Campus Trash

Some of this is directly related to girls and our course material and some of it really isn't, but I knew that this was something that you all would care about and be as outraged over as me. I apologize if it seems like I'm spamming the blog. I think you all have amazing feminist analysis and this is relevant to our campus, so I thought of you all!

So, I don't know how many of you have seen the magazine Campus Talk all around campus. I never really looked too closely at it until recently. I honestly probably thought it was the same magazine as Axis or whatever -- sexy blond women on the cover, coverage of terrible bands...whatever. But I walked past the stands recently and saw the following headline:

TIGHTEN THE LEASH! How 2 Train Your Girlfriend

Umm? So I just walked past, not wanting to even bother looking closer. I was sure that the editor/writer thought they were brilliantly funny and clever and it wasn't the first time I'd seen an offensive headline.

Well, turns out my friends had the same horrified reaction when they saw it and actually picked up a copy to read. It's so much worse than I even thought! The article is accompanied by a close-up picture of a woman's face with a man's hand covering her mouth. Her eyes look terrified. The image was probably supposed to be clever because "haha! he's getting her to stop talking!", but evokes immediate thoughts of rape for every single woman I've shown the picture to. She looks like she is being attacked.

The article itself gives all kinds of ways to improve your girlfriend, with the logic that she's always trying to change you so why can't you try to change her? It gives tips such as, if your girlfriend won't stop complaining (read: talking about anything to you) you should get one of your guy friends to INSULT HER every time she speaks. Then, and I quote, "A few blunt remarks later, she'll begin to learn what guys actually care about hearing from women -- nothing! If your friend's really effective, she may just stop speaking altogether. Ah, perfection." Apparently Mr. Writer wants a blow-up doll for a girlfriend...?

Throughout the magazine, "Totally useless fact"s are listed. You know, stuff about pens, giraffes, Shakespeare... oh! and that "Rape is reported every six minutes in the U.S." You're right, Campus Talk. That is indeed a TOTALLY USELESS FACT, just like how a dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

After this enlightening reading session, I decided to check and see if they had a website. Lo and behold, they do! And there are other fine articles to read! This one jumped out at me right away:

Is Is Better To Be A Good Girl In College...Or A Bad One?

Oh, here we go, right? I know that we've read a lot about binaries between supposed "good girls" and "bad girls." This falls right into that trap. The author is a woman, which I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse about it. She throws out every tired cliche about how there are slutty party girls and then there are girls who get their Mrs. Degree (yes, she seriously fucking says Mrs. Degree), settling down with a nice, rich engineer. The entire article is ridiculous, hating on both supposed types of women, really. So you're screwed either way, good girl or bad girl.

The next article that I read was entitled:

How To Steal Your Best Friend's Girl

This one's pretty great too, but I'll just let the picture speak for itself:

Yeahhhhh, bro.

Looking through other articles, the whole deal of the magazine seems to be alternating between "FOOTBALLJAGERBITCHESI'MINCOLLEGEYEAHHHH" and "I like mascara and ice cream and they let me write an article! Tee hee!" Lots of "jokes" are sprinkled throughout the really stereotypical mix, but none of them are funny because either...they're just really dumb and not all that funny or they're really offensive. The really offensive bit stands out to me and I think this magazine is a giant piece of trash. It's not even a matter of just not liking it, because there are plenty of publications that I just don't like that I just don't read. It's a matter of that I am one of many women (they've told me) who feel threatened by the presence of this magazine on their campus -- the culture of violence against women that it perpetuates and normalizes amongst other issues. The latter two articles are bad enough, but perpetuating rape culture is unacceptable to say the very least. Beyond this, it's just more ideas of what girls and women should be (air-brushed, silent and...okay, that's about it). These gender constructions are not healthy for girls and women, not healthy for boys and men, not healthy for anyone.

It seems to be coming right out of Florida, judging from all of the local ads, but I'm going to try to find out so that I and others can do something about it. Be proud of the fine literature on your campus, everyone. It's free!

Comments

amanda said…
This is just horrible! If the articles weren't bad enough all the pictures are of women in danger or submission. I think we all need to write to this "magazine" and let them know that we do not approve of these articles, even if they are meant as a "joke". We could also buy some of the stickers cristina found and stick them on all of them!
Ariel Dansky said…
Oh God. That is absolutely disgusting! We should petition to have it removed from campus. Or better yet- shut down alltogether.
Bianca said…
I'm glad that people are finally noticing how bad this magazine is. My roommate brought it home once last semester and left it sitting on our coffee table. I picked it up and was completely disgusted by it. Even though they didn't have articles on "How to Train your Girlfriend" every other issue is as equally offensive and sexist. I'm a journalism student and from that point of view, it's a shitty magazine as well. Crap content and crap editing.
I like Ariel's idea - maybe we could work to have it removed from campus. I don't know if we could get it totally shut down but I think it's based out of Central Florida so who knows what we could do.
Bianca said…
omg first project of the feminist council to have this shit removed? yeah?!
Lela said…
Yes! Students from my Third Wave class signed a letter and are sending it. I think Women's Studies should get involved, and maybe Victim Services, since they are promoting a rape culture to the fullest. Another one of my students took the entire stack of mags when she found them. Looking forward to seeing everyone in class tonight!
buttvalley said…
yeah, check out the ucf future newspaper and see an article almost as ridiculous as these.
Kari said…
Ew I cant believe UCF lets that be distributed on campas. I cant believe some editor read it and decide these were publishable. I saw that headline the other day but I almost didn't believe that was what I really saw.
amanda said…
i think we should also write letters to the advertisers, saying that as long as they have ads in this magazine we will not support them.
we took a stack of them the other day as week.

Popular posts from this blog

Film Review

Maiden, Mother and Crone by Vianny Nunez

The G[r]ay Area Between Female Friendship & Sexuality