Wanker of The Day: Northwestern U's Coordinator of Violence Prevention and Sexual Health Education

Here is the cartoon: It's pretty straightforward. It's a call for promiscuity, something I whole heartedly approve of, unless it's MY daughter. Unfortunately, you have Northwestern's Coordinator of Violence Prevention and Sexual Health Education not getting the fact that sex and rape are different things, and so she conflates them. Letters to the Editor - Forum

Cartoon sexist, offensive

In The Daily on Friday, Jan. 25, a Drawing Board illustration was published depicting an angry stick figure and the message "I like my women like I like my cell phone minutes: Unlimited on nights and weekends." Directly opposite this image were two Daily articles about the highly publicized sexual assault of an NU student that occurred near campus in May of 2007.

These two items juxtaposed in our student newspaper speak volumes about the culture here at NU. Whether or not the cartoon was created in an attempt to parody the attitude expressed in the quote, the illustration calls into question a set of beliefs about women and sex that research has shown to contribute to the alarmingly regular occurrence of sexual assault on college campuses.

Sexual assaults happen because the sexual aggressor believes that he is entitled to a woman's body and pursues sexual activity without care or concern about the wishes of the victim. Attitudes like the one expressed in the cartoon reflect and contribute to a cultural climate where women's value is based on their ability to sexually gratify men. When women are devalued in this manner and sexual relationships between men and women are viewed as adversarial, sexual violence against women is the natural extreme on a continuum of sexually aggressive and exploitative behaviors. In such a climate, the belief that women should be "unlimited" (and the assumption that they are) takes away an individual's ability to give consent to sexual activity.

Most men who commit rape do not define their behavior as assault and are therefore able to justify their actions to themselves and others. Perpetrators of sexual assault are products of a culture that encourages them to view women as sexual objects and to believe that they are entitled to unlimited sexual access to women.

The belief that the majority of sexual assaults are committed by strangers in dark alleys is a misconception. Perpetrators of sexual assault are not mentally ill or psychotic, as the myths suggest, but rather they are "normal" men on your campus who hold beliefs about women and sex identical to those expressed in the Daily cartoon.

While the cartoon was most likely created in good humor, it is critical to make the connection between this humor and the set of beliefs that perpetuates and justifies sexual assault. We can all play a role in changing the culture at NU by thinking critically about the messages we receive and striving to challenge those that support and condone sexual violence.

- Kathryn Guilfoyle
Coordinator of Violence Prevention and Sexual Health Education
NU Health Education Department

The problem here is a simple one, and it not that the cartoon is crass, and perhaps a bit tasteless. There is no call for violence. There is no implication of violence. There is a call for promiscuity. There is a problem however, and that is when a "Coordinator of Violence Prevention" because of a need to justify the existence of such a position. She is paid to be humorless and easily offended....Come to think of it, perhaps she needs a raise. In conflating the desire with promiscuity with violence, Ms. Guilfoyle diminishes real, and ongoing threats of sexual violence. She makes rape becomes about how humorless people find any reference to sex a call for rape, rather than being about the real, and more common than we would like to think, of sexual violence in our society.