|
Letters to the Editor
Billboard reactions a problem
I was dismayed and disappointed to read the reactions to the "Loon" radio station's billboard ("Billboard causes debate," April 24). I find it difficult to hear men's opinions that vary from "I like it", to "there is nothing wrong with it", to "they have a legal right to do it." Perhaps it is easy for men to find nothing wrong with women's bodies being used to sell products because they don't directly suffer the consequences of living in a world that demeans women and doesn't value women. This kind of advertising certainly does affect women's lives. Statistics of violence against women are staggering.
What does a billboard of a woman's butt have to do with violence? As Jean Kilbourne, in her video "Killing Us Softly," so eloquently states, objectifying a person and portraying them as a thing, is the first step towards violence. When advertising objectifies women's bodies, it contributes to a culture that perpetuates and tolerates rape.
Day after day after day, I see women who are struggling to put their lives back together after being raped or beaten by someone they thought they could trust or who said they loved them. Is having women's bodies being on display that important? Is being tantalized by these images so important that you can't find something more intelligent to say than " I don't see anything wrong with it?" Look around you. Aren't women's lives more important than, "It's just advertising?" While women everywhere are fighting to feel safe in their homes, their jobs and in their communities, fighting feelings of wanting to die because the pain is so great, trying to stop the frequent nightmares, trying to keep the images of blood and breaking bones and humiliating words out of their heads and all you can say is "I think it is clever advertising?"
I encourage men and women to attempt to understand the connections between women's images in advertising and violence because someday you may have to look in the eyes of someone you love who has been a victim of being objectified in a very personal way, or watch someone you love with an eating disorder slowing and literally disappear, and say I have done nothing to try to change this world for you! Wouldn't it be worth it to you to work towards a world that is free of violence against women and one that sees women's lives and contributions more worthwhile than putting their body parts on a billboard?
Lee LaDue
Coordinator, Sexual Assault Services
Real MMF fans don't litter
My name is Andy Block, and I am writing this letter in regards to the annual Mississippi Music Fest on Sunday.
The event was planned and implemented by the University Program Board's MMF committee. I am a member of the program board.
All in all, the event went extremely well. The weather was gorgeous, the music was great, tons of people showed up and everyone had a grand old time.
Unfortunately, there was one aspect of it that disturbed me.
Soul Asylum was the headliner band, and they played in a parking lot at the base of a huge hill in Riverside Park. The giant hill was literally covered with people watching the show. Nearly everyone had some kind of alcoholic beverage, which was fine.
The thousands of viewers started treating the ground like it was some kind of giant landfill. Soon enough people were tromping through trash and yet there were boxes for bottles, cans, etc. tied to practically every other tree in the park.
When the show concluded, the park had been transformed into a garbage dump. The entire hill, and I am not exaggerating, was buried in trash. I am talking thousands and thousands of cans, bottles, wrappers, paper, food wrappings and paper bags.
People came up to me after the show and told me they appreciated our hard work. Usually I love getting compliments like that. But in my mind, all I could think was, "If you appreciate this, couldn't you at least have thrown your own trash away?"
The 25 or so volunteers, who received no pay, had to clean up that mess for three hours.
That did not make the volunteers feel appreciated. Next year, if you go to MMF, please bring your waste to the trash cans-it would help make the day more enjoyable for everyone.
Andy Block
Vice President of Public Relations
University Program Board
Attendance bad grade criteria
As we near the end of another semester, it becomes necessary for students in certain classes to look back over the whole semester and tally the number of absences they had in each class. The majority of the classes at this university integrate attendance into a student's final grade, either as a percentage of class participation or as an entirely independent grading entity.
Now I understand that attending class is essential to a person's education, but dropping a student's grade or expelling them from the class are both outrageous and unacceptable forms of discipline, especially at a college level. For example, in one of my classes this semester, I had received an 'A' on all aspects of the coursework cited in the syllabus, but recently I was threatened with receiving no credit for the course because the professor had tallied five absences on my part, two more than allowed for in the syllabus.
This is ridiculous. I have obviously shown through knowledge and comprehension of the subject, so how should it be possible for me to be stripped of all the effort and hard work I put forth?
Being a professor at this university requires and enormous educational background, so where along the line did some of these professors forget what it is like to be a college student? Life does not consist solely of school. Students, like everyone else, have jobs, family concerns, health problems and sometimes are just too exhausted to make it to class. What right does a professor have to pass judgment on the pressing issues surrounding a student's life outside the classroom? And what is more is that the student's tuition is allocated by the university to pay the salaries of the professors, so I think it is only just for those professors to show some courtesy and flexibility with their attendance policies and not be so dictatorial when administering those guidelines.
Tim Gosgrove
Junior, English/Political Science
|
|
|
|
|
|
