What does NOW think about this?

Friday, December 8, 2000

Penn State festival name offends legislator

ASSOCIATED PRESS

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - A state legislator has expressed outrage over the name of a women's festival at Pennsylvania State University that included an obscene reference to the female anatomy.

Rep. John Lawless (R., Montgomery) demanded "immediate action" against Penn State over the Nov. 18 festival, which was sponsored by two women's groups and featured self-defense workshops, a lesbian performance artist, and a singer-songwriter.

Organizer Erica Smith defended the name as an attempt to "enlighten people that the word doesn't have to be used negatively against women."

Lawless rejected that explanation.

"This is obscene. I don't care what their defense is. We still live in a society where that's an unacceptable word," said Lawless, who wrote a letter to Gov. Ridge requesting unspecified action against the university.

The festival received $9,519 from the student-run University Park Allocation Committee. Penn State spokesman Steve MacCarthy said the university's share of the funding came from student-activity fees.

Two other state legislators, whom MacCarthy would not name, and a few parents called to complain, he said.

"I think from the administration's perspective, it was an unfortunate title for an event that might have had some merit for some students," MacCarthy said.

Ridge spokesman Tim Reeves said the university did not balance academic freedom with community standards.

"It's just probably the single most offensive word in our language, certainly one of them," Reeves said. "We all need to support academic freedom. The problem here is that the second half of the equation apparently got left out."

The festival was sponsored by Womyn's Concerns and the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance. Feminist author Inga Muscio read excerpts from her book, whose title includes the same word used by the festival.

-- (PCcop@PSU.edu), December 09, 2000

Answers

"This is obscene. I don't care what their defense is. We still live in a society where that's an unacceptable word..."

Does the duck drop down and I win $100 if I say The Secret Woid? (At least they could have told everyone what the word was, so I could remember not to use it in Pennsylvania.)

-- I'm Here, I'm There, (I'm Everywhere,@So.Beware), December 09, 2000.

Never mind. I just looked up Inga Muscio's books on amazon.com. But I still don't see what's so bad about the word "declaration."

-- I'm Here, I'm There, (I'm Everywhere,@So.Beware), December 09, 2000.

Charlie Uniform November Tango.

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), December 09, 2000.

Well dammit, what is the word?!

-- cin (cin@cin.cin), December 09, 2000.

ooooh that one.

I think we should send hawk to penn

-- cin (cin@cin.cin), December 09, 2000.

The C word is like the N word. No one can use it except PC Cs. And the rest of you must pay us for our in-yer-face performance art because you are reactionary assholes and you don't "get it". Got it?

-- (Chair-C@PSU.C-day), December 09, 2000.

Never Understood Those Sentences.

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), December 10, 2000.