Zoe Manzanetti
Staff Writer
Spring Rush is an even better excuse to bust out the chubbies, flip-flops, backward hats, bro-tanks and misogynistic posters. Well, that is, according to AEPi.
Hanging in front of their house last week was a poster with the phrase “#RUSHAEπ.” Just below the text is a girl on all fours, wearing underwear, shoes and a cropped shirt, while a pie balances on her back. There are several things terribly wrong about this poster.
The blatant objectification of women is misogynistic and not something I would want any of my male friends to endorse. The girl in the poster is in a position that devalues her as a person and parallels her more towards an animal or an object. Her position is one of submission and complete thoughtlessness.
Additionally, why does this girl have to be wearing only minimal clothing — what happened to her pants? The males who contrived this poster seemed to have wanted to see as much of her bare body without the poster being too risqué to be immediately rejected by the public.
The pie on her back seems to be representative of the domestic stereotypes that are figuratively — and literally in this case — keeping her from being seen as equal. The pie only further exemplifies how some men are fixated on keeping women out of positions of power and want to keep them within outdated, societal constraints of providing men with food.
It’s questionable why a student would look at that photo and say, “Yes, that is what I want people to associate with our organization.” Is it because they would want to disgust at least half of your peers? Is it because this fraternity wants to attract only misogynistic, heterosexual males? Is it because they weren’t aware of the numerous accounts of sexual assault that have happened across this university in the past year? Please explain.
In a time when the discrepancies between genders and sexual identities are so strong, there is really no justification for a poster-advertisement like this. This is also one of the few posters to feature such blatant disregard. Other fraternities have posted their boards across the main thoroughfare of campus and next to the Rec. Cen., all stylized to imitate the various logos of manly objects, Beats headphones, Nike or various alcohol brands (the last is perhaps another can of worms for a different time), but none of them are so blatantly offensive as the banner of AEPi.
Do not even suggest that it’s just a harmless frat poster and that I shouldn’t take it so seriously, because it only further perpetuates this misogynistic society. That poster is declaring that AEPi wants a certain brand of male, one that is okay with the objectification of women. That means that there are males at this school, my peers, that still think it is okay to be apart of such a sexist culture.
This school has a great range of diversity, backgrounds and opinions and it is one of the things that makes it so great. However, an opinion that is offensive and oppressive to another group of students is not one that our community should allow. We should be embracing the diversity of our student population and supporting all groups, not suppressing some to all fours.
Often, fraternities are painted poorly with the stereotype that they are misogynistic and offensive, so I would think that those organizations would be actively striving to change those images. But then there are instances like these where the negative connotations of fraternities are perpetuated and supported, which makes me question the whole purpose of the greek system.
If Greek life is actively discriminating against other groups then why would a university support that and allow their students’ education to be tainted with discrimination and disrespect? I want fraternities that acknowledge the privilege they hold and use that power to support and equalize women, not degrade and reduce them. I want a community that sees these problems and addresses and combats the offensive remarks. I want a world in which the only thing holding up a pie is a table.
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