[Note to editors: Italics delimited by underscores, with three paragraph headers. No other fancy business.] MIND STALK by D. R. Sullivan _On Brown's column_ I agree with Myfanwy Callahan and Andrew Huntington that Cherish Brown's column of two weeks ago does not describe my local reality, but I am not convinced that it was without merit. It is generally admitted that there are cultural differences among the seven undergraduate Houses, and what strikes me is that Callahan and I are from Dabney, and Huntington is from Ricketts, while I believe Brown is from Lloyd or Ruddock. I have not seen or heard of much sexual harassment in Dabney, true. I have not had enough to do with Ruddock to have heard of harassment there either, but at least a few years ago I know it produced the _BFD_, a rather crass and risque publication. I do not think it impossible that Brown seems to be writing from a different planet because, in fact, she is. I have not heard men talk about 'babes' and 'bitches' (although I have hung out, on average, with one and a half males) but Brown says she has, and I trust at least her sincerity. Appealing to gorillas was unfortunate, however. While dolphins reportedly engage in both rape and group defense against it, my third-hand recollection is that Galdikas has said orangutangs largely reproduce by rape. Arguably that is their selection for fitness: if the male can't overcome the female, he isn't fit enough to breed. In general, appealing to the natural kingdom for moral arguments is a risky business at best. _On the Responses_ But whatever the merits or lacks of Brown's original column, some of the replies were quite uninspiring. Bennett and Lauctus claim "Neither men nor women have much time to analytically categorize their peers as sexual objects or otherwise." This claim seems bizarre. It requires leisure to appreciate other humans for the individuals they are; categorical classification is precisely what is done as a time-saving heuristic. For a lonely, frustrated, and far too busy person to classify others into people to get help on homework from, people to sleep with, and rocks, is quite plausible. If this is not what is done (and I do not think that it is) the reason is not from lack of time. Mason Porter writes "She condemns nearly half the human race sexual oppressors." [sic] "...I would love to see what would happen if a male wrote the equivalent article from his point of view." As Brown replied, if a male tried to claim that the female half of the human race consisted of sexual oppressors, he would be laughed at. While I deny that men are intrinsically oppressive, the fact is that throughout most of history, and most of the world today, power, liberty, and self-determination have been possessed by men. Some women found chinks to slip through; many men haven't had much power at all. But they have generally had more than their women. This does not justify Brown's sweeping generalization, but it may understandably fuel her anger at more local practices she is offended by. _The Solution_ It is generally admitted that the imbalanced gender ratio is unhealthy. The obvious solution is to balance it. "But no!", I hear, "there aren't enough qualified women! We'd have to lower standards!" Silly boys. There is another way: _Admit fewer men_. Admit as many qualified women as are in the application pool, and then admit that number of men. We'd have half-size classes for a while, and Caltech would lose some undergraduate tuition, but it would make a happier experience for those here -- of both genders -- and make the school more attractive to future students, so that the classes could then be brought up to size. And if gender problems here are related only to the ratio, and not to male attitudes, then the problems would go away. This isn't a "Modest Proposal"; I'm quite serious. And this needn't be seen as affirmative action, certainly not in any conventional form. We would simply be saying that given that the community Caltech students live in is pretty much themselves, and that the percentage of women seems to be a large limiting factor of happiness in this community, the number of men admitted would be limited to ensure the happiness of both those admitted and rejected.