To the Editor:

Whatever happened to tolerance? After reading Meghan Clyne’s article “A Center for Some Women” (4/21), it’s easy to see why conservatism is so quickly stereotyped as intolerant. Her article was nothing more than unwarranted reactionary spite directed at a group whose only goal is to promote tolerance.

As a Yale woman who is straight, apolitical, Catholic, and a varsity athlete, I have found a very welcoming community at the Women’s Center. Given Clyne’s inaccurate descriptions of the center as a place for radical feminist, liberal, lesbians, it’s surprising that I feel so welcome there.

One of the worst mistakes that Clyne makes is to equate the Women’s Center and feminism with lesbianism. Certainly the center fights for queer rights, but it also fights for the rights of rape victims, female athletes, working women — the list goes on. Despite Clyne’s objections, the Women’s Center fights for the rights for all women. It’s absurd to suggest that the Women’s Center isn’t doing its part to help out Yale-educated working mothers; the Women’s Center has been a consistent force in the fight for equal pay for equal work and the battle to get more women tenured. Clyne should look around and ask herself who is actively fighting for the rights of working women and mothers. It certainly isn’t the Conservative Party.

I am not on the Women’s Center staff nor am I a member of any of the groups there. I go there to do my homework, hear a concert or speech, or to have a discussion with caring people. I go there precisely because I find acceptance on a campus that is so strictly divided. At the Women’s Center, I find tolerance.

Amanda Webb ’06

April 21, 2003