While the publication of the degrading posts on the ‘Class of DDS 2015 Gentlemen’ Facebook page has led to the biggest campus scandal in recent memory, this is far from the first time that Dalhousie students have been forced to face the ugly reality of misogynistic humour on campus. This is thus a good time to reflect on the fact that this issue is bigger than a handful of students in a single program, but is rather a manifestation of a larger culture that students at Dalhousie and other Canadian campuses have been struggling to address for decades.
“Misogyny Misogyny Misogyny” Volume 117, Issue 3 September 13, 1984
Samantha Brennan
MISOGYNY – (mis oje ne) n. hatred of women (from Greek misogynia from misein to hate gyne women) Misogynist n., Misogynous adj.
It seems odd to have to define this word to a university audience, but it seems like some people in the student union have yet to learn what it means.
Witness the Unicorn Cafe last Sunday evening.
An otherwise enjoyable evening was ruined on Sunday by a few performers who thought the best way to get laughs was to make jokes about women.
You know the kind, “I knew a girl who was so ugly that ….” One male singer in particular began his routine with a joke about the Incredible Hulk making an attempt to fuck Wonder Woman only to find the Invisible Man already there. You probably know this joke as well. Today we have a more accurate word for trying to fuck a woman without her consent. It’s called rape and it’s not funny.
This same person continued to sing songs like, “My Dingaling,” suggesting “Why don’t the girls sing my and the boys sing ding a ling?”
The worst point in the show came when he sang something called “I’d like to see old Dolly Parton’s tits”, with great lines like “I put my hands in pockets when I see old Dolly’s rockets.”
During this act, myself and another woman got up to ask Rusty James (he’s the Vice President of our student union) to do something. We interrupted his clapping and singing along to Dolly Parton’s Tits verse two. He said there was nothing he could do despite the fact he was MCing the show.
Are the sizes of women’s breasts that funny? Women are human beings (sounds pretty basic doesn’t it?) and not objects of ridicule.
I was somewhat cheered to know that I wasn’t alone in my disgust. I saw other women looking nervously at their companions unsure whether to laugh. Still other women spoke up and heckled the performers.
Later in the evening a regular performer of the coffeehouse circuit complained about the heckling and the article in the Gazette that was sure to follow. Here it is.
It’s time we make it clear that these sorts of attitudes are not welcome on our campus. Perhaps representatives from the arts society should speak to performers before the coffeehouse and explain that sexism isn’t welcome. We talk a lot at university. In our political science and philosophy classes we talk a lot about equality, justice and liberty. Talk is cheap.
“It’s not a surprise in a society like this”
Volume 122, Issue 14 January 11, 1990 (Reprinted in December 7, 1995)
Rachel Gray
(CUP) – We should not be having this discussion at all. There can be no doubt. It is time to make the connections about all of these things.
A man carrying a new semiautomatic rifle walks into a traditionally male-dominated institution, and kills 14 women. In the hallways, he mainly ignores men and hunts women. In the classroom, he separates the women from the men before killing them. At some point during the carnage he rails against feminists. He turns the gun on himself and dies with a suicide note in his pocket which identifies women and feminists as the source of his unhappiness.
This all seems very clear. Is it not obvious who he intended to kill? Who is dead? What is up for debate?
Now, there are those who would have us believe that this is the work of a sick and demented mind, and that it is an isolated incident. There are those who would have us believe that this is a human tragedy with no more bearing on women’s lives than on men’s. There are those who agree we live in a sexist society, but who say that “this thing in Montreal” has no place in a discussion about violence against women because violence can’t be qualified according to sex.
On the campus at Queen’s University a bunch of self-proclaimed “friendly guys” feel misunderstood. They say, “No means kick her in the teeth.” They say, “OK, so it may have been in bad taste but it was just a joke. My dad says that worse things happened in his days there. It was a prank. Queen’s is a great university. What are they complaining about?”
These friendly guys have a need to make jokes about women being raped. The language they use for joking about rape involves gang bangs, kicking her teeth in and tying her down. How much time would you want to spend with these friendly guys? Have they ever considered the woman who is raped – a real person – being gang banged, tied down and given a mouth full of broken teeth? If rape jokes are acceptable material now, is it because women are safe; safe from rape, sexual harassment and assault, exploitative images that use our bodies to sell cars and beer, safe from violence at home and on the street…safe from murder? These boys don’t have to think about rape and therefore it’s fine to joke about it. What is not their consciousness, their experience, is not their concern. And if I don’t take a joke about suffering and pain and violence and hatred then I’m the one with the problem – not them.
When I walk home at night I am cautious and quite often afraid. When statistics tell me that one out of ten women will be violently attacked by the men who share their beds and their lives this affects me differently than it does my brothers. When my friends talk about being raped I know those boys at Queen’s have never thought about what it is like to be a woman in a womanhating society. They haven’t had to. Don’t you think it’s time they did?
As long as it’s okay to make jokes about rape, the “thing in Montreal” should not shock us. It illustrates the hatred and violence that is accepted and justified and joked about. For women who have been raped, who are beaten in their kitchens, who walk home at night knowing the keys gripped tightly in hand are a poor defense, who feel hostility because of the way they dress, or the work they do, or the independence they seek or the conventions they reject … for all of us women this is not a shock. It may be our worst nightmare come true, but it should not be a shock.
Sexism isn’t welcome.
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