The members of a University of Oxford drinking club have been suspended for sending e-mail messages to each other rating the sexual desirability of women on the campus.
After the messages — which described plans to lure some “fitties” to a drunken party — were posted around Oxford’s Hertford College, the college suspended all 15 members of the club, the Telegraph reports.
Hertford College’s Penguin Club had gained notoriety for its freshman initiation ceremony, in which inductees streaked around the university while smeared in goose fat and eating raw squid, according to the Telegraph.
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15 Responses to Oxford Tipplers Suspended for Sexist E-Mail
laventa - March 6, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Here we go again! And women don’t rate men for their sexual desirability? I know that my girlfriends and I did so, and still do so. This is patently abusrd. That young and immature college men’s brains go south is as old as time. Why are brands such as Victoria’s Secret and other sexy apparel designers and cosmetics companies so popular? Women want to be sexually desirable and noticed by men just as men want them sexually. You can’t have it both ways. The feminists of yesteryear propelled us to positions of unimagined strength, power and independence. But, today’s PC cohorts has transformed women into humorless whining victims in need of protection, lacking the spine to laugh at themselves and laugh off tasteless humor, or at least, to dish it right back.The women of Oxford should return the favor and post their evaluations of potential male sexual objects. All of this self-righteous indignation is detrimental to one’s health. Laugh a little and get a life!And once again, express something someone doesn’t like, and get fired or suspended, as in this case. Being punished for one’s thoughts which stray from the established doctrine is reminiscent of totalitarian regimes. What a disgrace.
maja_mikkels - March 6, 2010 at 8:22 pm
You gotta be kidding, Laventa! Writing about other people’s f*ckability is degrading and humiliating and should be prohibited in situations like school, work, etc. where people cannot avoid spending time together. Everyone deserves to work and learn in an atmosphere of dignity and respect.
klblk - March 8, 2010 at 5:34 am
The story is not quite right as there is not really an Oxford campus that one can talk about in this way, nor would the Penguin Club have been a University of Oxford club.The students were suspended by Hertford College, not the university, for intra-college activities, not university, which will have violated the college regulations. (Each Oxford college has its own dean of discipline and internal disciplinary procedures as it is legally and operationally separate from the University.) The students might additionally be suspended by the University, but that would take place through a separate and independent disciplinary process. Until then, they could still attend lectures and use university facilities such as the libraries.
tgroleau - March 8, 2010 at 8:33 am
News Flash……College aged males talk to each other about college age females physical attributes and would like to “party with the prettiest”.Wow, I’m glad someone told us about that or we would never have known.
johntoradze - March 8, 2010 at 12:23 pm
“humorless whining victims in need of protection, lacking the spine to laugh at themselves and laugh off tasteless humor, or at least, to dish it right back” – that bell tolls for thee maja_mikkels! Clearly, the result of the feminist movement has been evolutionary, and very rapid. The strong feminists of yesteryear did not reproduce, leaving the field to those female humans on the sidelines of the feminist movement whose character traits were exactly what feminists tried to claim were false. Now that the bell curve center for human females has moved so far in the, “Poor little thing, protect me, help me!” direction, the feminist rhetoric has been subsumed. Truly, watching this unfold is reminiscent of the Scott Adam’s book in which Arthur Dent goes back in time and finds out that the human race was founded by a crash landing of a spaceship full of hairdressers.
pdbeyer - March 8, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Once again the PC Police are out. If the Emails offend you don’t read them. If they were privaet communications between members, its none of your business. Who is punishing the people who posted these without permission? It is in bad taste, yes, should it cause a suspension, no.
swish - March 8, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Is thinking about it okay, or must our thoughts be pure as snow, too? May as well suspend everybody, or prohibit personal communications altogether. Maybe humans should all be replaced by robots.
chroniclebarnacle - March 8, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Alcohol + human being = bizarre behavior. No gender even mentioned. Any questions?
drhypersonic - March 8, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Three cheers for Laventa! Long may men ogle women–and long may women ogle men.
mccaugheym - March 8, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Ogling is fine and dandy, and so perhaps the article should have clarified this part, that the messages”described plans to lure some “fitties” to a drunken party.” News flash: If you’re planning to get a woman blitzed and then copulate with her, you may be planning to commit a felony. This has nothing to do with ogling, which is fine. I don’t think male “fitties” would take kindly to women to whom they may not be attracted getting them drunk and then raping them while they are vulnerable and unable to defend themselves (or maybe even unconscious).
kajohnston - March 8, 2010 at 5:31 pm
The emails were posted in public according to the news blurb. The women listed have the right to attend college without being subject to sexual harassment–and being rated on flyers posted around their campus on their sexual desirability certainly seems to fall under sexual harassment to me. Laventa seems to feel that the women involved should just laugh it off. Most can. But some college students are young (I was 17 as an undergraduate) and vulnerable. Students and university employees have the legal right to be in a safe environment free from sexual harassment and bullying regardless of gender or sexual orientation. It is not a joke, or runaway feminism– it is the law.
swish - March 8, 2010 at 6:35 pm
The linked article says “the private emails were posted around the college in the middle of the night by an unknown whistleblower.” Most of the e-mailers, we may assume, intended the e-mails to remain private. If the young women were harmed, it was by the individual who made the e-mails public. I’d also argue that this whistleblower violated the privacy of the Penguin Club members.Neither this summary nor the linked article clearly indicates that the male students were planning to rape anybody. I sure wouldn’t want to go to that party, and I hope the invitees were not misinformed about the kind of party it would be. But maybe some of the “fitties” actually enjoy getting drunk and wild and crazy, and might willingly consent to sexual activities. Women occasionally do, you know.If there’s more damning information about the content of the e-mails yet to be revealed, I could change my mind, but I’d still say that this supposed “whistleblower” could have found a better way to blow the whistle on the Penguin Club guys.
zefelius - March 9, 2010 at 4:53 am
Swish:Very well put and rational.Does anyone know if emails in general are considered private if the email account is with your university? Ideally I’d like to think so, but I’m guessing not…
citrita - March 9, 2010 at 3:10 pm
(sigh) Has everyone forgotten about Juicy Campus already? (How soon we forget.)
soffee - March 10, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Yes “laventa, 3-6-10″ you pose an exceptionally good point: [And once again, express something someone doesn't like, and get fired or suspended, as in this case. Being punished for one's thoughts which stray from the established doctrine is reminiscent of totalitarian regimes. What a disgrace.]Try to engage in a academic level debate about the Holocaust or question the nebulous facts and figures. Before you know it you have the Seven Horses of the Apocalypse, in the form of some Zionist thug squad, beating on your front door demanding your blood.Always makes me wonder what they have to hide if they are so scared to openly discuss it. Very interesting question to ponder ???????