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Texas A&M Football “Chalk Talk” for women features casual sexism

That could have gone better

Hello, and welcome to the year 2016. We have our first female major party presidential nominee in the history of this country so surely we can speak to women about trivial things like college football in a reasoned and equitable manner and

It's 2016. I just shared an awesome picture book this morning about women pioneers in science. We have the first female...

Publicado por Tonia Dousay em Quinta, 28 de julho de 2016

ENHANCE

oh. Oh. OH NO. No, no no. What in the festering green hell is this? Was there a system set up to check this material before it was presented? Did it go straight from one person’s stunted notion of humor directly to the internet for the entire world to see without any sort of review?

Forget the tarnishing of reputation and the potential (and well-deserved) slew of negative attention this may attract on social media. The worst part of this entire fiasco is that you have insulted the intelligence of Aggie Women. Women who have decided to embrace Texas A&M despite not being allowed to attend until the 1960s. Women with the good grace to put up with a lot of shit because they love our university.

Who knows what the vetting process was that went on behind closed doors. But one important thought was left out: without context, this looks absolutely horrible on all levels. Since many women in the crowd were upset by this, we’re guessing that it was not presented as satire at all, and that confirms the worst fears: this was just a big ol’ sexist talking-down to, complete with this rendition of the War Hymn:

We are Aggie women
We are filled with estrogen
Hullabaloo, canek, canek, and back again

Maroon & white are the colors we love
We are putting down our dish towels
And taking off our gloves

No more lysol or cascade
We want to score Touchdowns
And walk in the parade

We are Aggie women & this is our song
Come on...bring it on...no more thong
Hullabaloo..caneck..caneck..and so on

Someone involved in organizing this event somehow forgot that every single thing you do is going to end up on social media. But the lack of awareness pales in comparison to the sheer misogynistic and sexist tone they chose to adopt while addressing a group of adults with degrees from their own University. Here’s an idea: pretend like you’re addressing your mother, wife, sister, or daughter at “Chalk Talk” and see if it still sounds as cute in your head.

Or maybe we don’t need a designated event that’s basically set up for men to talk down to women.