Johns Hopkins Student Paper Would Like Women To Know How Fat And Terrible They Are (Updated)

The editors of the Johns Hopkins News-Letter apparently decided it would be a great idea to start the school year by celebrating misogyny and sexism, posting two heinous articles that center around drinking and “fat chicks.”

The first piece, the charmingly titled “Local Bison Bear All At Psi Kappa Psi’s Annual Lingerave,” was posted in the Opinion section by Managing Editor Greg Sgammato, who apparently thought it would be a great move for his personal journalism career to share his thoughts on “fat chicks” and how they “systematically befriend hot chicks” in order to gain entrance to frat parties, a total bummer for Sgammato, who believes the presence of “fat chicks” at a lingerie-themed frat party, particularly those who dare to have the self-confidence to show their bodies off (which he attributes to alcohol), is, perhaps, a tragedy the likes of which the world has never seen:

In any case, fat chicks and hot chicks often go hand-in-hand. When they travel together to a frat party, those brothers working the door are forced to let the elephants inside; to refuse them would be incurring the wrath of their hot friends. And once inside, the damage has already been done. It’s only a matter of time until the mammoths monopolize the space on the dance floor.

In the future, one can think of at least one alteration to make; indeed, perhaps advertising a party as a “Lingerave” will bring about more bad than good. While seeing a hot chick in only her underwear is undoubtedly a treat, seeing a blimp without the welcome shield of clothing is a much worse fate for everyone at the party. A seasoned veteran should have the confidence to wait until the bedroom to see his girl without clothing; don’t subject the majority to the tyranny of the – funnily enough – enormous minority.

In a matter of minutes, the girl whose leggings expose a glimpse into the darker side of humanity will equate herself to Megan Fox. She – though ‘it’ may be more appropriate – will flaunt it like she’s got it, when in fact she never had it and probably never will. She will transcend ‘sloppy’ and become a force to be reckoned with, an 8-on-the-Richter-Scale Neuroscience major with no test on Monday, a full fridge and an empty bed.

Sgammato ends his piece by suggesting that his fellow bros deal with “wildebeests” by getting “obliterated.” Classy! And just in case you missed the overwhelming amount of misogyny in the piece, here’s a list of words Sgammato uses to describe women within the span of two pages:

• “bison”
• “elephants”
• “mammoths”
• “livestock”
• “grenades”
• “buffalo”
• “hippo”
• “blimp”
• “it” (you know, because she’s not an actual human being)
• “wildebeest”

Charming, no? I’m sure his fellow students, the entire faculty and staff of Johns Hopkins University, and all of its alumni donors are all very proud. (In fact, several alums have already chimed in in the comments of Sgammato’s piece, expressing their disgust.)

And if you were under the impression that perhaps Sgammato’s opinion piece was a fluke, a random piece of garbage stinking up an otherwise quality publication, well, you’re sadly mistaken: a second piece from the same issue is just as bad, if not worse.

The second piece, “Banging Under The Influence: The Ups and Downs,” written by Javier Avitia, centers around the idea that getting drunk and having sex is like, totally awesome, brah, mostly because it allows girls to be “submissive” and “slutty” while men become “emboldened.”

For guys, the appeal of this is obvious: it cuts out the hassle of having to pretend to care about a relationship and the protocols of a thing called “courtship” if they want to sleep with a girl, it gives them an excuse to think with the other head, and, as many a study has shown, girls become more submissive when intoxicated while men conversely become more emboldened. So score one for the men.

Though less obvious than a guy’s reasons, on top of the relaxing effects of alcohol and not having to deal with whiney boyfriends, girls also find drinking appealing since it gives them a convenient excuse to be promiscuous and not be considered slutty by society’s biased standards. (Girls, I’ve got your backs.)

Avitia ends the piece with a disclaimer (This in no way reflects how I actually feel. “Let them eat cake.”? What the f*** was that.) that doesn’t even make any sense, like the majority of the piece, which, content aside, is so poorly written one wonders why it was ever posted in the first place. Avitia’s piece, unlike Sgammato’s, which will most likely be defended by the “Well, it was in the opinion section,” defense, is posted under “News & Features,” which is a bit confusing.

The first line of defense for bro-tastic pieces like this is usually pulling the “it was a joke, lighten up” card, but I’m not sure that’s going to work, as the pieces don’t seem to work on a satirical level. A commenter named “Guy ’11” also points out in the comments of Sgammato’s piece that Johns Hopkins has a satirical paper, the Black and Blue Jay, and that the News-Letter doesn’t normally publish satirical material:

And even if this were his intention (and I hope it was), the Newsletter isn’t a satirical paper. They don’t do that sort of parody. He could’ve published this completely unaltered in the Black and Blue Jay, and I wouldn’t object in the least.

As it stands, both pieces just read as hateful, cruel, and misogynistic. There are a lot of unanswered questions here: I’m not entirely sure why the News-Letter(which, it should be noted, has two women as Editors-in-Chief) feels it necessary to waste any of its space on this crap or why anyone associated with the paper would want these particular clips on their respective resumes, or why this kind of lazy, stereotypical, hateful, backwards, B-list Tucker Max wannabe bullshit appeals to anyone in the year 2010, for chrissakes, but alas, here we are.

“When buffalo – especially those who frequent frat parties – consume alcohol, they undergo an extreme and sudden inflation of self-image,” Sgammato writes. It’s nice to know their campus paper will be there to remind the female student body of how hideous and terrible they are. We wouldn’t want women walking around with a positive self-image, or anything. That would just be crazy, bro.

Update: It looks as though Sgammato’s article has been removed from the News-Letter site. Avitia’s article is still up at this time.

Update #2: The editors have posted an apology and explanation for the piece; there is a post about it here.

Local Bison Bear All At Psi Kappa Psi’s Annual Lingerave [JHU News-Letter]
Banging Under The Influence: The Ups And Downs [JHU News-Letter]