Editorial: A Response to ‘301’ - Sexism in The Citizen

By Jack Wearing, Editor in Chief

Absentmindedly flicking through The Citizen last Friday, I expected to see the usual; reports on the school’s sporting achievements, reviews of recent films and albums, perhaps a few politically centred articles. What I did not expect to see was a derogatory and highly misguided article denouncing feminism on the grounds that the feminist movement is ‘nothing more than a façade used by the female gender to disguise the fact that it is men who are being oppressed [sic]’.

This article was deeply misogynistic, essentially amounting to an incoherent and misinformed rant. The writer made several errors in causality, with most of his arguments making little logical sense. His paranoid assertion that women work men ‘to an early grave’ in order to take their ‘earned wealth’ in particular is so preposterous that it would be funny if it didn’t all feel so sincere. Equally disturbing is his claim that ‘the majority of women decide to take several years out of work’ in order to have children, seemingly comparing reproductive labour to a pleasant holiday. Lacking points of any real worth, the writer seemed to think that repeating himself ad nauseum counted as a suitable substitute; apparently we males are so ‘oppressed’ by women that it needs to be said in every paragraph, sometimes twice.

I could go on, but thankfully Theo Weisz of 3S has already provided this week’s edition of The Citizen with a response, intelligently dissecting the nonsensical arguments of the piece. His letter does an ample job of exposing many of the original article’s flaws, and fully deserves the ‘Article of the Week’ stamp above it. Between my previous paragraph and Weisz’s letter, the key factual inaccuracies of the article have been thoroughly dealt with, and I would now like to turn my focus to other unpleasant aspects of the article. One of the most troubling elements of the piece is that what begins as an attack on feminism as a movement quickly seems to dissolve into a rant against all women. In his letter, Weisz observes that the writer ‘portrays feminists as an evil group of women obsessed with taking over the world’. I would argue that he portrays not only feminists, but all women as members of this ‘evil group’. In his closing paragraph, he seems to imply that women are part of a grand conspiracy to control every aspect of men’s lives. This, and arguably other parts of the column, are not simply anti-feminist*, but fundamentally sexist.

Frankly, I was shocked by so blatant a display of ignorant prejudice, especially in the pages of a school paper. While I admire The Citizen’s editors greatly for printing Weisz’s rebuttal this week, the fact remains that this extremely offensive article never should’ve been printed at all. Now, I want to make it clear that I’m all for freedom of speech. I generally don’t endorse censorship, although I have to admit that I’m conflicted as to whether or not hate speech should be given a platform in the media, and it could certainly be argued that views like this have to be aired in order for healthy debate to occur (and this article has undoubtedly sparked a lot of debate). However, I think writing of this sort is particularly inappropriate for a school paper, especially one available on the school’s website. Imagine the reaction of a curious prospective parent scrolling through the paper online, only to see this article. To say that writing of this sort could be damaging to the school’s fine reputation is a gross understatement, and it troubles me that a piece so misrepresentative of the opinions of the vast majority of students and teachers at this school appeared in print in one of its own publications.

Whatever the basis for this piece’s publication, be it respect for the writer’s freedom of expression, confidence that a rebuttal would presently be submitted, or some other reason besides, I feel that The Citizen’s editorial team made a mistake in allowing this column publication in so inappropriate a forum. While the publication of Weisz’s counter-argument displays a balanced, objective stance on the part of the editors, I feel that this article has the potential to cause further offence, and to unfairly damage the reputation of the school and its pupils. I would implore The Citizen’s editors to remove it from the school’s website for this reason, if not simply for its inherent sexism.

*The writer’s understanding of the concept of feminism, incidentally, is severely lacking; feminism is not the same as misandry, and most feminists are directly opposed to it.