Lord knows I love the Ladycollege, but as anyone who weathered four years under Sophia's, watchful, judgmental eye can attest, sometimes the place is bizarrely sexist. The fact that the Ladycollege still delivers a protective, condescending, holier-than-thou attitude to its alumnae just makes me sad and the only way I can deal with that sadness is by writing catty quatrains:
Back when we were students
The administration did balk
When we dared to express ourselves
With a stick of chalk!
We could have chosen a college
That didn't make a stink
About open sexual expression
Or girls taking a drink
Only Smith College
Could make us feel dirty
About Monica Lewinsky
past the age of thirty!
I don't know how
Smith claims to be so moral
When it is well-known
For lots of girl-on-girl oral
Seriously, "the famous blue dress" might possibly, maybe, offend some unidentified oversensitive twat at the Ivy Day parade? I've been to (by my count) six Ivy Day parades in my time and I've seen references to hot flashes and marijuana smoking on some of the signs from the classes from the '60s, but somehow a vague reference to a topic that was in the news every freaking day for the better part of 1998 is in bad taste?
Who are they trying to protect? Some codgery old lady alum who might see our sign and decide not to leave her millions to the college? I seriously doubt that our sign is going to prompt a detailed discussion of the Lewinsky scandal between a parent and their five-year-old, but Northampton is full of supposed gifted children, so what do I know?
I also thought of asking them to change it to "4000 Americans dead in Iraq including a member of this class," since sex is so offensive and the pointless slaughter of our own young people isn't.
Posted by Zerd at April 9, 2008 11:42 AM