Women’s Studies, others concerned for community

Harassment is defined for the purpose of this policy as unwelcome and unauthorized incidents and/or patterns of conduct and/or speech that is severe, persistent or pervasive when such conduct is based on a person’s race, color, religious belief, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, HIV status, or age, and which: a) The harasser either knows or should know, will have the effect of making the College environment hostile, intimidating, or demeaning to the victim; b) In fact renders the College environment (including the work or study environment) hostile, intimidating, or demeaning for the victim. (Vassar College Regulations 2005-06, 4.02, p. 91)

We, as members of the Women’s Studies Program,* take this opportunity to bring some clarity to the debate surrounding Moderate, Independent and Conservative Alliance’s (MICA) most recent publication of The Imperialist.

As a consequence of this publication, the safety of two Vassar women students has been compromised. This letter, among other things, aims to support these women, and to serve as a reminder that women, especially women of color, are often the recipients of hostile, intimidating and demeaning attacks carried out through language, iconography and action. Additionally, we would like to address what we consider to be the effect of the publication on the Vassar College environment.
We are compelled to write in support of the students who spoke out against this publication. There has been much discussion about the alleged rights of those members of our community who have initiated a campus-wide disturbance by publishing The Imperialist, while little or no discussion has taken place concerning and supporting those among us who have been injured and/or threatened by this disturbance. These two women have our unqualified support. We have chosen not to name these two students—who have been named on a neo-Nazi website—because to do so would make us complicit in the action of singling them out as special cases, when, in fact, we are clear that this is an attack on ALL women who dare to speak out.

Thus, we speak out against The Imperialist’s reliance on demeaning caricatures of women and misogynist language, couched in the guise of political commentary. The essays in Volume 1, Issue 3 range from a diagnosis of Democrats with the pseudo-medical condition of “lack of sack” to a diatribe on the death of the gender-disempowering tradition of “chivalry” on Vassar’s campus. The most egregious caricature of women, however, is a silhouette appearing on page 34: a faceless, “wild” looking Black woman standing in opposition to and intimidating a white supremacist, embodied in the diminutive form of a white female child. By exploiting the iconography of the overtly-sexualized, Black female body and the infantilized image of white womanhood—both of which are linked to white supremacist ideology—this caricature attempts to tear at the seams of the strong women’s community that is a proud part of Vassar’s history, and that we are constantly reinforcing in the Women’s Studies Program.

The Imperialist reminds us that there are those among us who violate our right to a learning and working environment free of hostility, and that we need to explore additional ways of dealing with sexism, racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia at the institutional level. Because harassment and free expression have been confused, we call for a systematic rededication to the values of respect, equality, goodwill and purposeful dialogue that can only ensure a truly diverse COMMUNITY.

—Michael Aronna, Pinar Batur, Light Carruyo, Patricia Celerier, Sumita Choudhury, Miriam Cohen, Lisa Collins, Beth Darlington, Robert DeMaria, Hiromi Dollase, Eve Dunbar, Leslie Dunn, Brian Godfrey, Janet Gray, Gayle Green, Marame Gueye, Michael Hanagan, Diane Harriford, Kathleen Hart, Susan Hiner, Katherine Hite, Maria Hoehn, Michael Joyce, Jean Kane, Amitava Kumar, Kiese Laymon, Timothy Longman, Candace Lowe, Mia Mask, Kirsten Menking, Lydia Murdoch, Joseph Nevins, Barbara Olsen, Barbara Page, Robert Pounder, Peipei Qiu, Ismail Rashid, Dennis Reid, Karen Robertson, Phillipe Roques, Mary Shanley, Tyrone Simpson, Peter Stillman, Gayle Sulik, Adelaide Villmoare, Denise Walen, Jeffrey Walker, Judith Weisenfeld, Laura Yow, Susan Zlotnick, Yu Zhou

*Signatures of others who are not members of the program are included.