I'llbe glad when Playboy is long gone from our campus. Not out of any strong moral conviction about the implications of its presence, but because I have grown tired of a debate that misses the fundamental point.
For the sake of this argument, let us start by simply granting the anti-Playboy argument. In its most rational form the protesters contend that pornography contributes to the larger problems of the objectification of women and their implicitly inferior status in our culture.
Dartmouth women who pose contribute to that status; moreover at least some people will take those women to represent all women at Dartmouth. The protesters hope that in light of these repercussions women will choose not to pose.
All of this may be entirely correct, but did we really have to look as far as Playboy to find something to be upset about? No, there are far more substantive problems with our own Dartmouth culture that are sitting at our front door.
But there are two striking differences between the problems at our doorstep and the problems with Playboy, differences which help to answer why we are so obsessed with Playboy and yet seem to ignore the closer issues.
The first difference is one of deniability. Playboy may be abstract, but we know what it is. There is a body of literature devoted to the ills of pornography. Its opponents can quote statistics and subscribe to theories.
The second is one of blame. The counter-example of Playgirl is not enough to change the fact that most pornography is made by men for men. That is why the women involved are seen as traitors to the cause.
So what of those problems closer to home? While Playboy falls nicely into a category, the real problems on this campus are diverse and fuzzy. Rather than theories we have only anecdotes. The problems are not pictures on a page but attitudes in people's heads.
Why are women less likely to speak up in class? Why are men willing to overlook or even defend the sexual assaults of their friends? Why is change so slow to come to a social system where men define, create, and host the overwhelming majority of parties on the campus?
On the question of blame, the local picture is equally fuzzy. Men may be hosting the parties but women are willingly attending them. Women hear the stories of despicable behavior but find a way to write it off and go to the guy's formal.
All of which points to one of the central reasons why such problems are so difficult to attack. To confront them is to risk social isolation. If you buck the only social system going, you are not bound for success within that system.
The few that do buck the system have enormous courage, but I hesitate to lay blame on those who don't. To ask college students to reject their social life for their principles is asking more than we can ever ask. Women on this campus are stuck in a Catch-22. They are the ones who stand the most to gain from change, but to work for that change is to risk being excommunicated from the very social system that they are trying to improve.
So we are left with the Playboy protests. Perhaps they represent a step in the right direction. Certainly they will have brought about some good if they help us to recognize that the culture is not simply skewed in favor of men, it is also structured to maintain its own status quo.
