<div dir="ltr"><div class="">
<div class="">
<div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><h1 style="border-bottom-width:0px;color:rgb(68,68,68);line-height:25px;padding-bottom:0px"><font face="georgia, serif" size="2">Sweater Day Sexism</font></h1><div><div class=""><font face="georgia, serif"><a href="https://youtu.be/kLYjQJr5Je0">https://youtu.be/kLYjQJr5Je0</a></font></div></div><div class=""><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><font face="georgia, serif">February 5, 2016</font></div></div><div class=""></div><div class=""><h2 class=""><font face="georgia, serif" size="2">By <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/users/scott-jaschik" title="View user profile." class="" style="font-weight:normal">Scott Jasch</a>ik</font></h2></div></div></div></div></div> </div>
</div>
<div class=""></div><div class="">
<div class="">
<div class=""></div> </div>
</div>
<div class=""></div><div class="">
<div class="">
<p><font face="georgia, serif">At Simon Fraser U, professors were stunned by video university
posted on its website that suggested female faculty members could be
viewed as sex objects -- in the name of saving energy.</font></p></div></div>
<div class=""></div><div class="">
<div class="">
<div class=""><div id="dfp-ad-story_level_pages-wrapper" class="">
<div id="dfp-ad-story_level_pages" class=""><font face="georgia, serif">"Sweater
Day" events are designed to encourage people to wear sweaters in colder
months, and to set slightly lower thermostat levels than might
otherwise be needed for comfort.<br></font></div></div></div></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class="">
<p><font face="georgia, serif">At Simon Fraser University, a video posted by the university to
promote the day stunned faculty members with its sexism. While the
origins of the video are under investigation, it was posted to the
website of the Canadian university and promoted to faculty members --
leaving many wondering how such a thing could have happened.</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">The video starts with the university's logo and then shows a
thermostat being lowered. Then it shows a fictional female faculty
member in her office pulling on a pink sweater. A male student walks by,
stops and says, "Miss Pinkham?" She says, "Yes, Chad." And he says,
"Nice sweater," prompting the professor to smile and laugh to herself.
The video ends with the tagline "saving energy is sexy."</font></p>
<div class="" height="260px" width="400px"><font face="georgia, serif"></font></div>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">The video was apparently made for a previous sweater day but was sent around this year -- and the response was immediate.</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">Elise Chenier, a gender studies scholar who is professor of history at Simon Fraser, used a <a href="http://elisechenier.com/2016/02/03/when-your-institution-treats-you-like-a-sex-object/?platform=hootsuite" target="_blank">blog post</a>
to summarize many of the objections. "[A] female teacher is in her
office -- she is supposed to depict an instructor but is addressed as
'Miss Pinkham,' not doctor or professor -- and a young male student
stops to compliment her in a sexually suggestive manner. She is
flattered, and flustered. Really. No, really. Saving energy is,
apparently, a huge turn-on for white heterosexuals, and don’t take my
word for it, that’s what the video actually says."</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">The university took the video down the same day it was distributed
and has vowed to investigate why it was placed on the website and
promoted.</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">"As the video was produced by an external vendor, I had not seen it.
When I did watch it, I immediately agreed with the feedback we had
received that the video is inappropriate, sexist and not in keeping with
our equity commitments. We took steps to remove the video as quickly as
possible and have followed up with the group who produced and
distributed the video to ensure it will no longer be used," said a <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2016/national-sweater-day-video-removal.html" target="_blank">statement</a>
from Joanne Curry, the university's vice president of external
relations. "We plan to investigate how this video was posted and plan to
put into place additional procedures to ensure that this will not
happen again."</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">Chenier, in her blog post, said the video poses questions about how something like this wouldn't have raised flags.</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">"When the very place you work promotes the kind of sexism that your
intellectual work seeks to contest and ultimately, destroy, you feel
like you are being eaten from the inside out. There was once a time when
I would have seen the video is simply outdated, idiotic and, yes,
offensive, but now I see it much differently. Now I feel the harm it
does, and not just to Miss Pinkham, but also to her male student, who is
encouraged to relate to half the population on such a limited level,
and who himself then is defined by his heterosexual desire for women,"
Chenier wrote.</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">She concluded: "The collective outrage of female faculty resulted in
the video being removed from the SFU website, and that is a very good
thing. But how do we get to a place where such a thing never gets up
there to begin with?"</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">UPDATE: Chenier has posted a new blog post in which she praised the
speedy response and Curry's words in which she called the video sexist.
But Chenier also noted concerns about the way some have reacted.</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif">"Remarkably, grumblings were heard among some male faculty members
that those of us discussing the matter were wasting our time and we
should get back to our 'real' work," she wrote. "Such grumblings
illuminate why so many of us reacted so strongly to what may seem to
some an innocuous video. The video is a symptom of the toxic environment
in which women work. Male privilege, like white privilege (from which
white women also benefit) makes it possible to 'just get back to work.'
Why? Because their working environment is not toxic. (Insert nod to the
many men and non-gender binary individuals on campus who are very keen
to be alert to and contribute to eliminating such toxins.) Sexism
poisons our environment, and this makes it harder to 'work.'
Indeed, only someone who benefits from sexism could fail to see how
calling sexism out is our work ... the best job we never wanted."</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia, serif"> </font></p>
</div></div></div> </div></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><font face="georgia, serif">-- <br></font><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div> <div style="height:auto;width:auto"> <div> <div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><div><font face="georgia, serif">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. <br><br>-Greek proverb</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br></font>
<br><br></div></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
</div>