Students gathered outside the Mirror office to protest the "He Said" column, cutting out the column from the paper and pasting it to the Mirror office walls. Peter Caty/The Mirror
The Mirror office attracted more attention than usual last Wednesday as one student’s response to the controversial “He Said” column gained momentum. The protest that took place has triggered a dialogue amongst students, editors, faculty and staff about women’s rights and journalistic integrity.
The “He Said/She Said” column, which has gained a status of infamy over the years, brings to light the fundamental differences between the male and female minds through discussion of typical college experiences. Although readers always expect for the column to shake things up a bit, some think that this week, He Said crossed the line. For a little while, anyways, the name on everyone’s tongue is not Doug Perlitz; it’s Chris Surette.
The protest began on Tuesday afternoon, after junior Shawne Lomauro read this week’s “He Said” column. According to Lomauro, the language that Chris Surette, ’10, used to discuss the topic of “The Walk of Shame” was unacceptable.
“Immediately something in me snapped. This type of language is not okay,” said Lomauro.
Upon reading the article, Lomauro went down to The Mirror office and covered its sign with a poster stating, “Hey Mirror, WE WILL NOT BE VICTIMIZED!!” This was in response to a line in Surette’s article that reads, “Not only is it a story for you and your boys, but others will soon realize what happened when they see your victim walking back to the dorms in her dress from last night, with a disgraceful look on her face as if she was robbed of her dignity.”
The article goes on to describe a female’s walk of shame as the result of a male victory. Students who attended the protest felt that this sort of attitude towards women and sex has no place at Fairfield University.
“I’m so much more than that. The women at this school are so much more than what ‘he said’ we are,” said Nicole Fogliano, ’12.
“What’s really bothering me is that the ‘loss of dignity’ experienced during a sexual encounter is sexual assault. This sort of language perpetuates a culture that dehumanizes women, and also men,” added Sarah Gatti, ’10. “[Sexual assault] happens, it’s confusing, and it rarely gets reported.”
There was a substantial number of men at the protest who felt that the article was a misrepresentation of the male gender. Since “He Said” is generally assumed to be speaking for the male population at Fairfield, typifying the male college experience, some felt obligated to speak out against the article.
“For far too long, there’s been too much male privilege in this world. This article is a prime example of that. The article talks about women as less than human beings,” Nick Bakalov, ’10, said. “I don’t want to walk around and have people see me like that.”
Freshman Matt McNeill, who did not attend the protest, agrees. “I think it’s not indicative of the freshman mentality or of men. I think it perpetuates the cycle of seeing men as pigs. I don’t think that’s fitting of who I am or who my friends are.”
For most students in attendance, the issue at hand was that of language, not of a desire for censorship on the part of both The Mirror and Surette. Protesters hoped to bring about a discussion that might make students reconsider if such language towards women is appropriate to be used in a public scope.
“I would like to see this language stopped,” said Lomauro. “The Mirror is our common space. What gets said here becomes integrated in our daily college lives… The trivialization of harm and shame that someone has experienced is not funny, or entertaining.”
Other students, particularly seniors who know Surette’s character and understand what the column is typically all about, are standing behind Surette through the controversy.
“It’s Surette. If he hooked up with a girl, he’d probably make her breakfast and drive her home the next morning,” said Brenton Roman, ’10. “Chris is a good kid, I’ve known him since sophomore year, and [“He Said”] is just a facade. It’s just to get people going.”
Roman also feels that there is more pressure on the editors of The Mirror than on Surette to cater to the paper’s audience.
“We live in a free country. He is going to write what he’s going to write. I think that the editors bear more of that burden of deciding what goes in the paper. What he says carries a lot of weight on campus, and if the editors find it too offensive, that’s on them,” Roman said.
Allyson Wuensch, who writes for the “She Said” portion of the column, has barely been mentioned in discussion of the article, even though she covered the same topic. Wuensch feels that interpretation of the article is based on personal boundaries.
“I read it at the same time as some of my friends and I wasn’t personally offended by it; but some of my friends were. There is a fine line between funny and disrespectful and those boundaries are different for everyone, based on their own personal experiences. I believe that he didn’t mean it to offend anyone and I’m sure he’s sorry about the reaction its caused,” Wuensch said via email.
Tom Cleary, Editor-in-Chief of The Mirror, understands that some students were offended by the article, but he does not feel that a protest which destroyed countless newspapers was not the proper way to address their discontent.
In an email correspondence, Tom wrote, “I believe in the students’ right to disagree with our content, but at the same time I ask that they respect our freedom to write what we want. The He Said/She Said columns are a satirical section of the paper meant for entertainment and are not a representation of The Mirror as a whole. I would hope that students can see the difference between our hard reporting and editorials, such as our reporting on diversity this past week. We invite anyone who has feelings about our paper to send us letters to the editor or stop by the office to discuss the issues. I would hope that students would come to us or write to us first before going to such an extreme as a protest. We were also disappointed that our paper was cut up and destroyed, because many students spent countless hours putting work into it.”
The backlash that the article created has had a big impact on Surette. He believes that he was misunderstood, yet recognizes that his word use was not appropriate.
“I’m your average guy, and I think, as Tom said in his letter from the editor, I’m playing a role,” said Surette. “I took the notion of the role to be a guy talking to other guys like they’re in a locker room—playing it up, talking big game.”
“I feel like a lot of people think I’m violent, and I’m not at all. That is absolutely horrifying to me that people actually think that. It’s very hurtful, I’m very upset, I’m shaken. I’m having a tough time dealing with it right now,” he said.
Surette highlighted the feminism course that he recently took as an elective. “I took a feminism class, and I was the only guy in the class. I do not think of myself as the macho guy…I believe in women’s rights. I’m not here saying that ‘men should rule all;’ I have a sister, I have a mother, and I respect them and everything they do,” said Surette.
Some students, who are in support of Surette and expect a certain level of entertainment value from the articles, seem concerned that this incident will effect the column negatively. When questioned about this, Surette added, “I’m gonna tone it down, I’m not gonna focus on the gender issue. I’m going to try to take topics away from that…I think that I can definitely improve my writing to make it entertaining without the offensive stuff in there, it’s just a matter of my wording.”
Public Safety opted not to stop the protest, but for some students and The Mirror staff, the question of whether this was truly a peaceful protest is still up for discussion. For now, the “He Said/She Said” article is doing what it has always done: use controversy to get students thinking about the tough issues that we face everyday. For better or for worse, “He Said” created a discussion that will likely continue as long as the column exists.
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