ASU students have been shockingly indignant about a woman's right to control her own body lately, although the commotion has nothing to do with the current national debate on reproductive rights and the morning-after pill. Instead, it centers around Playboy and a woman's right to pose in it.
Ever since Undergraduate Student Government President Yaser Alamoodi's attempt to prevent women from posing in magazines like Playboy, on the grounds that it compromises the school's academic reputation, students and the public alike have been up in arms about the freedom of expression.
In State Press letters to the editor, students repeatedly pointed out that Ivy League schools have girls in Playboy and it doesn't hurt their standing as academic powerhouses. Some asserted that the idea of a man in power trying to control women's bodies is both unconstitutional and misogynistic.
And they would all be right. However, like Alamoodi, they're missing the point. Alamoodi's suggestion is misguided. But so is the idea that it will have no negative effect on us.
While nobody has the right to dictate what women can and cannot do with their bodies, the "Girls Gone Wild" culture that has become so much a part of ASU's image (thanks to coverage in magazines like Playboy) makes a profound statement about the perception of ASU women.
It would be naive to suggest that this culture was imposed upon unwilling ASU women, exclusively by men backing girly mags and pornography.
According to Ariel Levy, author of "Female Chauvinist Pigs," this raunch culture grew out of a women's desire to be "one of the guys." Tired of being denied the same freedoms that men had and having to sit on the sidelines while the guys went to strip clubs, these post feminists learned to paint themselves as "loophole women."
"Raunch," Levy writes, "provides a special opportunity for a woman who wants to prove her mettle ... it is something that has traditionally appealed to men and actively offended women, so producing it or participating in it is a way to both flaunt your coolness and to mark yourself as different, tougher, looser, funnier ... If male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, female chauvinist pigs are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women -- and of themselves."
According to Levy Female Chauvinist Pigs are not just the women in Playboy but are also the women who buy Playboy so they can "appreciate" each girl's beauty and criticize her faults.
These women are brave. They're liberated. And they might have Carmen Electra's striptease workout on DVD. Some even say they're feminists.
Although being a loophole woman may be fun, Levy concludes, "If you are an exception that proves the rule, and the rule is that women are inferior, you haven't made any progress."
From this perspective, ASU women parading themselves for the sake of attempted sexual expression clearly won't affect ASU's academic integrity. But they absolutely do affect the collective integrity of ASU women -- exclusively ASU women.
Case in point: Just after Alamoodi's proposal was made public, several morning radio commentaries discussed the validity of and implications of his attempt. John Holmberg of KUPD suggested that, as long as ASU lets in dumb bimbos, they're going to want to pose in Playboy. And if ASU has smart girls, they either won't want to pose in Playboy or they won't make it in due to unattractiveness.
Sure, it's one person's opinion. But clearly it resounded well enough with his listeners.
Certainly women should not be denied the right to control what they do with their own bodies, but don't mistake that such actions won't affect us.
Catherine Traywick is a journalism and English literature junior. Reach her at catherine.traywick@asu.edu.
