I am writing in response to Jacob Hunt’s letter concerning the V-Day logo, which he labels as appalling. He claims that the campus postering of this “ASCII art” was offensive and objectified women, to which I respond, those who are offended by even so abstracted an image in the form of a logo are those to whom the entire event is directed. He does, in his letter, state that he has been sensitized to the issues of women due to a number of unnamed incidents in his past.

This I respect fully, and will not debate, however, his expression of disgust in a pseudo-sensitive show of male miscommunication only illustrates his ignorance to the topic

As a woman at RPI, I find that, more often than not, I keep my mouth shut to the phallocentric and ribald remarks that assail RPI’s women on a daily basis. I am finding myself more and more, as the subzero temperatures climb and I’m able to pull out my skirts, subject to the passes of campus males, who shout across the Quad carrying hockey sticks and grunting like neanderthals.

For the most part, women at RPI stand quietly in the background unseen and unheard. As V-Day came and went, for two brief weeks the campus was made, through the use of these posters, to stand up and take notice of not only the abuse of women but the forever unnoticed fact that women are not only people, but are students at RPI as well. We share the same adventures, troubles, interests, and stresses as male students—we are not just people with a nice round butt or huge breasts to be constantly ogled. The posters were meant to catch the attention of the viewers, while empowering women to the completely natural phenomena of their physical bodies, call it vagina, yoni, what you will.

In his letter, Mr. Hunt argued that the posters conflicted with RPI’s signage policy, claiming they must either be, “directly maligning any person or group,” “in poor taste, in unsightly condition, or conveying inaccurate and outdated information.” As far as I can tell, the information contained within the parentheses and inverted exclamation was accurate to a T, and certainly not outdated. The posters, lovely and well-designed, were certainly not in unsightly condition, nor were they directly maligning any person or group, since they were created by females, the only group who could possibly feel offended by the portrayal of their own bodies. This leaves us with the notion that these posters were “in poor taste.” If these posters, with a definite and deeply important purpose, were in poor taste, then I declare we should ban the images of huge-breasted, scantily-clad women on every one of the fraternity posters rounding up freshmen for rush. I think that if RPI’s male population is offended by even the abstracted image of female genitalia, perhaps they shouldn’t constantly be on the prowl looking for the real thing.

Kathleen Brown