Picture Perfect?
Noreen Gillespie, Managing Editor and Colleen McCarthy, Associate News Editor
A picture is worth a thousand words.
But are they always the words we want to say? The picture and words on the back of the T-shirt sponsored by the Class of 2002 board said just about everything that Saint Mary's women don't want to hear.
Featuring a crude reproduction of the famous "Il Bacio", the shirt showcased a young boy with a Notre Dame T-shirt kissing the cheek of a girl with a Saint Mary's emblem on her shirt while a forlorn Notre Dame-clad girl looked on. Underneath were the words "Girl of Choice."
Imagine the disgust of the student body.
Fortunately, Board of Governance did the right thing and deserves to be commended for purchasing all of the T-shirts from the Class of 2002, keeping them from being sold. But once the words are spoken, it is hard to forget that some members of the community found this acceptable in the first place.
Gender relations are nothing to joke about at Saint Mary's and Notre Dame. Over the past three years since the infamous "Parasite" letter, Saint Mary's women have worked tirelessly to break down stereotypes and instill a sense of pride in students for what it means to be a Saint Mary's woman. However, we were reminded today how quickly all of that work could have been undone by the image and words on a piece of cloth.
When we came to Saint Mary's, we made a choice. It wasn't the one reflected in the T-shirt; it was for a first class education, not a man.
The T-shirt not only perpetuated a stereotype of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's women alike, it also trivialized the women who made the choice to come to Saint Mary's. In addition, the other idea of "choice" represented in the T-shirt portrays the Saint Mary's women not as being chosen for their mind or as a whole person, but rather as a sexual object by the Notre Dame man.
And it gets worse.
Instead of trying to break down barriers to unite Saint Mary's and Notre Dame women, the T-shirt reinforced the supposed rivalry. We should reach out to the women of Notre Dame to unite on issues that are of common concern to us as women.
It is deplorable on the eve of the week that is supposed to celebrate our identity as Saint Mary's women that some women still have not discovered the meaning of that identity.
We left "girlhood" behind long ago. It's time for the Class of 2002 board to understand what it means to be a woman — a Saint Mary's woman.
That's the picture that says the words we want to hear.
All Inside Stories for Thursday, September 28, 2000
