Dear Editor:

Wednesday’s Voices column featured a cartoon with two women dressed in exposing outfits postured in a self-absorbed stance with a careless attitude towards “taking advantage” of university funding. The message here is that women are, once again, being stereotypically manipulative. Make sure, women on campus, that your motivations are pure, and that the fear of rape is imminent before you call for a ride.

Women’s transit being under attack is not about rising fuel costs. This is about a false illusion that women are receiving more privileges than men. It is not a privilege to feel unsafe when walking to your destination alone. Who cares that some women have used the transit to avoid rain or to make it off campus to a location that is not their home. Does the university only find the safety of women valid if she is studying? The university cannot disconnect itself from the whole college experience and should be accountable to the atmosphere that exists in college for students in its entirety. I don’t understand why people are more concerned with stopping women from “abusing” the transit system than with the reasons the transit exists in the first place: To stop the abuse of women.

The transit does not exist because women “feel unsafe” as Wednesday’s editorial put it. It exists because women are, in actuality, not safe. One in three women will be raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Living and knowing this reality is quite a different life experience for a woman than it is for a man. Women are subjected to honks, yells and strange cars pulling up to them. This happens to women all the time. With these circumstances, sexual assault is only moments away.

Women will walk to the bus stop, and inevitably be harassed on the way, then get on the bus itself and be harassed. We can only hope that the destination stop is in close walking distance to our final location, and that no one decides to follow us off, as we have then become highly visible targets. If the university and the editors of the DE are worried about wasted funds, there are plenty of other areas that could use some deep thought that does not involve blaming women. Perhaps the university should set up a majority-woman committee that includes students and administrators, to further discuss the dangers that exist for women on this campus before proceeding with this decision. And, as for the DE editors, perhaps some further reflection should be had when it comes to the portrayal of women, particularly in regards to the image and column published Wednesday.

Erica Dodt junior studying film