On any given day during the week, a large block ad appears in the pages of The Minnesota Daily. On the left portion of the ad, an obese woman and man are seen sporting tiki drinks, with mild enthusiasm.
On the right side, the obese woman has been replaced by two scantily clad, sexy models. The tiki drink has been replaced with the real chick magnet, The Minnesota Daily. The fat tourist guy is ecstatic. Obviously, he “gets it daily.”
I personally am sick and tired of getting sexism daily. What kind of message is this ad trying to send? That fat women are replaceable things, not people? That it’s permissible to perceive women as sex objects? That it’s OK to put sexist ads in a paper for a co-ed campus?
Or maybe it is thought that only guys benefit from reading the Daily.
All of these notions are an insult to all women, and I demand that the ad be replaced. Heck, a second Sudoku puzzle or a word search puzzle in place of the ad would have a greater effect on readership than this tacky ad, and it wouldn’t objectify women in the process.
As a female college graduate, I would hope that the newspaper for an academic institution would be a standard bearer in gender equality.
I am disappointed that every day, some form of sexism shows up in the paper, usually in the form of that lame Get it Daily ad or in the form of awful, androcentric Dr. Date advice.
This fails to reflect the fact that more women attend college than men and fails to challenge stereotypes of women. Women are significant consumers of reading material; why not acknowledge our presence for once?
Quynh Nguyen is a University student. Please send comments to [email protected].