http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=52432


DURHAM - The University of New Hampshire is investigating a possible case of
discrimination in which a male student says he was asked to leave a public
feminist poetry event where women wore scissors on their necks and talked of
castrating rapists.

But one of the student organizers of the event says the man was asked to
leave because he was a journalist for a student paper - "not because he is a
man" - and that some women wanted to be anonymous when sharing personal
stories that included experiences with rape.

UNH senior David Huffman, 22, of Hollis, said this week he was working as a
reporter for a small conservative student paper called Common Sense when he
tried to cover the Patriarchy Slam held in the basement of UNH's Memorial
Union Building the evening of March 10.

Organized by the Feminist Action League, a radical feminist group that
includes students and recent graduates and is not recognized by UNH, the
event featured songs about castrating rapists, as well as women wearing
scissors on their necks and using the scissors to pop balloons that spelled
out "The Patriarchy," according to FAL member and UNH senior Nicole Hentz.

"We made it very clear we didn't want to castrate all men," Hentz
said. "The
penis is the symbol of power and is the weapon used to rape women and its
sort of the symbolic way of saying we were going to take away that power men
have over us."

FAL has been active on campus for about two years and has urged UNH not to
cut a class on violence against women. One of its members, Whitney Williams,
writes a column for the student newspaper, The New Hampshire, which often
focuses on feminist issues.

Hentz described FAL as a radical feminist organization interested in
dismantling the patriarchy in all its forms.

The group has called for the dissolution of the fraternity system and
supports Take Back the Night, an anti-rape event. Williams allegedly
received a death threat last year related to her writings that was
investigated by police. Williams could not be reached for this article.

Huffman said he spoke with a member of FAL before the start of the event and
that he stayed for about half the program before he was asked to leave by
another man in attendance.

"I was told my presence as a man would be intimidating to the other women
there," Huffman said in a telephone interview. "They wanted to create a
space free of men."

Hentz said Huffman was not asked to leave because of his gender but because
he was taking notes as a journalist. She said FAL members realized they were
wrong in doing so.

"There were issues dealing with sexual assault and sexual harassment and
things of that nature," Hentz said. "We just though it was best that he
leave after that point and we were incorrect in that and we actually didn't
realize that and we got a talking to from the MUB, the leaders, about
policy."

MUB Director MaryAnne Lustgraf said one of the main issues surrounding the
event was that FAL hosted the Patriarchy Slam, but the MUB room was reserved
by recognized student group, The Peace And Justice League.

"We're looking into it only from MUB policy standpoints," Lustgraf said.
"Who reserved the room and advertising for the event. One group was listed
as the sponsor and that's not who reserved the space."

Fliers advertising the event were posted around campus in the day or two
before the slam. They included images of jubilant and laughing women with
slogans that read "Jane got pretty excited when we told her she could slam
the patriarchy next Thursday," and "The more they kept laughing, the more
the men feared that something had gone terribly wrong."

Anne Lawing, UNH vice president of student affairs, said yesterday she first
heard of the incident on March 11, when Huffman brought his concerns to
administrators. She echoed Lustgraf's comments when she said the main
concern administrators had was possible improper use of MUB space.

Both Lawing and Lustgraf said they met with members of the Peace and Justice
League and warned them about policies related to reserving MUB space. Lawing
said that she is still looking into other issues, including freedom of
speech and possibly offensive material.

"If a group is going to hold an event like this and put up posters that
imply the public is welcome, they have to allow access," Lawing said. "They
have to allow the public to enter, no matter who it is."

When asked if UNH is investigating the issue as possible discrimination,
Lawing said she is first looking at the violation of MUB policy on use of
public space and that the issue was presented to administrators as a
question of discrimination.

"We're not finished dealing with the whole issue," she said.
"Our harassment
policies are pretty clear. There's the issue of whether this person was
turned away because of his gender or because he was a reporter."

Lawing said she hopes to conclude her investigation by Monday.

When asked if the event would be investigated as a case of discrimination if
it was hosted by a fraternity and included men referencing mutilation of
female parts, Lawing said she and other UNH administrators considered that
possibility.

"Frankly, when we found out about this, we were asking, 'What if it was a
fraternity?' " she said. "If a fraternity did that, we have so much data
that shows that fraternities have been violent with women in the past and
the instances of women being violent to men happen so infrequently."

After some consideration and clarification, Lawing said, "I don't think that
what they did is OK, but we're talking about their rights and the First
Amendment and not about what I think is OK. Violence isn't OK, frankly. Men
are victims, too."

In contrast, UNH swiftly kicked sophomore Timothy Garneau out of his dorm
last semester after he posted fliers mocking freshmen women who gain weight.
Garneau spent several weeks sleeping in his car and at friends' places
before UNH relented under the pressure of a national free speech group and
let him move back in to a dorm.

Lawing said one reason UNH administrators have taken more than a week to
complete looking into the issue is that students were gone from campus last
week for spring break.

Hentz said event organizers did not mean to suggest that they advocated
castrating all men and that the slam was meant to allow an open forum for a
range of emotions.


It's no wonder there is domestic violence!


--
Men are everywhere that matters!





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