hated simply for their gender." Klein clearly has no understanding of how women are victimized in many different ways. Women are often the victims of hatred because of their sex, when one in four women are still raped, 87 out of 100 senators are still men, 5 million women still starve themselves to look "beautiful" and women's health, freedom, safety and reproductive rights are still threatened around the world.
On Feb. 15, 16 and 17, a group of women from SRU presented "The Vagina Monologues" and by so doing raised $3,000 for two area women's shelters. The Rocket failed to mention a single sentence about the show before, during or even after the performances. Even further, after the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance did a demonstration to honor the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, The Rocket published a commentary on the demonstration in which they questioned the appropriateness of celebrating an existing law that protects the rights of women to control their bodies. Several responses to the wrong-headed commentary were provided to The Rocket. None were published. So, The Rocket publishes Klein's anti-feminist garbage, ignores a huge event in which about 20 SRU students and faculty participated and over 700 people attended that benefits abused women, and fails to publish even a single response to an inaccurate and misleading piece that attacks feminists and feminism. So much for my expectation of balanced and fair treatment.
Alex McNeill
Sophomore
Political Science Major
Women's Studies Minor
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Rob
posted 3/02/07 @ 10:25 AM EST
"5 million women still starve themselves to look "beautiful" and women's health, freedom, safety and reproductive rights are still threatened around the world. (Continued…)
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