While we appreciate the challenge both staffers and editors of The Student face in producing a weekly publication here at Amherst, we were disappointed with the final article written about our season, "Field Hockey falls in title game." As seniors, we felt the article misrepresented the feelings of the team by placing unnecessary emphasis on our loss. "What is failure?" is not an appropriate way to begin any sports article, especially not for a team that made it to the finals of the NESCAC tournament. Over the past four seasons, the Amherst field hockey team has made the post-season each year. Two of those years, Amherst made the NCAA tournament. In the 1999 season, Amherst was the runner-up at the NCAA Championship. Despite what was said in the article, what we will remember most is our success in a challenging league, and the positive experience of both playing on and being members of the team.
Robin Ackerman '02
Mairin Brady '02
Marcy Busch '02
Anne Close '02
Beth Sensing '02
Laurie Smith '02
Column out of touch with reality
"Pimps & Hos" makes light of prostitution
In her recent piece, "TAP by any other name," Windy Booher '02 attacks the critics of SoCo's recent "Pimps and Hos" themed TAP. She accuses "these feminists" of being hypocrites, and of "denying women the freedom to choose." In fact, Booher even goes so far as to claim that "feminists discount the intelligence of women." Indeed, the only thing missing from the article, is a reasoned and intelligent response to those students who criticize the event. The piece is a glib and flippant attack on feminism and liberal politics, an ideologically-based rant that explicitly ignores the real issues under debate-school sponsorship of an event that openly endorses the violence and oppression typical of many pimp-sex worker relationships.
Nowhere in the piece does Booher ever actually mention the reality of life for the average sex worker. Not once does she mention the abuse and domination inherent in the pimp-ho relationship. Prostitution, as it exists in the contemporary United States, is an oppressive system that objectifies and exploits both genders. The sex industry is violent and dangerous-a system that unionization and regulation would hope to remedy. Most sex workers do not choose their lifestyle; rather, they are forced into it by economic and social conditions beyond their immediate control. The fact that college students so openly mock what for many women is a life or death situation reveals something about the social class of many Amherst students. What's next, "Red Neck" TAP, where we pretend to be of low income and rural backgrounds? Really, it's time we stopped letting things slide by and start to protest and denounce those institutional social practices that we perceive as unjust and prejudicial.
Eleanor Mahoney '02
The modern face of feminism
I was shocked after reading Windy Booher's article "TAP by any other name" in last week's issue of The Student. Maybe it's my naivete talking, but I was under the impression that the 1950s anti-feminist rhetoric she spewed was no longer the diatribe of mainstream Republican intellectuals. I was wrong. After reading her article, one would assume that all feminists on campus are part of a small, angry subculture. You couldn't get further from the truth.
The feminists at Amherst today cannot be categorized and defined by old-fashioned standards. We do not all hate men; some of us are men. We do not rally under one political cause. Amherst's feminists may not even call themselves feminists. The images associated with that word are not pleasant. The moment I tell someone that I'm a feminist, they say, "Oh, you mean a Feminazi?" As a Jew, I find that term particularly offensive. But feminists of all races, religions and backgrounds agree. The word "Feminazi" is used to create the inaccurate stereotype of all feminists as man-haters.
There is no typical feminist. The student athlete who spends her day struggling to finish her classes, kick ass at soccer practice and finish two papers for tomorrow is a feminist. The mother who works all day in an office only to come home, make dinner, clean house and put her children to bed is a feminist. The politician, scientist, writer or artist who struggles with the stereotypes and obstacles thrown in her career path is a feminist. The man who speaks out against rape is a feminist.
And yes, Windy, today's feminist is also the student who protests "Pimps and Hos" TAP because she is repulsed by the fact that our school glamorized the pain, poverty and humiliation of the sexual slave industry that is a reality for hundreds of thousands of women across the globe. Today's feminist is a woman who survives and thrives despite the obstacles she faces.
For the moment, the feminists at Amherst are not united. Some have joined the Amherst Feminist Alliance. Most haven't. Unlike the feminists of past generations, we don't have one issue or one spokeswoman to unite under.
One day, when we emerge from our Amherst bubble and have to survive in a world that views women as second-class citizens, we will regret this separation.
Leora Maccabee '05
For further information
God Bless America. At this time, in our country, people are being asked to honor their freedoms by waiving them; we are being told to be silent if we have anything contrary to say. The media is doing a fine job of it, as they refuse to report ethnically motivated attacks, some fatal, prompted or licensed by the Sept. 11 atrocities. Many people are wearing or waving flags not to promote patriotism, but to protect themselves against what would happen if they did not do so. This I know personally.
Last week's opinion column responding to concerns raised by "Pimps and Hos" TAP was another on a list of "stop complaining and join the party" decrees. I feel the issues aroused by "Pimps and Hos" did not receive fair treatment in that article, yet I am not the person to voice them.
So for those who might be curious to think beyond the single sentence summation provided by Windy Booher on the topic of feminism and prostitution, its representations and realities, I would like to offer the following resources from Frost Library, with the understanding that female prostitution is all too often a segregated image within the larger category of sex workers: "Public Sex" by Pat Califia, "Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-positive Culture" by Carol Queen (in the UMass library, though "Pomosexuals" is here at Amherst), "Sex Work: Writings By Women In The Sex Industry," edited by Frédérique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander and "Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition" edited by Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema.
I wonder if certain essays I found in another book would be appropriate as well, considering the specific images the creators of "Pimps and Hos" TAP and the Pimps and Hos party at a bar in town may have had in mind: "Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle," edited by Brian Ward (on order by Frost).
I am certainly no authority, but then again, as we have all seen, neither is the Social Council. Lastly, a book titled "Feminism, Media, and the Law," edited by Martha A. Fineman and Martha T. McCluskey includes this essay by the latter editor: "Fear of feminism: media stories of feminist victims and victims of feminism on college campuses."
Ryan Senser '02E
Free speech not an obligation
In a letter last week, Professor Thomas L. Dumm criticized President Gerety's recent statement on flag burning and free speech. There are some points on which we agree. For instance, like Prof. Dumm, I regretted President Gerety's claim that while the flag burners believe such and such about America, "the rest of us" believe something else. I would rather not have someone speak for me, especially when my opinions were never solicited.
But there were at least two important points that I believe Prof. Dumm got wrong. First, he seems to believe that President Gerety's condemnation of the protesters undermined his defense of their right to dissent. Not so. The important lesson is that support for freedom of speech must not be contingent on agreement with the content of the speech. Perhaps Prof. Dumm wishes that President Gerety's defense of freedom of speech had been stronger; but the place to locate that alleged weakness is in what President Gerety said (or did not say) about the right to free speech, not in what he said about the actions of the dissenters or about the content of their views.
At the end of his letter, Prof. Dumm writes that "the idea underlying the First Amendment [is that it is] both our right and responsibility to express ourselves with passion and creativity." Right, yes; responsibility, no. I do not want the state to have the authority (and the First Amendment does not grant it the authority) to compel me to express myself in any particular way. The First Amendment protects my right to express myself coldly and unimaginatively. Indeed, it does not compel me to express myself at all. It might be good if more citizens felt the responsibility Prof. Dumm advocates, but it would not be good if the state took it upon itself to create such responsibilities.
Alexander George
Professor of Philosophy
SGO president unfairly attacked
It is unfortunate that Michelle Oliveros-Larsen and the Executive Board had to deal with the complaints raised against them so publicly-first in The Student and then in front of the SGO body at large. It is clear that Michelle herself was specifically singled out among E-Board members and that individual blame seems both unfair and petty. If her attackers had been really concerned with working towards progress, they could have aired their concerns privately with her. Instead, they took the low road not once, but twice. As was most notable at the latest SGO meeting, they have been hostile, rude and unconstructive in airing their complaints. This is not to say that the complaints were wholly invalid, it is just that the manner in which they were brought to the light which was inappropriate for a body that, in theory, tries to work together peaceably towards meaningful change.
The behavior of several members of the SFC during the presentation of the E-Board's SFC investigation report was also unnecessarily antagonistic. Rather than admit that mistakes were made and accept the E-Board's criticism, they instead chose the argumentative path. Furthermore, the arguments they made were uncalled for, given the fact that they had the opportunity to make them in front of the E-Board during the investigation itself. At one point during the meeting, several members of the SFC walked to the back of the room, huddled together and whispered amongst themselves, disrespecting the meeting in progress. These members seemed to misconstrue the report as a personal attack, rather than seeing it as a vehicle for making their work more effective and more beneficial to the student body.
Shivang Shah '03
Tom Fritzsche '03