I Like My Women Like I Like My Coffee

[snarp]

Sodexho has generously given me a light pink plastic tumbler that turns darker pink when it gets cold, in an obvious and completely inappropriate reference to nipples. I wonder if they're going to email me telling me to deposit it in a box someplace on campus, because I am not on the meal plan anymore and am not therefore entitled to a plastic tumbler.

Printed on it in very small type is a schedule of what I assume someone considers to be the school's "feminist events" for the next three months. The schedule gives dates but no times, and is badly spaced and punctuated.

I mean, this isn't a disposable cup or anything. It must have been expensive to get these things custom-made. Isn't it kind of weird to give out a reusable item with your February-March-April 2007 schedule on it? Am I supposed to treasure it forever as a memento of "Love Your Body Day" (which is apparently on Valentines Day)? Is there going to be a whole series of collectible 2007 color-change cups?

Oh, wait, the year's not on there.

Actually, the schedule itself is even more bizarre than its presence on a cup. Here it is (formatting, punctuation, etc. all theirs):

Mind, Body, and Soul Spring Events...
February
14-Love Your Body Day
26-Mind, Body, & Soul Survival Guide
28-Let's Talk About It!
March
7-Vagina Monologues
8, 22, 29-Self Defense Workshop
19-30-"Human Breathing" Yoga
25-Speaker, Andrea Cooper,
"Kristin's Story"
26, 27-Lifetime Wellness Instructor,
Kitty Consolo
April
5 Take Back The Night
Events presented by the Women's Resource Center,
Women's Emphasis, The Lilly Program,
Delta, Delta, Delta, and Alpha Chi Omega

Love Your Body Day, to the extent that it exists, is apparently October 17th. I'll bet you a yogurt cup with an inspirational quote on the foil that they'd originally put Valentines Day there, and there was like heated debate over whether Valentines Day could be considered feminist, and eventually they made up a day so as not to ruin the formatting.

(Upon further googling, Smith College had their own separate Love Your Body Day on February 18th last year - because at Smith, you design your major, and you masturbate when you darn well want to!

I would respect all these people so much more if they'd taken the logical step and given out vibrators.)

Mind, Body, & Soul Survival Guide is probably not an event.

"Balance Body Mind Soul," as we have previously discussed, is this bizarre advertising thing where Sodexho puts expensive full-color standees, posters, and fliers containing impractical dietary advice and largely fabricated statistics all over the place. This is what they do instead of paying and training their employees, and buying fresh food. It's not clear why they bother, since the meal plan is mandatory for 90% of the campus anyway.

Let's Talk About It! - I can't figure out what this is, but the website says it's some sort of Women's Resource Center thing. I imagine that they're going to talk about bad graphic design that attempts to combine the imagery of the punk movement with that of large organizations that sell energy bars, so as to appeal to both kinds of woman. (There's more than one kind. There are two.) Usually this ends up as something like a poster with soothing pale pink Helvetica text about it being okay that your breasts are different sizes but we want you to wear a bra anyway, yes even if it's like $75 for a custom-made one - but they're also using a font called "Grungy," and there's a picture of the lips from Rocky Horror kind of at an angle with an amount of white space that's not quite okay. And I guess I probably hate my college, don't I.

Vagina Monologues - We've already performed the Vagina Monologues like twice, I hadn't heard that they're doing it again. Is this going to turn into a yearly thing?

Self Defense Workshops. Let's All Try And Not Get Raped And Thrown In A Ditch. There is no greater feminist sentiment than this.

"Human Breathing" Yoga. I understand that this a replacement for the "Underwater Breathing" Yoga class, which apparently went rather badly.

Speaker, Andrea Cooper, "Kristin's Story" - Let's hear it for commas, the all-purpose punctuation!

A woman tells the story of how her daughter got raped and committed suicide to teach us that rape is bad and uhhh, I guess this is supposed to be... empowering? I don't know what this is.

She came freshman year, and for some reason I saw it (I think it was mandatory for freshmen?), and the message was basically "if you are raped it will make you want to kill yourself, but you should maybe go to the doctor instead." Again, this is a very empowering message. Rape should be one of the central emotional pillars of every feminist's life. All of us should sit and meditate about the badness of rape every day, possibly do a special yoga thing and have special pints of cheesecake ice cream with "STOP RAPE" on them in red stencil type. (I am full of hate, by the way.)

Lifetime Wellness Instructor, Kitty Consolo - She's a runner. She's going to talk about running.

Take Back The Night - This is where they all walk around in a big group at night and try to surprise the rapists. Well, I think it was originally supposed to be about teaching women not to let imaginary bogeymen restrict their freedom of movement, but something happened.

Man, April sure is a dry month for feminism.

Events presented by the Women's Resource Center, Women's Emphasis, The Lilly Program, Delta, Delta, Delta, and Alpha Chi Omega

I've never heard of Women's Emphasis. The existence of a website does not prove the existence of an organization.

The Lilly Program is apparently something vague involving some kind of endowment for schools to use for Vague Nonthreatening Purposes. Apparently it's about "Vocation: Identity, Intellect, and Life Choices: A Move Toward Wholeness." None of that stuff sounds like it has to do with the efficacy of atypical neuroleptics in treating depression, heart disease, and acne, so I'm sure it's fine.

Sororities don't put commas in their damn names. Even I know that.

-

So this entry ended up needing the "hate" tag. I think I'm probably using that too often. The solution that immediately came to mind was to make another one under a synonym.

Edited deep in the night because my own formatting was somewhat sketchy.

Comments

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

That's weird, I must say.