Withdraw the Poster

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I don't know if there have been many complaints about the Class of '54 reunion comittee's nudie poster, but I would like to assure your readers that there are many women (and men) who find it offensive. Messrs. Arnold, Strauss and Hill may not acknowledge it, but I submit that they chose an unzipped female figure for their poster to create a leering, sophomoric tone which they thought would attract their 45 year-old-plus classmates back to the scene of their frisky undergraduate lives.

Imagine the outcry if the Radcliffe Class of '54 used an undressed male figure on its reunion posters. We all know that a Radcliffe class wouldn't do such a thing because it is not acceptable in this society for women to publicly and routinely degrade and humiliate men sexually.

Unfortunately the exploitation of women's bodies to peddle almost anything is commonplace as evidenced by the beer ad on the back page of the Saturday, March 17 Crimson, the issue containing the poster article. The ad features a drawing of a young woman throwing off a beer label wrap to reveal her big-breasted, round-bottomed, scantily-clad body.

I doubt that we'll ever have a society in which women are treated as real people as long as women's bodies are used as sexpot images to sell products. This use is so prevalent that many of us are tired of taking the time to write letters and make phone calls every time we see a blatant example. For that reason I'm enormously grateful to Naomi F. Chase who made the time to complain about the poster to alumni and development officials.

Now if the Class of '54 would withdraw its poster with apologies, and if The Crimson would get tough in its ad policy, we could all feel that some meaningful steps are being taken toward the equality of the sexes. Bernice Buresh