2008 Woodie Awards
Letter to the Editor
Battle of the Sexes game show insensitive
Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: Forum
We wish to address a Serendipity event that might not receive much consideration: the Battle of the Sexes game show. While we do not claim to know or predict everything that will transpire during this event, the very idea of it is cause for alarm. This game appears to merely reinforce damaging standards of gender behavior, though it is seemingly playful and innocuous.
The very idea of a "Battle of the Sexes" is problematic in that it inherently assumes a binary sex system, pitting men against women. As recent performances on campus by the Tranny Roadshow and the Athens Boys Choir made clear, this notion of a convenient either/or approach to sex and gender leaves out a vast population of transgender and transsexual persons, who are also members of this campus community.
The idea also suggests that your biological sex is the essential determinant of how you will act and what you will be interested in, which is the purported subject of the game. Do men not like to cook? Do women not like to play sports? While our gender identities can be mysterious from time to time, we believe there are better ways of trying to find answers to such ponderous questions, which can even be explored in Women's and Gender Studies classes you can take right here at Guilford College! Also, if we're taking a tongue in cheek approach to the general ways that men and women behave, then are we not also laughing at the other - more violent - ways gender manifests itself, such as the disproportionate amounts of men who commit violence and women with life threatening eating disorders?
Contrary to popular belief, sexism continues to be an enormous problem in our society, with real symptoms and real victims, and Guilford College is certainly not exempt from this. There are other ways to have fun during Serendipity weekend that do not involve playing into an oppressive system, the normality of which allows it to continue and show up in seemingly harmless occasions such as this event.
Sincerely,
Danielle Perry and Andy Freedman
The very idea of a "Battle of the Sexes" is problematic in that it inherently assumes a binary sex system, pitting men against women. As recent performances on campus by the Tranny Roadshow and the Athens Boys Choir made clear, this notion of a convenient either/or approach to sex and gender leaves out a vast population of transgender and transsexual persons, who are also members of this campus community.
The idea also suggests that your biological sex is the essential determinant of how you will act and what you will be interested in, which is the purported subject of the game. Do men not like to cook? Do women not like to play sports? While our gender identities can be mysterious from time to time, we believe there are better ways of trying to find answers to such ponderous questions, which can even be explored in Women's and Gender Studies classes you can take right here at Guilford College! Also, if we're taking a tongue in cheek approach to the general ways that men and women behave, then are we not also laughing at the other - more violent - ways gender manifests itself, such as the disproportionate amounts of men who commit violence and women with life threatening eating disorders?
Contrary to popular belief, sexism continues to be an enormous problem in our society, with real symptoms and real victims, and Guilford College is certainly not exempt from this. There are other ways to have fun during Serendipity weekend that do not involve playing into an oppressive system, the normality of which allows it to continue and show up in seemingly harmless occasions such as this event.
Sincerely,
Danielle Perry and Andy Freedman
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