Nicole Spruill

Whoa people! Take it easy on the ladies. I'm a bit offended by the recent scathing critique of the way women dress on this campus.

I think that the discussion has been much like a table with one short leg — unbalanced.

So let us turn the same eye of condescension that scrutinizes the ladies on this campus and focus our attention on the young men.

Fellas: What’s up with all the pro-ball players on the campus? I see Lebron James so often it’s any wonder how he makes it to his games.

Please, jersey-wearers everywhere, resign your membership from the NBA. Also, cease your participation in the White T-Shirt and Drooping Jeans club. While so many of us embrace a world full of color and neatness, you all resist, and no one complains. It’s not fair! How about the Doo-Raggers who suffocate their own brains.

Take them off and let your cornrows breathe.

Oh and please, all members of the Society of Suit-Shredders, disband the organization.

You know those of you who dress up in a suit and tie for some special event on campus, and immediately after the event is over, take off the tie, pull your dress shirt out, and pull your slacks down.

All these styles of clothing are subjecting young NCCU men to a world that condemns such ways of dressing and makes them out to look like wannabe athletes, thugs and people without any sense of professionalism. Young men appear sloppy and tend to transmit the wrong perception.

I'm sure the male readers are upset by now. Rightly so.

Doesn’t this sound ridiculous? Don’t I sound biased, misinformed and outside the cultural norms?

Yes, I sure do. The same bias I just exhibited is the same bias we all exhibit when we ridicule the dress of the ladies on this campus and not the dress of the men.

If the way ladies dress conveys the wrong signals to people, so does the way the men dress.

If scantily clad women are targets for rape, then men dressed as thugs are targets for prison.

If we want to fix certain standards and regulations of the way women dress on the campus, then we must fix those same guidelines to men for the sake of fairness.

I am not asserting whether I am for or against the attire of the ladies on this campus.

I am simply saying that we need to be fair and just, and include the men in our discussions on how people dress on this campus.

That is the first thing that we must do.

Our exclusive focus on women illustrates the persistence of chauvinism, paternalism and a male-dominated society, which are social ills that we must get rid of.

Secondly, we must admit that our dress, among other things, is a reflection of this generation's culture.

If we really want to change the way people dress, then change the entities which dictate our culture: TV networks, fashion industries, music moguls and countless others.