From Shauna Colleen Murphy, Feb. 21, 2016
We are a group of students at PSU who are disturbed by the content exhibited by the Portland State Vanguard.
In the recent February 16th issue it was broadcasted on Vanguard’s front page that $ 750,000 would be awarded to a professor Kaufman in an effort to prevent sexual assault. An ironic article considering the first page of the newspaper presents an advertisement from a [Spyce] Gentleman’s Club – specifically soliciting the attention of young, underage students to seek employment at their topless club. The advertisement baits students with money in exchange for sexual voyeurism.
This is not a matter of moralistic variability or differences in viewing women’s sexuality. Any true scholar or writer who had reviewed the statistics would know that 98 percent of women who enter into employment contracts with ‘gentleman’s’ clubs or any place where sexual voyeurism is present end up victims of sexual assault or victims of the sex trafficking industry altogether. It would be naïve for the Portland State students to accept without question a manipulative advertisement of this nature among the greater student body, especially considering professor Kaufman’s new funding from the Federal government.
We are disturbed that the ad is designed to specifically target young, poor, desperate, and [inexperienced] women. If this does not ring of a sexual barter, we are unsure what would.
Our request on behalf of our friends, the dozens of young women who attend class with us, and the greater Portland State student body, is that advertising in Portland State Vanguard might present material more appropriate to an academic setting – moreover, at least one that would not throw our young, bright girls into a bath of sexual predators, and instead, keep them in school.
For another letter to the editor on this issue, click here.
To see the Editor-in-Chief’s response, please click here.
Note: Edits to reader-provided letters are exclusively for correct spelling of proper nouns and print formatting. While the Vanguard staff makes efforts to verify facts and statistics, any of these included are provided by the authors, not the organization.
