I’M GLAD YOU PRINTED Jonetta Rose Barras’ article on why women should stay away from the Million Man March (“Ain’t Nothing But a He Thing,” 10/13). It challenged many of my assumptions about the event.

Still, the article failed to persuade me for two basic reasons. For one, I’m not convinced that ordering women to stay away is a good way of expressing “atonement.”

Second, I’m not convinced that excluding people on the basis of gender is any different from excluding them on the basis of race. At the end of her article, Barras states: “Some people might argue against renewing boundaries, but the lack of demarcation has wrought a wholesale anarchy that threatens to tear us apart in a much more devastating way.” These words could have come from a segregationist in the 1950s.

Freedom and equality are always frightening things, Ms. Barras. In the long run, though, they’reworth it.

Dupont Circle