Symptom

To the Editors of The Crimson:

In light of the recent press which the Pi Eta Speakers Club and its newsletter have caused during the last week, we find that the degree of response has been heartening because one sees that there are people out there who are concerned about the sexism that exists at Harvard. However, the attitude of those who seek to formally censure and, in an extreme way, close down the Pi Eta Club is, at best, idealistic, in that it is based on the assumption that to eliminate the Pi means to eliminate the sexism from our community. What such actions will do is only eliminate the more obvious manifestations of sexism from our consciousness. In other words, curing the symptom will not cure the disease.

There seems to be a debate between those committed feminists who regard the attitudes espoused within the newsletter as something akin to a crime committed by a "bastion of beer swilling misogynists," and Club members, who treat the matter lightly and cannot understand the commotion over such an innocuous thing as a joke, a parody. On one level, of course the newsletter was a joke (crude though it was). Yet one cannot help but sense that the basis of such joking lies in something concrete, in the images of women that are continuously reinforced by advertising, books, television, movies and the media in general. The "crime" of which Pi members are guilty is to passively accept, to see as innocuous, the dehumanizing images and attitudes that are found in all of us, though few are willing to admit this.

We fear that the dialogue of the last week will be considered by the majority of the students at Harvard as just another battle between the sexes--but this time between a group of "rabid feminists" and a "bunch of incurable male chauvinists." This pigeon-holing of such an important issue is what we should all strive to prevent. Now that the party is over and the picket line has dispersed, we fear that the Pi Eta will become just another isolated incident. But we cannot, and should not, rest easy, secure in the belief that an injustice has been exposed and the problem solved. We are all still guilty of more subtle manifestations of sexist views, which regard women as objects to be valued and given meaning by men.

The incident and the issues raised this week should cause us all to search out and fully examine the hidden sources of our attitudes and values and to further understand the extent of our damage that the resultant images and stereotyping (in all their forms, whether blatant or subtle) wreak upon their subject and those who use them. Kate Chaffee '85   Mei Chu '85