While passing through the Price Center, I was gravely disturbed by the marketing display that confronted me outside of the main bookstore. Someone had divided the display into large blue and pink panels, labeled “”For Him”” and “”For Her,”” respectively. Along with an array of UCSD sporting paraphernalia, the masculine panel bore items such as Playboy magazines, “”Mantrack: How to Unhook a Bra With One Hand”” and “”The Complete A**holes Guide to Handling Chicks,”” the latter by Karl Marks and Dan Indante. With complementary flourish, the other panel was adorned with markers of stereotypical femininity, including chic pink clothing and “”The Hip Girls Handbook for Home, Car, and Money Stuff,”” by Jennifer Musselman and Patty and Patricia Degregori.
I find it deeply ironic that UCSD, a hotbed of progressive thought and a gathering place for those bonded by their commitment to social change, would resort to reproducing some of the most loathsome expressions of cultural violence toward women in order to market the products in its bookstore. The display’s inscription of femininity with consumeristic lust, as well as its smug promotion of the sexual fetishization and exploitation of womens bodies, resonated more sharply with a Coors Light commercial than with the diverse and dynamic selection of literature it was intended to advertise.
Such flagrant acts of misogyny have absolutely no place in our society at large, much less at the University of California. I fear for the message that the bookstore is sending to the incoming freshmen, current students, and broadening alumni base, and I hope our scholarly community will more closely monitor the storeÌs marketing strategies in the future.
-Jennifer M. Lum
Thurgood Marshall College Class of 2003
Editor:
The following is in regards to the comments that Daniel Watts made in his article on student organizations (Sept. 23) regarding SAAC and MEChA. I am a recent alumnus from UCSD and former member of UCSD MEChA and I am offended by the ignorant comments that you have made in regards to MEChA and SAAC. From reading your commentaries, it is obvious that you have never even set foot in a MEChA or SAAC organization general body or board meeting. Therefore, I advise you to actually attend these meetings and you will understand that MEChA is not a “”racist organization that denounces the gringo”” and that MEChA does not “”rarely live up to the hype”” as you claim it does. SAAC and MEChA have made important contributions to UCSD, such as OASIS, from which students at UCSD have benefited from the excellent tutoring services it provides. The Cross Cultural Center, a place where individuals from all cultural backgrounds, creed, sexual orientations and genders can dialogue with another and learn from another in order to promote a consciousness of the diversity that the campus has, a diversity that as small as it may be, is still present. These are only two examples of contributions that I can give you of what SAAC and MEChA have done to UCSD; I could be here all day writing to you everything that these organizations have contributed to the UCSD community, but I will leave that for you to educate yourself and be more aware of what is actually going on. As an undergraduate, MEChA was a place for me where I would feel supported and identify with the struggles of other raza in the community. Hence, I ask you that before you begin to write about any group of people, organization, or individual, that you actually educate yourself about the given topic to prevent making yourself look like an ignorant that has no basis for his argument. Thank you for your time and consideration.
-Octavio GarcÌa