Editor,
Articles addressing inequalities, such as last Tuesday's article, "Study: Female professors earn less than males," are hard to find within any sort of publication, and so I applaud the Daily Lobo for putting an effort into educating the community on an issue that is often overlooked.
While I appreciated this cover-story article, I was a little uncomfortable reading the "Men need to let go of power, accept inferiority to women" letter to the editor published on the subsequent Thursday. I understand the point that Corey Davis was trying to make, but I think the general tone of the letter undermined the overlying point. It is a fallacy to assume that based on obvious biological differences, there are innate psychological and emotional differences between males and females. Women are not "essentially better than men," even though it would be nice to be able to agree with that statement.
Assuming that there are innate differences between men and women is one of the reasons there is a problem with discrimination based on gender. Historically, men have been favored as being the better gender through assumptions of stronger personality traits, stronger bodies, more stable emotional states and better brain functioning. None of these assumptions can be empirically proven to be true, and the assumptions that were presented in Davis' letter make the same mistakes.
Some of the facts: For every dollar that a white male makes, his female counterpart makes only $0.78. The number is less for women of color. For every dollar the same male makes, a black female makes $0.67, and a Hispanic female makes $0.56 (U.S. Department of Labor). These numbers are consistent with the information provided in the "Study: Female professors earn less than males" article, only on a national scale.
Despite the progress women have made so far, we still have a long way to go until males and females are truly equal. This thought can be upsetting, as the passion in Davis' letter shows. However, I feel degrading men is the wrong way to go about addressing this issue. Women are not "generally more sensible, compassionate, likeable and pleasant than most men." This statement does not hold true for all women or for all men.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Instead of focusing on what assumptions one can make about male or female personality traits, the focus should be on how everyone is similar. Defining different personality traits as being essentially female or essentially male only perpetuates the inequality between the genders. Perpetuating these inequalities is not the same as educating people on the prejudice and discrimination that still exists.
Emily Chavez
UNM student
