Word: eta
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Holly Idelson is absolutely right in her editorial regarding the "private" newsletter sent to the members of the Pi Eta Speakers Club regarding an upcoming party. Whether or not a parody, the newsletter is clearly an example of sexism, insensitivity, even mysogeny. But Ms. Idelson misses the point...
...either definition, it is clear that Holly Idelson (April 3 issue "Behind Closed Doors") was too mild in her otherwise laudatory article criticizing the Pi Eta Club Newsletter which began "Before we get in any discussion about the amazing rounding of private parts some poor suspecting fat load is going to take this Saturday night by your huge and erect penis..." This is not simply sexist. This is "rapist," or "pro-rape" (I note that Ms. Idelson did make a passing reference to rape imagery). The link between violence and male sexuality, which is precisely the operative factor in rape...
...time we face up to the fact that society daily condones, if not actively supports, attitudes, imagery, and actions that promote the dehumanization and tape (physical, psychological or emotional violation) of women. Men amused at or gratified by the imagery in the Pi Eta Club newsletter are no different from those men who cheered on the rapists...
Last, I might add that the Pi Eta letter is a horrifying reminder to women who are rape survivors (of which there are hundreds at Radcliffe) of what can only be described as the most dehumanizing moment of their lives. Had the newsletter's author known this, he may have thought twice about writing. Then again, maybe not. Caristine Hayes...
...generally quick to deny these allegations, saying all-male clubs are simply a pleasant way of socializing and in no way threaten women. Keating contends that the Pi Eta newsletter was nothing more than a lighthearted parody of the stereotype he says his club has unjustly earned, as a bastion of beer swilling misogynists. Keating strongly objects to this image, which he claims is a "myth" that continues to be passed on from year to year...