The Georgetown University Grilling Society (GUGS) will be sponsoring a week of events from April 21st- April 25th that they have chosen to call "Grills Gone Wild." In conjunction with this, the t-shirt for their event reads "GUGS Grade A, Size D." Wow. The connection is pretty simple--women are meat. Students are currently mobilizing on Georgetown's campus to find a creative and radical way to counter this sexist advertising! Let me know if you have any good ideas...
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
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6 comments:
I'm not quite so sure there is as hard and fast a connection here as you claim. All I see is a punny slogan with a cultural reference everyone will recognize (Grills Gone Wild), with advertising for burgers which are good quality meat (grade A), and have a large quantity of meat (Size D). I fail to see how any of this equates to "women are meat."
I think the part that you've highlighted "a large quantity of meat" refers to breasts. So, equating breasts to meat on a grill to be consumed seems rather objectifying and sexist to me.
"size d" or "d size" does not in all cases refer to bra size. See for instance: Size D batteries, D Size paper, size D orthotics, size D massage tables, etc. Try searching for "size d" on google.
But all that is still missing the point: this is a continuation of the "grills gone wild" pun. This is wordplay, and I just don't get bent out of shape over wordplay that lacks any discriminatory intent.
Ugh I totally disagree.
This is a clear reference to breast size, and GUGS is notorious for being an old boys club. I mean, what? They've had maybe one master griller who was a woman? Come on.
I think this was a great opportunity for people to voice their concern about the sexist content on campus and while you may think that it's a bunch of people getting "bent out of shape," I see it as a great way to show campus that we will not tolerate a sexist agenda, in any form, no matter the pop-culture reference (which I might remind you, is pretty damn sexist in and of itself).
Kudos LiJia for bringing this up.
I agree with both sides of this argument. I mean, "Grills Gone Wild" is clever and kind of funny and totally detached from the despicable videos. The t-shirts that say "Grade A, Size D" are not the slightest bit clever. It's not a pun, it's not a play on words, it is just a reference to boobs.
And if I am being honest, I don't think that it goes any further than that. A bunch of boys sitting around thinking, "hehehehe boobs are funny." (Which they kind of are). I do not honestly think that these boys in any way meant to refer to women as pieces of meat.
However, this is exactly what they did, albeit unintentionally. The implication is obvious when you take a step back. Women are meat. But I don't think GUGS ever got that far. I think they stopped at "Boobs are funny."
And this is not OK. Even unintentionally sexism is harmful and degrading and is a wrong that needs to be righted.
But I think the key here is that unintentional sexism shouldn't be met with protest and radical ways of protesting. This only causes the blithly ignorant to go on the defensive. Look at the responses - "we were talking about D sized batteries." That's just a defensive posture of someone who has been attacked. That is not progress.
I think we need to address this with dialog and conversation. Why not have TBTN team up with GUGS to make a shirt that is creative, and funny and about boobies? Then give some if not all of the proceeds to a worthwhile organization that works for women's rights. Why not get the two groups to sit down and be creative together and eventually get to talking about the effects of sexism, unintentional or otherwise.
This seems like the right approach.
Thanks for all the comments! A townhall is being organized to talk about sexism at Georgetown--it's about time right?
My friend Aastha and I have also written an op-ed criticizing SAC, which as an oversight and funding organization, should consider more seriously the implications of having such a shirt say "Georgetown University" on the back.
If you also want to read some horribly sexist stuff, check out the facebook group "For Every Burger They Don't Eat, I'll Eat Two" where members/supporters of GUGS have gone to calling feminists "ugly" and just saying generally offensive and ridiculous things.
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