To the Editor:

I would like to take this opportunity to respond to a letter you ran on Thursday, Oct. 26, from Joel Satterlee.

Satterlee wrote in to express his “displeasure” at having to read about “high school ‘girls’ powder puff league,” among other things, saying that this was not “applicable” to the sports section.” When I read his letter, I was instantly outraged!

Why is it that “sports” is always defined as a uniquely male domain? Why is it that women are expected to remain silent as the country worships the brute strength of the “men” who play college and professional football, while the only apparent functions for “girls” in the sports world are to dress suggestively and work at “sports bars,” or to turn cartwheels on the sidelines?

Sports are just as much an empowering and uplifting experience for women athletes as they are for men. It is simply ignorant, as well as blatantly sexist, for Satterlee to write a letter criticizing one woman for sharing this experience with other women.

Wake up Satterlee! Women are gaining social and political power all around you. Eventually, we will have the equality we seek. So what if the column wasn’t particularly applicable to you? It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t meaningful to the rest of the people who read the paper, especially a certain 50 percent of us.

Tina Nepstad-Thornberry

Graduate Student

Anthropology