'White beauty' isn't a goal for all women

I'm writing in response to the sociology study done by Professor Louise Roth and graduate student Rachael Neal that wrongly "confirms" that women, regardless of ethnicity, feel the need to conform to the "white standard" of beauty.

I find it hard to believe that a sample size as small as 100 women and limited to a college campus is enough to "confirm" that American women feel the need to conform to a white standard of beauty.

Roth's example of black women straightening their hair in an attempt to look more white is ridiculous.

Apparently she doesn't know very many black women and the extreme amount of time and work it takes to maintain our hair.

We do not straighten our hair in an attempt to look more white; we straighten it because leaving it naturally curly is more time-consuming and takes more effort than having it straightened.

Black women have been straightening their hair since the early 1900s, not in an attempt to look more white, but to make our lives a little easier.

Lastly, if the trend is to look more white, why are so many white women, especially on college campuses, flocking to tanning beds, spray-on tans and spots under the sun to tan their light white skin to brown?

I see lots of white women on this campus whose legs are as dark as mine.

Has there been a study done on what those women consider beautiful?

I prefer to keep my brown skin, and avoid being stick-thin, and I'm sure there are a lot of other women of various ethnicities who feel the same way.

Erica Stevenson
family studies senior

Anarchy does not translate to freedom

In the Aug. 26 editorial "Anarchy in Arizona," the editorial staff misrepresents anarchy at the expense of freedom.

Supposedly, the reduction of a control - the extension of "last call" by an hour - is a clear step toward anarchy.

In America today, the government has laws that achieve two goals: protection and regulation.

"Anarchy" refers to a lack of both regulation and protection.

In an anarchistic society, the initiation of physical force rewards the criminal at the expense of the victim.

In practice, this leads to mob rule, where the biggest gang gets the most loot. This is not an "ideal" to be working toward.

Freedom requires the protection of individual rights. The initiation of physical force should be banned, and the government should act only to protect citizens from force and fraud.

Supporters of both anarchy and freedom advocate removing government regulations, but freedom is distinguished from anarchy by its protection of individual rights.

The pushing back of last call is a reduction of a government regulation.

However, this does not affect the protection the law offers for victims of accidents caused by drunk drivers.

The reduction of a regulation while maintaining related protections is clearly a step in the direction of freedom.

It is not primarily a step in the direction of anarchy, which would seek to both let people drink more and let drunk-driving murderers go free.

The word "anarchy" has been used only at the expense of freedom.

When a move toward freedom is represented instead as a move toward anarchy, the good (freedom) goes unacknowledged while the bad (anarchy) is praised.

Chad Mills
electrical engineering and computer science junior