Rig the Boilers
A disturbing story in the Eagle.
A Williams College employee upset about being denied time off to go hunting is accused of threatening to kill co-workers at the Williamstown school, according to police.
In addition to the criminal charge, David Jay Beebe, 45, of Clarksburg, was fired Tuesday from his position as operator of the Williams College heating plant, according to school officials, who did not indicate how long Beebe had worked at the school.
Rest of the article below. Other coverage from the Transcript. Could someone add the all-campus mailing that went out on this topic to the comments?
The Green Chicken
Trivia will never be topped as the coolest dorky tradition on campus, but the Green Chicken showdown with Middlebury is a clear contender for second place. Today’s Boston Globe contains a feature discussing that tradition, along with a quiz of whether your math abilities are Green Chicken-worthy.
Fall CC Election Results
Neighborhoods CC Reps
- Currier: Ifiok Inyang ‘11
- Dodd: Andrew Goldston ‘09
- Spencer: Keith Butts ‘09
- Wood: Jenny Danzi ‘09
Freshmen House Reps
- Armstrong: Tim Goggins
- Dennett: Zach Evans
- Mills: Runoff between Sam Jonynas and Mustafa Saadi
- Pratt: Austin Davis
- Sage: Newton Davis
- Williams: Elizabeth Jimenez
Honor Committee
- Andres Lopez ‘09, Student Chair
- Wes Johnson ‘09
- Charlie Crawford ‘10
- Mia DeSimone ‘10
- Cecelia Davis-Hayes ‘11
- Will Slack ‘11
- Matiullah Amin ‘12
- William Su ‘12
Committee on Priorities and Resources
- Jia Cui ‘09
$35,000 (to be split between top 2)
- First: 1914 Library
- Second: ACE Concerts
The Williams Admission Essay
The Record is reporting that Williams has added a 300-word admission essay for the Class of 2013. The prompt for this experimental essay is: “Imagine looking through a window at any environment that is particularly significant to you. Reflect on the scene, paying close attention to the relation between what you are seeing and why it is meaningful to you.”
Global Warming Solutions and Herding Cats
Holding a big event at Williams is like herding cats. In an institution run by independent and motivated professors and administrators, getting collaboration and consensus is very difficult. That is why I’m very proud to announce plans for Focus the Nation, an event which really will capture the attention of the entire school, at least for a day.
A little background on Focus the Nation: conceived of and promoted by Eban Goodstein ’80, this day-long symposium for global warming solutions will take place at over 1500 schools, churches and businesses across the country. Held on Jan. 31st nationally, the eve of super Tuesday, the goal is to engage 5 million citizens in active and intelligent conversations about global warming solutions.
The classic problem in any sort of activism is that when you throw an event, only the people who are interested come. In order to address this age old problem, we’re going to the students. Starting in September, we embarked on a campaign to speak to every single faculty member individually and ask for some or all of class time on February 5th to discuss climate change from the stance of their department. To speak to over 300 faculty is a big project, and I applaud Meredith Annex ’11 and Martin Sawyer ’08 who have coordinated those efforts.
Its paying off. Currently over 60 faculty will use between 5 minutes and all of their class time to talk about where their passion for a better world intersects with their discipline and subject matter. And more new commitments are coming in every day. We’ve actually been surprised at how many faculty are genuinely eager to participate in an event that addresses a big issue and uses their particular strengths. Maybe it’s not that surprising after all.
2007 Commencement speakers
The speakers for this year will be:
Class Speaker: Auyon Mukharji (elected by the Class of 2007)
Phi Beta Kappa Speaker: Alan Rodrigues (elected by the 2007 PBK members)
Valedictorian: Priyanka Bangard (highest GPA)
Of course Katie Couric will also give an address.
Paresky updates
In case you’re wondering how the new student center is going, here are the updates from the past few weeks — oldest to most recent. Edit: Follow-up e-mail about Goodrich added in response to comment.
Extreme disorientation among students
The following e-mail was sent from Ruth Harrison, Director of Health Services, to williams-students this evening:
Subject: Important Message from the Health Center
Dear Williams Students,
I want to inform you that recently a very small number of students have experienced bouts of extreme disorientation.
There is speculation that these instances could be related to recreational drug use. There’s insufficient evidence to be at all sure about this correlation, but given the importance of the matter, I thought you should know.
If you have questions about this or about any other issue of physical or mental health, please feel free to call the Health Center at x2206.
All the best as we head into the end of the semester.
Regards,
Ruth Harrison
Director of Health Services
Would anyone else like to speculate on this matter? I have never before received such a strange e-mail during my time at Williams.
Not Be Tolerated
The Hitler-Marijuana Poster Scandal (any idea for a better name? Mary Jane Hitler? Puff the Magic Genocidal Maniac? Help me, dear readers!) mentioned yesterday has generated much interesting discussion at WSO (including interesting references to the Kechley Krazy Kookout contretemps of 3 years ago, now captured at Willipedia). These remarks, however, are troubling.
Lauren Bloch:
I wanted to announce here since many people who read this forum are interested in the incident yesterday..
The Board of Directors of the Jewish Association are sponsoring a Town Meeting tomorrow night (Sunday April 22nd) in the Henze Lounge in Paresky at 8pm to discuss the disappointing response of the administration to this hateful postering.
Jonathan Horn:
I would just like to add that soon after her e-mail went out, I sent an e-mail to Dean Roseman expressing my dismay over the incident. I also requested that that the administration respond to this incident with stern measures. I felt that hate speech should not be tolerated on our campus, even if the intention behind it is supposedly not to harm others. Dean Roseman responded to my e-mail, but failed to address any of my concerns.
I find this unacceptable, given the response that would have been generated had these posters targeted any other group. A poster of a burning cross with the letters “KKK” emblazoned across it would quite rightly not be tolerated, and neither should these posters. While the administration has ignored the views of the student body on other issues, I sincerely hope that they will not do the same on this one. Thanks.
1) If you are the woman who did this and worry that the college is going to punish you unfairly (the lynch mob is certainly getting organized), feel free contact me. I, and other free-speech-loving alumni, can help.
2) If the College has a rule against putting posters on other people’s doors, then, obviously, this woman has broken the rule and might be punished for doing so. But the College seems to have no such rule. I think that no punishments have been brought against the students behind the Holocaust Remembrance Day posters. In fact, I would wager that at least some College officials publicly praised that project.
3) Once we agree that door-postering is allowed, the only grounds for punishment would be the content of the posters themselves. Are they “hate speech?” (Could someone please provide a thorough description of the posters?) For background, recall the Queer Bash E-mail (QBE) controversy of 2003. I think that the College (correctly!) has no more restrictive rules against speech than does Williamstown. In other words, if it is legal to put of this poster on Spring Street, it is alright to do so at Williams, according to College regulations. The woman who did this has little to fear, unless she allows herself to be bullied.
4) What is with Bloch and Horn, our charming speech-punishers? Are they going to decide what speech is allowed and what is banned? Are they going to determine the sort of posters that may be put on other people’s doors? Perhaps there should be an Acceptable-Ideas-Committee which would vet student opinions, pre-screen poster designs or Record opinion pieces, decide for everyone else which ideas are hate speech. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
6) Never too late to reconsider my idea for an Eph Style Guide. It wouldn’t solve every problem but it might have caused this young woman to reconsider posting these posters on other people’s doors. At the very least, the ESG provides a mechanism for the Williams community as a whole to grapple with the ideas of freedom and restraint in an academic community. Take it away, Gargoyle!
Again, the entire thread on WSO is interesting and well-argued. Read the whole thing.
Williamstown Police to Seek Charges Against Thrill Seekers
The following is a news release from the WPD. Dean Roseman’s message is in the extended entry below.
Released April 20, 2007
On Sunday, April 15, 2007 at approximately 12:42 am, members of the
Williamstown Police Department responded to a report of suspicious
activity discovered by Williams College Safety & Security. Police
officers found evidence there that a homemade explosive device had
been assembled in the southwest corner of the college’s Cole Field
remote area well away from any buildings. The device had been
ignited, but failed to burn.An investigation by the Williamstown Police Department, with
assistance from both the Massachusetts State Police and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and in conjunction with Williams College
Safety & Security, identified three individuals responsible for
constructing and lighting the material.All three, who are students at Williams College, cooperated with the
investigation. Their intent was not to cause damage or injury but to
pursue their curiosity about such a device. They will be summoned to
North Adams District Court on charges of Possession of an Infernal
Machine and Disorderly Conduct. They also face possible sanction
from Williams College.Specifics regarding the device and the materials used to construct it
will not be released to the public.
“Possession of an Infernal Machine” to me suggests either owning an oven or getting mad at your computer, but here it means “making a homemade bomb.”
OCC Complaint
Matt Furlong ‘10 writes:
As an occassional Ephblog reader, I appreciate, enjoy, and share your devotion to all things Williams. I think the following anecdote might interest the blogs
readers:I, a first year Williams student, recently went to the Office of Career Counseling for advice on my summer plans. I had been offered an unpaid internship at NYC-based NGO, uNight, which advocates and runs programs for the victims of Northern Uganda’s 20-year-long civil war. I was and am excited by the possibility of doing important work this summer for a cause I am passionate about, but I needed (and need) money for housing. Housing for nine weeks at Columbia for students interning in the city, for instance is a minimum of $2450. The representative of the OCC that I talked to looked more sad than happy when I told him the news, however. His advice was to look ask my local church for money. This was honestly the best advice he could offer me. Of course, Williams has an excellent alumni internship program, with standard grants of over $3000.
First students are not eligible for these grants, though. And when I asked why that was so, he suggested that immaturity was an issue. I thought that was why one has to apply for a grant, rather than just being blindly handed one. I find the lack of support for (or is it discrimination against?) first-years strange and disheartening.
I would be happy to hear your feelings on this issue, or the readers of Ephblog.
I don’t have strong feelings on this one. If the money for unpaid internships is limited (by OCC policy or donor intent?), it is reasonable to restrict it on the basis of class year. Back in the day, students who wanted to do unpaid internships got paying jobs to support themselves and which did not conflict with the internship. They also found cheaper places to live than Manhattan. Yet, I am also happy to help serious students (like Furlong) with a passion for a poorly paying field (like NGO work in Uganda) to pursue their interests. I think that the advice to seek other funding was good and useful.
Comments?
Ephailure update: not for general release
{Crossposted at UnderHopkins}
The slideshow component of the Ephailure project by Brandi Brown ‘07, discussed earlier on UnderHopkins, will not be publicly available. Apologies to readers who were looking for this to be publicly released…but for several reasons, Brandi Brown ‘07, who put the project together, has decided against generally releasing her slideshow and giving additional public talks based on it. She’s asked me to briefly explain here, since David Kane ‘88 has already referenced her presentation to the Society of Alumni Executive Committee on EphBlog, and some readers are undoubtedly waiting for more info.
More on the flip…
Holocaust rememberance day
This morning each Williams student woke up to find a picture of a young victim of the Holocaust on his or her door, with their name, age, and method of death. Example:
Dora Rivkina
Bound, Drowned, and Shot
Age: 19
Certainly it is an impressive feat for a student organization to do all of this overnight! Strangely, the posters do not have any information about what organization, or what student(s), are responsible; the only identifying information is the text in the bottom corner: Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Sunday, April 15.
Replace This Paradigm
Kelly Garcia writes:
What is the goal of the Women’s Center?
I went to one of their meetings to ask. I was told that our society was built around male ejaculation. They told me it was their goal to replace this paradigm with something better. Confused, I asked for clarification. They told me to take a course on women’s studies and refused to clarify further. Considering how uncomfortable I was as the only man in a room with at least a dozen feminist women, I don’t think I’m brave or stupid enough to put myself in a similar academic setting.
The Women’s Center appears to me to define dialog as a willingness on the part of their opponents to consider that their positions are wrong and that the Women’s Center is right. I commend that. But I’ve seen no signs that the Women’s Center as a whole is willing to seriously and publicly question its own fundamental tenets. They accuse others of being close-minded but give no evidence of themselves as being genuinely open-minded on the issues.
Again, the key distinction is between the Women’s Center (a Williams College administrative unit that should be maximally inclusive and not ideologically driven) and the Women’s Collective (a Williams student group with whatever ideological views its members happen to hold). I, like all good Ephs, celebrate the existence of the Women’s Collective, even though I find their views absurd. The greater the diversity of voices in the Eph conversation, the better. The problem comes when that particular view controls the Women’s Center.
One of the reasons that a Women’s Center is a bad idea is because women who disagree with the views of the Women’s Collective think that a Women’s Center is unnecessary and, therefore, don’t bother with it.
UPDATE: Andrew Goldston ‘09 has further thoughts and a great quote.
Perhaps a good analogy would be if Williams had a “Poltics Center” instead of a “Women’s Center.” Now, one can imagine a case for a Politics Center, an administrative unit of the college with dedicated space and staff (perhaps just a CLC assigned to it, perhaps something more permanent). Such a Center would, to fulfill its mission, have to be non-ideological. It would need to represent all points of view, invite speakers with different perspectives and so on. If, for whatever reason, a Politics Center became indistinguishable from College Democrats, than that would indicate that Williams does not need such a center as an administrative unit of the College.
Similarly, a Women’s Center that actually did the same (non-ideological, events from all view points) might be good idea. But here, in the real world, such a Women’s Center is impossible because Williams women who do not subscribe to the viewpoint of the Women’s Collective think that the whole idea of a Women’s Center is stupid. So, they don’t participate. So, all the events are leftist (or use whatever ideological terminology you like). Certainly, there has been no attempt to, say, invite Wendy Shalit ‘97 to campus.
A Women’s Center is a bad idea. With luck, it will whither away in due course. But long live the Women’s Collective! The more active student groups there are on campus, whether or not you agree with their point of view, the better.
Williams Podcasts
This is pretty cool. Kudos to whoever put it together. Current podcasts available include:
Audio tour of The Paresky Center
2007 Faculty Lecture: Joseph Cruz, philosophy, on Knowing One’s Mind
2007 Faculty Lecture: Betsy Brainerd, economics, on Post-Soviet Russia’s Demographic Crisis
I missed the Joe Cruz lecture when it happened, so I’m glad it’s available online. It comes highly recommended by those who went.
Next step: videocast of the 2007 Commencement for any relatives who can’t make it to Williamstown?
Paresky Updates 3/15
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 18:13:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Douglas.Schiazza@williams.edu
To: williams-students@williams.edu, williams-personnel@williams.edu
Subject: Paresky Updates 3/15It’s almost Spring Break! I hope the weather here doesn’t keep you from getting to your (hopefully warmer) destinations!
Just a few things this week:
- Paresky is Closed to the Public during Spring Break. As of tomorrow (Friday, March 16) @ 4:30pm, Paresky is officially closed for Spring Break, until Sunday, April 1 @ 1pm. Contractors will be working throughout the building during the break, and in order to get things done safely and efficiently, please refrain from entering the building. The exceptions to this rule are the staff who work in the building, and those who, for college-related reasons, must seek out a staff member who works in the building. Dining options will become available again on Sunday evening, April 1. (Thank you for your cooperation with this - we really want to get as many finishing touches done during break as we can. Come back on or after April 1 and see the changes!)
Couric as Commencement Speaker
Katie Couric will deliver the 2007 commencement address.
Shiranee Tilakawardane will deliver the Baccalaureate address.
To me, the Baccalaureate speaker sounds a lot more interesting, plus she has a connection to Williams (her son is a senior according to the article). I think she would have been a bolder choice. I guarantee that she would have some incredible anecdotes to share.
Sounds like the college may be sticking with a global theme for commencement exercises. Last year it was dance, this year appears to be women’s rights / pioneering women. At least the topic this year has broad appeal rather than a niche audience.
Balloon Project
Article on the red balloon project.
Five Williams College students orchestrated a 24-hour art installation Friday that involved tying 380 helium balloons around campus and along Spring Street.
The balloons served as place markers for note cards that had been inscribed with a memory connected to each site.
Katharine Josephson, a senior art and art history major from New Haven, Conn., said the installation was a group assignment for one of her classes, “Post Studio Practice,” taught by Peggy Diggs. She and her classmates spent nearly two weeks gathering place-specific memories from students, faculty and staff.
Rest below. Kudos to all involved. And check out Diana Davis’s ‘07 great pictures.
Paresky Updates 3/8
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:12:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Douglas.Schiazza@williams.edu
To: williams-students@williams.edu, williams-personnel@williams.edu
Subject: Paresky Updates 3/8Hello everyone. Here are some updates for this week:
1. Masking Tape ONLY - as mentioned in one of the earlier updates, use *only MASKING tape* (and we prefer the blue stuff) to post anything in Paresky (and only on wood or brick surfaces) - NO SCOTCH, PACKAGING, or ANY OTHER TAPE!!! When left on too long, these tapes ruin the finish of the wood, and it’s difficult to remove the residue. Any fliers that were hung with anything other than masking tape have been removed and recycled, and any future fliers posted with anything other than masking tape will be removed and disposed of immediately. (When the bulletin boards arrive and are installed, there will be no posting in the building except on the bulletin boards - I’ll let you know when that happens.)
Balloon Project
The Balloon Project is a day for Williams students, faculty and staff to share their individual memories of Williams Campus. Over the past two weeks, students have collected 500 note cards with Williams memories recorded on the front and a location on the back. This Friday, each note card will be affixed to a Red Balloon and placed at its designate spot on campus. Over the course of the day, please explore the campus and read the memories of your community to see how differently or similarly other members of the community remember different campus spaces.
Are they going to save the note cards or, even better, scan them and place them on the web? Perhaps someone on campus will take and post photos. By the way, is this all the work of Tyler Auer ‘07 or is there some larger group behind it? Either way, kudos to all involved.
Ansell-Initiated
Comments like this are too fun not to highlight.
Any claims that the Women’s Center was ’student-initiated’ are absurd. Was there any discussion about a Women’s Center at Williams prior to Ansell’s arrival? Not that I can find. (Corrections welcome.)
David- While I and my classmates lacked the time and resources to catalyze the birth of a Women’s Center, we definitely discussed the benefits of such a center in one of my history classes while exploring gender issues (pre-Ansell).
Well, if discussion-in-class is the same thing as “student-initiated,” then perhaps the Iraq War was student-initiated! Students did discuss the benefits (and costs) of such a war back in 2002.
Leave aside the question of whether or not a Women’s Center is a good thing, whether or not one would have come along in a couple of years anyway, created by motivated students. I just want to establish that referring to the actual existing Women’s Center at Williams as “student-initiated” is a lie, an Orwellian inversion of the truth.
Need more evidence? This whole topic first came to prominence when Sara Ansell posted this on WSO last May
I am a Campus Life Coordinator and I am hoping to hear students’ thoughts on having a Women’s Center here at Williams. I attended Haverford College, graduating last May, and I spent a large amount of my free time working as a senior staff member at the Women’s Center. I loved the job and loved the Center — it provided support for many groups on campus some relating to women’s issues and some not, collected an impressive library devoted to women’s issues (very useful to women’s and gender studies students), and executed inspiring programs such as “Women in Faith” a look at women in religion today; “New Moon Art” an exhibit of female student’s art?; “Rape and Sexual Assault Awareness Week”, and “Sexuality Week” (a week devoted to discussing and promoting safe positive sex).
Not only did Ansell lead the creation of the Women’s Center, she came up with the theme of their first major event!
And there is nothing wrong with that! I like Ansell. She (unlike many college officials) has kindly and intelligently responded to my questions. She was extremely well-spoken and engaging when interviewed on “The Hour.” If the College is to have CLCs, then it should have CLCs like Ansell.
Yet historical truth is sacrosanct. The Women’s Center was Ansell-initiated not student-initiated.
Porn Spambots
Has EphBlog been taken over by softcore porn spambots? We hope not. This image comes to you via the poster (pdf) for Positive Sex Week. Thank you Sara Ansell! I do not think that the women pictured are Ephs, but who knows? I suspect that the College neither sought nor obtained permission to use this image in its flyer. (Then again, neither did I. Informed commentary from intellectual property lawyers is welcome, as always.) Is there a way to search the web for the origin of a given image? I would be curious where this one came from.
Pictures like this are certain to cause Williams men to think of Williams women as intellectual peers, to see women, not as play-things or sex objects, but as fellow Ephs, intent on the intellectual journey that is a Williams education at its very best. Perhaps the Office of Campus Life could have t-shirts printed up? Distributed during the upcoming weekends for accepted students? Let’s think sex positively!
UDPATE: Thanks to AWG for pointing out that the the photo is “The Kiss” by Tanya Chalkin. Chalkin’s site makes it very clear that this image is copyrighted and that it is illegal for Williams to use it on a poster as the Women’s Center has done.
[Just naive kids making an honest mistake! –ed. Perhaps. But note that the bottom of the picture with the title and author was (almost certainly) purposely removed from the poster. Whoever did this knew that the use of this image was suspect, knew that she were stealing the intellectual property of a woman! Now, EphBlog is against intellectual property theft from all genders, not just women. Yet the irony is fun. An organization devoted to woman’s issues in the abstract advertises its first major event by cheating one specific woman out of the fruits of her labors.
Our usage of the image above might very well be defended under fair use. But at least we are honest about it!
Readers are invited to sample Chalkin’s other work. See anything to suggest future Women’s Center events?
New CC web page
College Council has finally completed its new web site, to replace the old one that was extremely defunct. Here’s the new one: Williams College Council Web page. It has links to lots of good resources (minutes, constitution, a list of representatives) and places for people to give input (most of which are not running yet.)
Morgan’s e-mail about committee positions follows.
Paresky commemorative glasses
These snazzy glasses were handed out on Saturday night after the comedian show in Paresky, for free! They even came complete with a root beer float inside.
Pretty classy.
(Picture taken against a purple piece of construction paper [for school spirit and] so that it is possible to see the white writing, which says “Paresky Center Grand Opening” and “Williams Dining” around the outside.)
Co-Presidents’ Inaugural Address
David asks, and Kim Dacres ‘08 delivers, just six hours later:
Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2007 21:02:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Kimberly.M.Dacres@williams.edu
To: williams-students@williams.edu
Subject: Co-Presidents Inaugural AddressHELLO WILLIAMS! Morgan Goodwin and I would like to thank you for electing us student body presidents. Our main goals for this year will focus around:
1. Student Leadership
2. Diversity Initiative
3. Sustainability
4. Club SportsWe look forward to hearing feedback from you in order to accomplish these goals and any other projects you want to see accomplished. With that said look out for a Suggestion Box in Paresky.
College Council will begin to have Office Hours Sunday-Thurs 8pm-10pm in the College Council Office -203c Organizations Suite.
Office hours are an official time for anyone to drop by and ask questions about the inner workings of the college, make suggestions, and just simply talk. We’ll do our best to answer all questions and generally try to direct you in the right direction.
We’re looking forward to this upcoming term as CC Co-Presidents. And we’re ready to work for you! WORD IS BOND.
Morgan & Kimbo
Honor and Discipline Report
To: Faculty, Staff, and Students:
The Honor and Discipline Committees report to the College twice each year about the nature of the cases heard, the judgments made, and the penalties and sanctions that were decided. This report covers the meetings of the Committee that reviewed cases that occurred during Fall of 2006 and Winter Study of 2007. Following this report is a report on disciplinary decisions of the Dean’s Office.
Paresky Update 3/1
Today’s latest update:
Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 17:48:43 -0500 (EST)
From: Douglas.Schiazza@williams.edu
To: williams-students@williams.edu, williams-personnel@williams.edu
Subject: Paresky Update 3/1Hello once again everyone. Here are some more updates - thanks for being patient with all of my emails.
Rock Paresky
Below the break is an e-mail about partying in Paresky this week-end. Kudos to all involved. If you go, tell us about it! If the College could turn Paresky into a partying place, with dancing and entertainment every Friday and Saturday, it would radically alter (in a good way!) the social life of the College. Here’s hoping.
Ansell to Depart?
I heard a rumor that the Record will report tomorrow that Campus Life Coordinator Sara Ansell will be leaving Williams at the end of this year.
1) Is this true?
2) Sara has received her fair share of attention from EphBlog.
3) There seems to be a lot of turnover among CLCs. How many have worked at Williams? How long is their average tenure?
Good luck to Sara in her future endeavors. Whatever our disagreements with her, there can be no doubt that she had the best interests of Williams at heart in all her efforts.
Sex Positively
Positive Sex Week is on.
VULVApalooza TONIGHT in Chapin! 7:30pm.
and
And on SATURDAY, the Porn Star herself…Annie Sprinkle!
(www. anniesprinkle.org)
Sat, 12-1:30–”The Amazing World of Orgasm” porn viewing. Lunch and discussion with Annie. Hardy House living room.
Sat, 2:30-5pm–Free Sidewalk Sex Clinic! With Annie and other sex experts. Open to any and all questions. Paresky Center.
Sat, 8-10pm–”My Life as a Feminist Activist Porn Star” Brooks Rogers
My thoughts are the same as before. Note that the above announcement comes to us from Sara Ansell, an employee of the college. If students want to lead and organize such events, then great. More power to them. But, from a distance, a lot of these efforts seem driven by Ansell. True? And how much is all this costing?
Money is limited. Future Marine Jeff Castiglione ‘07 was trying to organize a talk with Anthony Zinni, retired Marine General and Iraq War critic. Castiglione was told that there wasn’t enough money available. Yet Sara Ansell seems to have no trouble rounding up the funds for a week-end’s worth of insights from a porn star. If the College only has funding for one speaker, should it choose Zinni or Sprinkle?
More importantly, I have my doubts about how open Ansell and her ilk are to opinions on sexuality which differ from their own. Where on this week’s program is someone with a perspective like that of Wendy Shailt ‘97?
It’s like some big cosmic joke: The people who are supposed to be “sex positive” and enjoying their cultural freedoms are actually lonely and having terrible sex, whereas studies have shown that religious marrieds are the ones enjoying themselves the most. What’s happened? Perhaps without emotions involved, sex becomes boring.
More from Wendy here.
But much more important than the numbers are the underlying attitudes. Here social science is pretty clear. Teens, especially girls, tend to regret their sexual experiences, and the more experiences they have, the more likely they are to be depressed and commit suicide. For both sexes, an increase in sexual partners throughout one’s life is negatively correlated with human happiness.
…
Consider Levy’s 19-year-old Debbie Cope, who experiences regret after doing a “scene” for a Girls Gone Wild video–not because she masturbated on camera in the back of a bar, but for “not doing it right” when for some reason beyond her grasp, she couldn’t climax.
The fact is, “do whatever you want” is meaningless to a girl like Debbie. Debbie has had more “sex-positive” opportunities than she knows what to do with. Still, she doesn’t realize something basic: Women are typically paid to appear in pornography precisely because being a sexual object is not supposed to be fun. Like many young women today, Debbie is publicly sexual, while remaining utterly alienated from her own sexuality.
I think girls today want to hear that they can be sexual beings without having to be boy-toys. And indeed, we’re seeing that there’s a greater chance of real intimacy that way.
If the Women’s Center is so interested in ensuring that students at Williams are exposed to a variety of viewpoints, then we can safely assume that she will be inviting Wendy, or someone like her, to speak at the College sometime this spring. Right? (Related WSO discussion here.) Lauren Guilmette writes:
Sex Week is full of several activities and a variety of angles. Annie is one. We’re bringing Annie Sprinkle because, as a performance artist, activist and sexologist, she adds an interesting spin to the very issues you’re raising - can pornography exist outside of the objectification it seems to inevitably create? (as the filmed experiences/bodies of others, literally objects… can there be anything positive for sexual expression/understanding/dialogue there?) While certainly not an apologist for pornography, Annie has worked from the inside (pun intended) to change a genre that will exist regardless of what feminists think, to make it positive for women in a groundbreaking way. The reason we’re bringing Annie is not because we want all women on campus to believe in the merits of pornography; rather, we want to get people talking about this and other topics, latent in our everyday experiences.
Back in the day, the trouble I used to make was most excellent at getting “people talking” so I shouldn’t complain. But I’ll believe this spin when Wendy is invited to Williams by the Women’s Center.
UPDATE: Great comment in that same thread from Madelyn Labella.
Besides which, I’m not convinced that the best response to the continual commodification of sexuality is by embracing self-commodification. I understand that the Women’s Center wants to celebrate female sexuality, but I feel like part of the larger mission of protecting dignity and demanding respect for the gender as a whole is getting lost. It really upsets me that this is coming from the organization whose stated purpose to support and nurture the female population here — I actually feel rather betrayed.
Am I an outlier?
No. What does it say about the sort of job that Ansell is doing that some students feel “betrayed?”
