The Arts and Science Students’ Union (ASSU) is discovering that what was funny once isn’t necessarily funny 10,000 times.
If you’ve picked up a copy of the 2004 ASSU Anti-Calendar, the annual guide to cheer-and-jeer-worthy Arts and Science courses at U of T, you, like many other students, may have been puzzled by the back cover. On it, a mock personal ad for an unnamed young South Asian woman was printed; it features a picture of her, dressed in a sari with a bindi-the decorative red dot worn by many Hindu women-on her forehead.
The text of the ad reads: “WANTED: Husband for not so young, relatively attractive (depending on what your relatives look like) Bengali girl. Education is not important because she will tell you everything you know and do is wrong. Future husband must not care about eating habits (not a pretty picture). DOWRY OFFERED: Younger brother as servant (yes, she bosses him around too!) Anyone from out of country, or considering leaving the country with her, is strongly encouraged to apply. We love her, but enough is enough.”
The young woman pictured is actually former ASSU president and current Students’ Administrative Council president Ranjini (Rini) Ghosh. And though the piece started as a joke, many, including U of T administration figures, aren’t laughing.
“I was deeply disappointed in the ad,” said Student Affairs director Susan Addario. “We haven’t had a female SAC president in over a decade, so to have Rini ridiculed on the back of the Anti-Calendar in this way was profoundly disappointing.”
Others agreed.
“From a personal perspective,” said Karel Swift, Registrar at U of T Admissions and Awards, “I found it unfortunate and deplorable. I questioned why it would appear.”
Ghosh said that the ad had been an inside joke among ASSU staff last year but agreed that most of the Anti-Calendar’s readers aren’t in on the joke.
“It’s a really difficult situation I’ve been put in,” she said. “Initially I thought it was funny, but I understand how some people could be offended by it.”
“Some of the students who know Rini understood it as the joke it was meant to be,” said Addario. “But it’s a huge community and not everyone’s in on the joke. I’m trying to imagine what a first-year female student from a South-Asian background would think when she saw it.”
“I haven’t had as many people come up to me and said they thought it was offensive as thought it was funny,” said Ghosh.
Current ASSU president Paul Bretscher said the Union was taking steps to make sure future in-jokes didn’t find their way into print in the 10,000 Anti-Calendars printed annually.
“This raises a few concerns within the organization about the editorial process, and some new processes will be put in place for the next edition,” he said.
“It was an internal, tongue-in-cheek inside joke among the staff,” said Bretscher, quickly adding, “before I was president. Editorial control of the Anti-Calendar falls to [ASSU Executive Assistant] Terry Buckland. The original idea was his.”
Mr. Buckland was unavailable for comment.
Though he acknowledged that several administration figures had raised concerns about the ad’s appropriateness, Bretscher said he had not heard the same from students.
“We have yet to receive a student complaint,” he said. “We’ve had two students who came into the [ASSU] office and didn’t understand what it was, but thus far, we still have yet to receive a student complaint.”
But Addario said she had heard several complaints from students.
“This is not just cranky university administrators with no sense of humour,” she said. “Students who are involved in political action on campus were appalled.”
Ghosh said that although there are about 10,000 marriage proposals circulating with her face on them, there have been no actual marriage offers so far.
“Apparently there are people on the subways who’ve asked about it and my friends tell them it’s a joke.”
“But no offers yet, no.”
