The Rise and Fall of Harvard's Latest Controversy
(via Beth Chaplin)
Ah, the strange and twisted tale of the Giant Phallus of Harvard Yard. When a bunch of college students with too much time on their hands put their minds to something, the end result is often a PC sitcom. This episode was no different.
Some students decided it would be great fun to erect a giant snow sculpture of, well, a male Johnson. Others were offended by it, and eventually it was knocked down. What is hard for me to understand is why this ever even rose to the level of a controversy, when in reality it was just plain silly.
Amy Keel, Class of 2004, owned up to "dismantling" the sculpture. And this is where the story turns strange. For we learned that, while Ms. Keel's actions were admirable, her motives were a muddle, a jumble of academic feminism and strained logic.
Her letter argued in earnest that she was justified in defiling the phallus because it was put up "without permission" from the university. "The only thing it did was create an uncomfortable environment for the women of Harvard." Its "only purpose could be to assert male dominance." This leaves one imagining men walking around campus saying, "Gee, that snow sculpture is reassuring. Let's go harass some Radcliffe girls."
But it gets better. "No one," she wrote, "should be subjected to an erect penis without his or her express permission or consent." She was, she said, a victim of "gendered violence": Some Harvard males had tried to intimidate her and her accomplice while they knocked the thing down.
But Ms. Keel doesn't need exotic concepts like "gendered violence" and phallocentricity to justify what she did. Old-fashioned ones like decency will do just fine. The trouble is, by rejecting traditional mores as so much bourgeois conventionalism (to borrow a phrase), Ms. Keel has left herself impotent in the face of real obscenity....
Diane L. Rosenfeld, a lecturer in women's studies quoted in the Crimson, argued that "women do not need to be reminded of the power of male genitalia." She compared the statue to the Washington Monument and to "missiles."This is the nub of the problem. To Ms. Rosenfeld and Ms. Keel, the sculpture was obscene not in itself but insofar as it belonged to a category of symbols that suggest male domination. In Athens 2,400 years ago, Ms. Keel's phallus-breaking would have been a desecration. Luckily, she does not live in a phallus-worshiping culture, though she seems to think she does.
So the debate limped along. The Harvard Women's Center offered "feminist perspectives" on the sculpture. Then, on Wednesday, good sense emerged. Mary Cardinale, Ms. Keel's roommate and accomplice, explained her actions. Before doing the deed, Ms. Cardinale, who writes for the campus conservative publication, asked herself what Jesus would do.
In a strange alignment of differing moral views, Ms. Cardinale and Ms. Keel arrived at the same answer. The sculpture had to go.
Geez, don't any of y'all have any homework?? What would Jesus have done? I think he probably would have gone home and ordered a pizza....
