In the midst of several Post writers engaging in what they perceived to be humorous columns that were ignorantly discriminative, negative and biased toward certain individuals and cultures, I salute faculty and student members who have voiced their opinions against recent columns and give them thanks for widely opening up dialogue within the Athens community. Ohio University is a community of educated individuals that accept diversity and look out for one another, brother and sister, hand in hand, heart to heart. Right? Then why does Thursday's Post column Avoiding the Walk of Shame make me more uncomfortable, skeptical and hopeless of progressing human compassion? I'm not writing to make an individual attack on the writer of this article, whom I believe innocently thought she was being cute or funny, but hope this commentary enables the writer of this article and those of the educational community to become aware of our human rights and the societal institutions and values that often blind us. I'm not writing exclusively as an activist, or as a female, but I'm writing to give another voice to our community and shed light on discriminative journalistic articles that community members might read everyday, no matter how slight they sway on the scale of offensiveness. Being that September is Sexual Assault Awareness month at Ohio University, I found Tuesday's column Avoiding the Walk of Shame to be both ironic and distasteful. The column discriminates and stereotypes female members of campus as being Sunday morning skirt and heels girls that have mascara smudged down their cheeks, disgruntled ponytails
and who don't appear to be going to church. The article alludes to alcohol (the final nightly shot of Ice 101 to be exact) going hand in hand with the female walk of shame and playfully provides tips on how females can avoid this walk of shame. The column, written by a female journalist, alienates females in the community by connecting the walk of shame to unintended sexual encounters that further question what the column is trying to say to women. The article implies that the female that walks the walk of shame on Sunday morning is the female that was intoxicated the night before and then plays with the phrase unintended sexual encounter to disconnect the female from her own actions. The tips that the writer provides females are tips like not wearing dresses or heels to bars on nights before walk of shames to get a car bicycle
or even a scooter so females can breeze by Frat guys shouting obscenities at them (a male stereotype directed at the Frat community), and even to pack a pair of shoes in one's bag the night before so the female can trick everyone into thinking you're a dedicated athlete. The end of the article further places females in a discriminative, powerless light by advising females to post the writer' s column on their refrigerators and write over it on a Post- It: Sexual encounters = Bad. If this column is supposed to be humorous, where is the real point behind it? The columnist's point is not clear. Instead, the column focuses on the term walk of shame to point shame at females and to insinuate that female campus members have unintended sexual relations with people the night before their Sunday morning runs. The word unintended can be taken in different ways, and to me, holds negative connotations, putting females in a powerless position. Women in this country have come a long way for social, political and sexual freedom, yet articles like this one that ask women to post Sexual encounters = Bad on their fridges, to be shameful of themselves, and to take advice from another woman telling them how to avoid shame is a step backward. This article seems unaware of the lens of perception it restricts its humor to. I'll put this article on my fridge, but I won't write Sexual encounters = Bad; instead, I'll write Ignorance = Shame.
Angela Perley is a senior language arts education major.
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