Word: etas
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...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...
According to Keating, it is also unusual for the Pi Eta newsletter to contain any thing more than a straightforward listing of club news. The issue in question was a special edition, the first put out by the incoming officers. As tradition dictates, the issue typically contains a certain amount of "sexual innuendo." (Keating uses the term somewhat loosely, since the playful suggestion that one of the officers "bring a date that will have sex with all of us!" is hardly innuendo...
...mean to imply that the Pi Eta Club is a hotbed of unreconstructed male chauvinists. I doubt all the club's members were amused by the newsletter, just as I doubt all those who would be do belong to the Pi Eta. But while it is disturbing enough to know that a Harvard undergraduate authored the letter, having it appear as the official publication of an established club is still more threatening since it implies an endorsement--indeed, an encouragement--of like minded thinking...
MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, the newsletter confirms a persistent fear on the part of many women that their acceptance as equals is only superficial. That when the doors close at the Pi Eta Club, in the locker room; or at any other all-male sanctuary, men stop talking equality, and start talking bra size...
...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...