The Gazette, the University of Western Ontario student newspaper, published an issue on Friday March 30, 2007 which claimed to be a satirical issue, intending no harm to anyone involved in the stories. However, it then proceeded to violate both the Ontario Human Rights Code regarding harassment on the grounds of both gender and sexual orientation.

Following a series of misogynistic and homophobic articles, the editors then proceeded to include an article entitled “Western Girl Likes the Taste of Rohypnol: She’s a real knockout!” [Rohypnol is the name of a date rape drug.] This, despite recent studies from the University of Victoria placing the rate of sexual assault among female university students at between one in six and one in four.

The articles continued in this vein, with an article poking fun at the Take Back the Night march referencing the idea that a “wild vagina” needed to be taken “into a dark alley to teach it a lesson.” They then implied that despite what women may say, their vaginas secretly wanted men to take control of them.

Yet another article took a picture of two men holding hands, blew it up to a two-page spread and spent the two pages making derogatory comments, continuing the common belief that the biggest insult to a man is to be considered gay. This just reinforces public perceptions that there is a negative connotation to being queer.

Nowhere in the satire issue are white, heterosexual men targeted, except where it is implied as an insult that they are queer, and thus emasculated. The only groups targeted in this issue are those who are already marginalized on a campus that boasts a population that is stereotypically Caucasian and privileged men and women. As a result this issue is simply yet another example of the more élite members of campus exerting their positions of power to generate hatred and prejudice.

The comments and words used in these supposed jokes are the same words used on a daily basis to justify violence against women and against queer individuals. Yet the University appears to feel that these are fair statements, and fit with the spirit of UWO’s beliefs regarding diversity and equality.

WIN, the Women’s Issues Network, has had meetings with them regarding anti-women speech several times in that last few years and no apologies or changes have been made. Unfortunately, the vast majority of students at Western who have been consulted on this issue have become so jaded in terms of both The Gazette and the administration’s lack of action that few students are willing to even come forward to speak up against this any longer.

Craig Ashbourne is a student at Western and the founder of a student organization known as SOHOC, Students Opposed to Hatred On Campus.

Excerpts from the blog of soapboxspinster

I go to the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. Our school newspaper, The Gazette, is notoriously shitty — bigoted, misogynist, racist, generally offensive… not to mention under-representative and just, with some exceptions, terrible journalism.

Several members of our campus women’s group (the Women’s Issues Network — WIN) have been working all year to pressure The Gazette to be more accountable and more representative. The most active of these members was a good friend of mine. Her work included volunteering with The Gazette as well as writing articles [that they never published] and general lobbying efforts and activist pressure. In general, because of this, The Gazette has a shaky relationship with WIN, and they often make fun of us in their pages.

Well, every year The Gazette publishes, on April Fool’s Day, a spoof issue. This year, they went way way way too far.

They don’t have the article on their website — not sure if it was up and they pulled it or if it was never posted or what — but the text of the atrocious article and a scan of it as it appeared in the paper are here. (rabble.ca has decided against publishing the offensive material.)

Yep it pretty much just gets worse as you read on. I could hardly believe it was real as I was reading it. Yes, it’s the spoof issue — but this is blatant violence and harassment and very much crosses the line.

I’m so enraged I can barely type. For the record, “Jennifer Ostrich” is extremely close to the name of my friend who was actively campaigning all year, and “Kate Conservative” is very close to the name of another visible and active member of WIN (who is also an active member of the Conservative party, hence the name). Both are clearly recognizable as themselves in this article, and some of the words attributed to “Jennifer” are taken directly (then totally exaggerated) from articles my friend wrote but that were never published.

Satire is one thing. Making fun of feminists? Sure, we’ve all seen that before and I’m sure that’s nothing we all haven’t had to endure, like the obvious slights at Take Back the Night and the Vagina Monologues.

I hate it, but you very much cross the line when you suggest that “taking someone into a dark alley to teach them a lesson” is okay and when you suggest that a woman, any woman, but especially my friend — not to mention, an active feminist and someone who was actively and vocally criticizing The Gazette, be raped to be “taught a lesson” and that she would enjoy it. Rape is not an okay thing to suggest to teach someone a lesson or to put someone in their place, or to suggest that someone was asking for it. It’s a joke? Not only is it not funny, it’s violence.

On top of the violence of this, it makes me especially angry because it is clearly a move to try to silent vocal women, feminists, on campus (not to mention, to silence feminist criticisms of their paper — picking out my friend as their target makes that pretty obvious), and it also works to discourage other women from joining in the fight.

Please take a few minutes to take action by writing to The Gazette Editor-in-Chief, Ian Van Den Hurk. UWO also has policies on equity and human rights that we feel this article severely violates. You can email the equity services at Western to complain and to draw their attention to this article. The President & Vice-Chancellor is Dr. Paul Davenport. The incoming president of the USC is Tom Stevenson.

Your help in spreading the word about this disgusting article is greatly appreciated. (In short: we want the whole internet to hear about Western and its misogynist rapist paper.)