In response to Alex Early’s Wespeak about the damaging effects Wes boys are having on Wes girls: Alex, I have to respectfully disagree with your statement. I appreciate the frustration that prompts you to speak, everyone does. Every individual on this campus, regardless of their gender, has been the victim of heartbreak. Girls do this to guys all the time. Perhaps there are some prevailing gender norms (or more likely just stereotypes) that lean a bit to the male-hurting-female end of things, but I find it problematic to label heart-breaking as a male-only practice. How on earth would lesbians ever get their hearts broken if that were the case? Girls stomp on their boyfriends’ hearts, boys stomp on their boyfriends’ hearts, girls stomp on their girlfriends? Based solely on my experience at Wesleyan, there are more girls breaking hearts than boys. You see, it all depends on your perspective; it depends on who is crying on your shoulder. You can hardly make the tiny cross-section of your friends a case study for social problems.
Yes, human beings suck. But this is hardly new, and hardly gender specific.
Secondly, it takes two to tango. Why were your friends in these disrespectful, destructive relationships in the first place? Why did they stay in them? I think your assertion threatens to undo all of the progress society has made via feminism and other gender/sexuality-equalizing movements. Do your friends not have any agency with which to choose for themselves who they date? Do they not have the willpower to remove themselves from hurtful situations? If not, it is these girls who are in fact hurting themselves. So, may this be an open letter to women: sometimes people suck, sometimes you find yourself in a relationship with these people. So get out or fix it! The girl in a frat party who you mentioned stands out to me especially. The first question that entered my mind was, “Why on earth is this girl staying with a guy who won’t give her the time of day every other weekend? He’s not worth your time!” Don’t complain to the boys. Based on their treatment of you, they aren’t mature enough to deserve the title of man, and they won’t change based on a Wespeak. So stop going after boys, and date some men, you’ll be happier. Not to say this is easy, or that I can do it, but at least it isn’t scapegoating men in general, giving boys more intellectual credit than they deserve, or failing to recognize women as equal rational agents who are equally responsible for their own actions and choices in relationships.
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