There were Jesus landmines all over campus distastefully shoving “FIND JESUS” into our digestive systems on the first days of fall semester and some pretentious cyclist was mad enough to write about the “sorry welcome” of women buying clothes from PINK on the university campus. Christopher Mead is evidently offended by a brand that, in his world, means women who wear bras aren’t intellectuals. “This partnership devalues the intellectual commons, reducing it to a shopping mall and communicating to students that their dollars and appearances matter more than their minds.”
What is the big deal with Victoria Secret apparel being sold on campus? Mead claims the University supports consumerism in a brand “whose history of promoting unrealistic body types, objectifying women and embracing the most conventional conceptions of what it means to be beautiful is well documented.”
College is all about capitalism. Is that really a surprise? They sell everything everywhere. It is commercialism. Apple products are sold in the campus store to students like water for fish. If the brand on campus being sold had been Nike, a brand associated with slave wages, forced overtime and subjective abuse, no one would have thrown a fit about how campus is “disheartening” for promoting commercialism and for supporting a rotten brand.
I agree that the brand targets a select body type in women, a problem to be discussed. But it also empowers women in what they wear and how they choose to feel in what they wear.
It makes me think that Mead is butthurt about the brand and what it represents, not the actual problem with women’s objectification. So, Mead throws out an argument that appeals to feminists and others alike, which is a level up in Utah culture, but not enough.
Why can’t women be taken seriously and buy bras and lingerie? Wearing a bra is not inherently sexual.
I completely agree that Victoria’s Secret promotes objectification and impossible ideals for women, but throwing out women’s issues and the university’s consumerism to cover up sexism is not a good standing argument.
Students of the University of Utah, you deserve and should demand the ability to do whatever you want, as long as it isn’t harming anyone.