In his letter (“Fashion is cause of cat-calling,” SN 10/6 ), Andrew Sandri stated that he was sure he’d receive plenty of replies denouncing him for his letter. That was the only part of the letter that I agreed with.

Sandri seems to feel that women bring cat-calling and other forms of objectification from men onto themselves by their choice of running clothes. All I see here is another man trying to place the responsibility for his actions on his target. Regardless of what a woman is wearing, she does not deserve to be objectified or verbally assaulted by any man who walks down the street.

He goes on to present a simple plan for women joggers who want to avoid male attention: Just wear a “normal T-shirt” and “normal running shorts” and everything will be fine. If this were a realistic solution, then I would like to know why men continue to whistle and yell degrading sexual comments at me when I am walking down the street on my way to class or waiting for the bus. My choice of clothing has yet to protect me from the glares and comments of men.

Further, if a man were running down the street wearing only running shorts, he would be seen as a dedicated runner. A woman in the same situation wearing a tank top and shorts, however, is seen as trying to draw attention to herself or asking for men to yell at her. This is just one more example of the ways in which our society endorses the objectification of women and then blames women when we stand up for ourselves.

Objectifying women with whistles and cat-calls is degrading and just plain wrong. Simply put: Men, stop blaming women for your tasteless comments and yelling. Take responsibility for your actions instead of filling up the Opinion Page with excuses and faulty explanations for your inappropriate behavior.

Alyssa Baumann
social relations senior