It's been a rough two weeks to be a girl. The letters to the editor which appeared in the Feb. 13 and Feb. 27 issues of this paper are an embarrassment to women everywhere and portray exactly the starry-eyed idealism and whimpering hurt feelings that I loathe in my sex.

That's right, loathe. Let me let you in on a little secret: I don't really like most girls. I find them shallow, petty, fickle and mean. I have very little faith that they will ever institute "equality" using the methods they prefer.

However, there is plenty of copy to run through without bringing my "whiny and weak" opinion into it. There were two glaring factual errors in the letter to the editor written by Kate Stayman-London '05 last week and I point them out because they stubbornly refuse to be corrected.

"One in three women on this planet will be raped, assaulted or abused," she claims. Funny, when I was a freshman, it was one in four. Either way, it's not true. The chilling "one in four" statistic was derived from a survey called "The Scope of Rape," which first ran in the "Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology" in 1987 and was picked up by Ms. Magazine shortly thereafter. It claimed that one out of every four college women has been the victim of rape or attempted rape.

However, Mary Koss, who performed the study, set her own criteria for rape and, as a result, 73 percent of "rape victims" were not aware that they had been assaulted. 43 percent were still dating their "attacker." Nationwide, campus police report between 1,300 and 1,500 incidents of rape per year, which amounts to less than one per campus. And while rape is an underreported crime, the magnitude of such an error is implausible.

"One day, battery will not be the leading cause of injury to women aged 15 to 44," Stayman-London added. Again, this wildly exaggerated figure needs to be corrected before it strikes again. First off, define "injury." Injured enough to go to the hospital? The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics estimate that domestic abuse-related trips to hospital emergency rooms account for less than one percent of all ER visits. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that only one in five battery-related injuries make it to the hospital. That still only accounts for five percent of injuries and completely ignores injuries sustained in the Booher household, where my mother would apply Bactine and a Band-Aid and tell me to suck it up.

Stayman-London and William Greene '05 both neglect one of my biggest complaints about the "Vagina Monologues" and their ilk, that they preach to the converted. This is something that Andrew Moin's '05 excellent column, "Monologues miss the mark on feminism," (Feb. 20) picked up on. Greene claims that "female sexuality is an issue that is not generally treated in an open manner. American society as a whole instructs women to be reserved about sex and about their bodies. They are faced with a double standard of sexuality that pervades even the most enlightened social environments."

Look around. Amherst is demonstrably not American society as a whole. In fact, I challenge you to find an area of this campus that doesn't throw women's sexuality in our faces at all times, screaming to high heaven how great girls are. There are posters and table tents, a women's center, a feminist alliance, RAD classes, plays, musicals, interpretive dances … not to mention the annual staging of the "Monologues" themselves. It's absurd: Amherst College is desperately trying to overcompensate for the perceived attitudes of the rest of the country. It's all right, ladies. We believe you. You're not changing anyone's mind.

Jenna Osburn '02 responded unfavorably to a column I wrote at the beginning of the semester, in her letter "Trying to clarify a definition (Feb. 14). I'd like to address her claim that my whole column was moot because I mistakenly said I'm no feminist.

So, I have to label myself a feminist simply because of what the dictionary says? You and I both know that marching under the banner of feminism entails much more than the maintenance of equal treatment under law. If you want to play games with the Oxford English Dictionary or Merriam-Webster, let's try this one: the latter dictionary defines queer as "1 a: worthless, counterfeit b: questionable, suspicious 2 a: differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal b (1): eccentric, unconventional (2): mildly insane: touched c: absorbed or interested to an extreme or unreasonable degree: obsessed d (usually disparaging): homosexual 3: not quite well."

Heck, I'm worthless. Most people here find me questionable and suspicious. And I'm definitely eccentric, unconventional and, very possibly, mildly insane. But if I went around calling myself a queer, most people would reply with, "Bitch, you trippin'?"

I do not call myself a feminist because some feminists have given the whole enterprise an awful name. By being so "tolerant" and "all-encompassing of the experiences of women," the feminist movement has alienated most of its moderate and conservative members. I'm all for equality. But we've already gotten it, or gotten close enough to where y'all can calm the hell down. I emphatically do not believe that women need special dispensation and quotas and dumbed down tests so that we can achieve the appearance of equality without the substance. Having a puppet with breasts sitting in the CEO's office is not progress unless she's fought her way up like everyone else.

Call me crazy, but I think that women who deserve to be powerful figures are strong enough, and bright enough, to do it on their own.