Just Say No

As a married man who has spent every available moment respecting the rights of people, not just one or the other gender, I applaud most of Carol Sanger’s commentary (“Just Say No, Just Hear No,” April 25). Every woman I’ve ever met has been victimized by multitudes of men who can’t take “no” for an answer. A lot of men need to learn that overpowering a woman when she says “no” is a disgusting, criminal act of violence, not a display of manhood.

My yellow flag goes up, however, when Sanger states that “men have understood their job to be to persuade the woman into ‘yes’. . . .” Such statements are giving a lot of us guys persecution complexes. Does she mean all men disregard women’s rights? Some men? A simple qualifier would clear this matter up.

I think Sanger and all women who refer to men as a unified group in their misogyny (just as all men who refer to women as a unified group in their mythical tendency to say “no” when they mean “yes”) are alienating the very men who actually do support them.

Please, give us men credit where it’s due. Many of us are fighting for better, fairer rape laws right along side you outraged women; we’re outraged, too! Can’t you hear us?

STUART ACKERMAN

Northridge