LETTER: Stern is poor defender of Backpage

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"Backpage 1997 -- Read by everyone. Respected by those who know."

Sorry to burst your bubble, BPEs, but you're getting a little out of touch with your audience. I cite Nate Blair's sequel to the controversial Backpage, in which he claims that that page simply expressed an undercurrent of campus thought.

I found that defensive column more laughable than most of the insipid drivel on a typical Backpage. My professors made jokes disparaging the offending Backpage; it obviously embarrassed the vast majority of Rice's population, and yet Blair claims to have been the bold spokesman for a misogynist campus.

Imagine my mortification, then, when I see that Howard Stern -- and God only knows who else -- has that Backpage to associate with our school.

And instead of an apology to Rice, the BPEs gloat in the notoriety. The rest of the campus (Remember us, guys? The ones who read the Backpage?) had generously let your disgrace rest in peace; for some reason I had assumed that perhaps you were tired of being hated and would return the gesture of peace.

Ha, ha! What a wacky reader I am. But Howard Stern is the least effective (though most appropriate) speaker to invoke in your ongoing struggle to justify that Backpage.

Stern's rambling comment is nearly humorously self-contradictory.

He begins inauspiciously by "comparing" men's and women's senses of humor and decides that women -- or, to quote Mr. Stern, "girls" -- are too uptight and, in summary, take things too seriously to appreciate "real" humor (i.e., flatulence).

We can see how impartial the BPEs' champion is, how eloquent, thoughtful and original his insights are. At least he's an appropriate celebrity to support our budding humor writers. He says, "There are differences about men and women, and you have to be able to laugh at them." I agree.

But Stern admits he has not seen the Backpage, and it is not about the differences between the sexes by any stretch of the imagination. It is "humor" at the expense of one gender only ; that distinction is crucial.

The "Rice Men are ..." section of the page described the majority of Rice students; it became more insulting to women than the "Rice Women are ..." section by suggesting that only men experience drunkenness, unrequited lust, sexual frustration -- in short, the experiences common to most of the campus community.

And the "this is only a joke" column at the far right hand side, while ostensibly reconciling women to the rest of the page, is nothing but a compilation of derogatory stereotypes of the women it addresses.

This is clearly not about the "differences about men and women" at all but a one-sided and vicious attack.

To end his masterful treatise, Stern pronounces: "I tend to be a little more tolerant." He must be kidding. In the sentence before this, he has condemned people who object to what he sees as political incorrectness (perhaps he has in mind an innocuous butt pinch or racist joke?).

If you're not on his side of an issue, then you're clearly a closed-minded whiner who can't take a good joke. He's "tolerant" of others, all right, unless they happen not to find a burp wildly amusing.

Though he is absolutely the wrong speaker to plead the BPEs' case to a hostile campus, he suits his subject matter well. Stern is a pompous, narrow-minded and insensitive Neanderthal. Great choice, BPEs!

Elena Villarreal

Lovett '00

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the February 14, 1997 issue.

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