By Melissa Meister
Arizona Daily Wildcat
January 30, 1998

Patriarchy leads to depression, not Women's Studies

To the Editor:

Without a doubt, anytime I look at Jennifer McKean's column, I must shake my head and wonder, "Why?" Ms. McKean insists on writing on topics she has zip, zero personal experience with: being a minority, a lesbian and, now this week, a feminist ("Exploring feminism at its worst," Jan 28).

It is cultural realties that lead women to the "women's studies depression" Ms. McKean cites. All a women's studies class does is teach you history, philosophy, theory, etc. from a different perspective. Heck, I never knew there were female Renaissance painters until I took a women's studies class. And why not? Why shouldn't I have access to that information? Just as white slave owners barred their slaves from education "for their own good," so patriarchy has systematically erased women from "his"tory (which is why we only have fragments of Sappho instead of her original nine volumes of poetry).

Women become depressed with society (ever read Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar?), because they can finally see the societal undercurrents of patriarchy. That some psychologists see this as a disease harkens back to the days of ancient Greek medicine, where Hippocrates believed that the womb wandered around the body, and that sex and pregnancy were the only true cures.

Finally, Ms. McKean asks, "Why are some women insisting on changing the English language to suit their particular political beliefs of the moment? How many times have I heard the word 'history' be changed to 'herstory' and 'women' be spelled 'womyn'?" What you see is the results of linguistic feminism, Ms. McKean. Have you ever noticed how many derogatory words exist for women who have lots of sex in comparison to men? There are less than 20 for men and over 100 for women in the English language alone. Why the discrepancy? Because women have been subjugated at the most basic level of all, language. Linguistic feminism exists to make us think about the ways in which we talk about others and about ourselves.

In conclusion, Ms. McKean, you state that "men do some things better than women, and women do some things better than men.. . .Women are intelligent, creative, sensitive and nurturing." I distrust any logic which explicitly defines man or woman by a list of adjectives. Women can be dumb, uncreative, crass and unmotherly, too, and men can be intelligent, creative, sensitive and nurturing as well. "Man" and "Woman" are cultural constructions built around labeling. I mean, really, how do you feel about being nothing other than a noun defined by adjectives? I find it pretty insulting.

Melissa Meister
senior, Women's Studies/Humanities