Your Turn Letters to the Editor

Offense taken

To the editors:

I am writing in response to the op-ed piece “Broad Categories” by Alex Jones. While I find it offensive and ridiculous, what is of greater concern to me is the message it sends to the women at our university. When the student newspaper, which ostensibly functions as the voice of the student body, chooses to run a misogynistic editorial, it communicates to the women at VCU – students, professors, staff members – that they are not valued, that they are merely objects of derision and ridicule.

I feel confident that in the year 2006, the editors of The Commonwealth Times would not have approved an editorial claiming that all African-Americans fall into three categories and that “the vast majority of them are bad.” Such a piece would have been dismissed as racist and unacceptable for publication. I am not claiming that historically the plight of black people in this country is the same as the plight of women, but in the 1960s, feminist activists developed the term “sexism” out of their awareness of “racism.”

Perhaps my analogy will help Alex Jones, his readers and the editors to realize that writing about women in this way is hateful, harmful and sexist.

-Jennifer Fronc, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
U.S. Social and Women’s History

As a male student at VCU, I have to say that I find the editorial comments of Alex Jones to be completely wrong at best and utterly deplorable at very worst. Not only are his words demeaning toward women, they are ultimately demeaning toward men because he assumes that they’ll fall for the same age-old stereotypes tightly wrapped in a shining new box with his name on it.

While Mr. Jones may have genuine concerns regarding individual women, it is impossible to discern what exactly those concerns are. His sloppy role assertions come across not as hyperbole but mere cartoons, which I can honestly not relate to any woman I have ever met.

What’s perhaps most perplexing is that toward the end, Mr. Jones states, “When your boyfriend does something bad to you, don’t call all men dogs,” yet all he does throughout his whole article is portray women as less than human. Some editor somewhere in The Commonwealth Times should have told him to heed to his own advice.

– Peter Moody

Editor’s reply: In the March 30 issue, The Commonwealth Times ran an editorial titled “Broad categories.” Since its publication, The CT has received numerous letters to the editor in protest of the content of this editorial including the two letters that are printed in full above. When deciding to run this piece, it was not The CT’s intention to offend or disenfranchise readers because we definitely value everyone’s opinion. The editorial was the opinion of the writer, and we stand behind his First Amendment right to express that opinion.

– Katie Gantt
Executive Editor
The Commonwealth Times