It's not about yoga pants. It's about sexism. Instead of allowing yourself to be "ashamed" of the intellect of your classmates or what they wear, you should instead be ashamed of your belief system.  Perhaps most obviously shameful is that this belief system is par for the course; many men across our campus, our country, and our world share the beliefs implied in the article—that they are entitled to speak for women and evaluate their choices better than women themselves. Ironically, when a sexist article was published in a newspaper of our own, we stood divided; some flatly defended its position without giving second thought to its implications, some laughed at it for its superficial value, and some personally attacked you, the author, instead of your views. These responses to your article are misguided and neglect our primary objection to it.

It's not about yoga pants. It's about the implications you, the author, don't even know you made. Even something as simple as the construction of your article is offensive. You begin with the notion that Roger Williams University has less than rigorous academics. You then cite a specific example of a woman who you believe embodies that notion. Finally, you make an assumption about how these women, who are apparently dumb and get easy grades, think and feel. You imply that we should dress differently because it's in your best interest. You tell us that we "don't know how to express our sexuality" and you criticize us for the fact that your own eyes wander. Here's a thought: Maybe women don't dress the way they do to please men. Maybe they do it to feel comfortable, or sexy, or pretty. But, we are not going to make that assumption because we don't know why individual women dress the way they do and neither do you.

It's not about yoga pants.It's about male privilege. This is when certain men, who have no idea what it's like to live in a woman's body, tell women how they feel, what they should choose, and how they should live their lives. Now, we all have privilege. The authors of this letter have no idea what it's like not to be white. We have no idea what it's like to grow up outside of the United States. We have no idea what it's like to live in poverty. Because of this, we would never dare speak for the experiences of these respective groups nor try to "get inside their minds" and assume their voices.  We all have privilege. But male privilege seems to be the last stand tolerated by otherwise progressive-minded people. Oftentimes, women become the butt of jokes and the subject of morality-policing (as in your article) simply by virtue of being women. When women respond with justified anger, we're often told by many men (and some women) to "calm down," "take a joke," and "stop getting [our] panties in a knot." It seems as though you have some special insight into why we women make the decisions we do. So, we wear yoga pants because we're "fulfilling [our] exhibitionist desires?" Thanks for clarifying! We falsely believed that we wore them because they were comfortable. Mr. Whitmore, we don't believe you wrote this article with the intention of being sexist. That's the problem. Your article implying that women (and women alone) should have their wardrobes policed, is deeply sexist, but it's the kind of sexism that's so common it's almost peripheral—taken as a given if you have the body of someone outside the privileged sex.

After your article was published, many students took to their Facebook pages to ask: "Why are people getting so upset about yoga pants? Aren't there more important things to be outraged about in this world?" But as we said, we're not angry about yoga pants. We're angry about how some men attempt to read our minds and evaluate our decisions when they will never know what it's like to be female. We're angry about the word "slut" being a uniquely female term. We're angry about having a one-in-four chance of being sexually assaulted on our campus and knowing that the incident will often be attributed to our flirting, our drinking or our dress.

It's not about yoga pants. It's about choice. Recently, you responded to the criticism of your article by speaking on WQRI. When asked to explain why you wrote the article, you said that you wanted to make people evaluate how they "affect the social culture" at RWU through the choices they make when they get dressed in the morning. If seeing women in yoga pants offends your sense of decency, then that's fair enough and you have the right to your opinion; we don't contest that. However, we urge you to consider how you affect the social culture by policing women's wardrobes and making assumptions about women's choices before you write your next opinion piece.

Sincerely,

Katherine Dumeer

Kelsey Force

Leigh Wilmot