TO THE EDITOR:
I believe that Khan (“Why I’m not a ‘first-year’ student,” Nov. 30) completely missed the mark on why everyone should use the term ‘first-year.’ The problem with using ‘freshman’ is that it reinforces sexism and gender inequality in our society. It symbolically annihilates all of the women in our society, subsuming half of the population under the other. It makes it seem as if women do not exist.
How would first-year males feel if the term were “freshwomen?” How would first-year people of color feel if the term was “freshwhite?” There is no difference between saying “freshman” and either of those terms.
Women suffer from huge gender inequalities in our society. They are constantly at risk of sexual assault, earn an average of 74 cents to the dollar compared to men and have to fight for their reproductive rights (the rights to control their own bodies).
If we continue to subsume women under men in our daily speech, we will never be able to be seen as true equals to men in our society. We can modify our speech and do our part for the feminist movement.
Nora Blalock
Sophomore
Political Science and Women’s Studies
