We live in a world where women and girls are subject to female genital mutilation. We have seen such a rise in subjugation of women that, in the Netherlands, women wear the hijab to avoid being harassed and physically threatened by Islamic men enforcing a dress code. Much of the Islamic world refuses to allow girls to get an education. Murderous rape, as covered in recent news from India, has shown how dangerous the world really is.
And whom does Chloe Angyal ’09 (Perspective, Feb. 6) feel threatened by? Men who whistle at her in appreciation? In New York City?
I see this as nothing more than a willful invention of bogeymen, a blank refusal to acknowledge the clear and present ways in which women are in actual threat of their lives and limbs. Instead, we invent problems with our own society, a society in which women have achieved more than in any other in the history of the human race.
Many years ago, I was walking with my girlfriend past the EQuad. A car full of happy Tiger Inn men passed by, with a shower of wolf whistles. My girlfriend turned to them, waved, and called, “Thank you!”
I married her.