"The Ballad of Hairy Mary and Sweaty Betty"
-Olde Irish drinking song
You couldn't make this up. Female students at Arizona State University who are in the Women and Gender Studies program are being offered extra credit for not shaving their armpits.
Not shaving their armpits!
http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=5735
"Yuk!"
“The experience helped me better understand how pervasive gendered socialization is in our culture. Furthermore, by doing this kind of activist project I was no longer an armchair activist theorizing in the classroom.” she said. “So much is learned by actually taking part in the theory or idea we learn in the classroom, and we could benefit from this type of pedagogy being taken up by similar classes.”
You can't put a price tag on a college education, Folks.
When I was a young buck stationed in Germany with the US Army in the 1960s, most German women did not shave their armpits. It was something one just had to get used to if you going to continue chasing women or wait until you got back Stateside. It was also common in Italy in the 1980s.
So Ladies of ASU, take it from a guy who knows about these things. It's a lousy idea, and you got a lousy professor.
I once met a student from UC Santa Cruz who shaved her head to help get into the character of a concentration camp inmate in a theatrical production. I don't quite see this as parallel or consonant, but I suppose the teach of the course does.
ReplyDeleteWe need to stop giving Ph.D's for mastering opinions.
I certainly hope they braid their pits when it grows out enough. Much more attractive, as well as being cool.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand her, she believes she stopped being an "armchair activist" (and presumably became a real activist) by not shaving her armpits.
ReplyDeleteWow! That will be some story to tell the grandchildren some day.