Laura Frost’s column, “The war on women: It’s the wrong fight,” yesterday on UMD Feminists for Sexual Health’s recent SlutWalk event was completely inaccurate, and misrepresentative of the entire mission. I will acknowledge that Frost is entitled to her own opinion, but what good is an opinion without the proper facts to back it up? If Frost has the audacity to call me an “ungrateful person” for my personal beliefs, then I’d like to take a moment to point out that she is incredibly uninformed.

I agree the issues facing our sisters in China, Africa, the Middle East and other regions around the world are a high priority, yet that does not make our own issues on the homefront any less important. At this university, Feminism Without Borders aims to address the concerns regarding the oppression of women in other countries, and the new group – Feminists for Sexual Health, the sponsors of SlutWalk – works to fight for reproductive rights here at home. Both groups are inherently important to the broader issues that affect women around the globe, and no issue is less important than another.

While I admire Frost’s powerful use of anaphora, I found her statements overgeneralized and misinformed. Let’s set the record straight: We are not fighting for the right to wear exposing clothing and have no one say anything bad about us. We are fighting for the right to speak out against victim blaming and the belief that a woman deserved to be raped because of the clothes she wore. Like many marches, it served the purpose of raising awareness about an issue and gaining attention for a movement. It certainly has people talking. Victim blaming is an issue that needs to end. Go ahead and try to tell me I deserved to encounter a form of sexual assault when I walked home from my school bus during my sophomore year of high school, wearing a pair of jeans and a simple T-shirt. Did this encounter not count because it took place in a suburban neighborhood rather than a third-world country? Frost has missed the point.

We are not fighting to have the government force companies to offer more extensive health coverage; we are fighting to make birth control more available and affordable for those who need it most. Some don’t even need it because they want to have sex; they need it because it prevents harmful ovarian cysts and reduces symptoms of PMS. In many of her columns, Frost openly admits that she is a Catholic. Would the 98 percent of Catholic women who have used some form of artificial contraception agree they should not have ample access to birth control at an affordable price?

Additionally, we are not fighting for the right to “murder [our] babies” – we are fighting for the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy for a wide variety of reasons. This is a choice that affects only the individual, not Frost or anyone else. What a woman decides to do with her pregnancy is her prerogative. I do not need to go into the whole debate of pro-choice versus pro-life, because what that ultimately comes down to is a matter of moral beliefs, and we will probably never agree. However, I will say this: Pro-choice is pro-life, in that an abortion can protect a mother from a pregnancy that may ultimately kill her.

So there you have it. A taste of what we’re really fighting for. We’re not here “to take voters’ attention away from the real issues.” These are the real issues. Issues I plan to consider carefully as I vote in my first election this November. I’m sorry you’re “embarrassed to be associated with [us] and ashamed that this is what [we] consider worth fighting for.” Perhaps if you did choose to associate with us and attended a meeting, you’d see what we’re really about. We’re not proactively prancing in heels for our own benefit. We’re striding with pride to address and change the narrow minded views that you present.

Courtney Guth is a sophomore English major. She can be reached at courtneyleighguth@gmail.com.