By: Kari Plog

Produced and edited by Brendan Abshier

Panelists (left to right) Jason Skipper and Jonathan Grove discuss personal privilege prior to the start of Monday nights event.

While growing up, the ability for Assistant Professor of English Jason Skipper’s family to buy a box of cereal was a big deal.

Skipper and three other panelists shared personal experiences such as this at the third annual, “Got Privilege?” series at Pacific Lutheran University. This past Monday’s topic focused on socio-economic privilege.

Discrepancies between varying socio-economic statuses account for shortfalls in health care, education and taxation. This economic divide in the United States is greatly associated with a persons access to opportunity. The socio-economic privileges and disadvantages that were noted by the panelists ranged from large to small.

When Skipper had a friend over one evening and a box of cereal was purchased, his families reaction to the purchase greatly changed things for Skipper. Skipper said, “The next day at school everyone was talking about it. At this moment, I realized my family wasn’t quite the same as others.”

PLU Director of Student Involvement and Leadership, Eva Johnson said, “For my mother, marriage meant going up a socio-economic status level. It’s just how marriage was for my mother.”

The event consisted of an hour long panel discussion of socio-economic privileges people have. The panel, made up entirely of PLU employees, ranged from faculty members to staff. For some panelists their drastic change in socio-economic privilege impacts them everyday.

Johnson, who now lives in a upper class area of Tacoma said, “I feel embarrassed when my parents come to my home now. It’s not the world they came from, it makes my mom uncomfortable.”

Obtaining a great amount of socio-economic privilege, after having nearly none as a child can be frustrating. Johnson said, “It’s hard to tell when is enough, is enough. When don’t you need it anymore?”

The first “Got Privilege?” series took place in the fall of 2007. Instantly a hit, the series has gone on to discuss topics such as heterosexual privilege, white privilege, and religious privilege. While these topics may appear random, great thought has gone into selecting them.

Diversity Center Advocate Ally Livingston said, “Privilege is not a topic people like to discuss. All these topics are meant for people [specifically students] to acknowledge personal privileges they may not even realize they have.”

Livingston went on to say that these topics are of interest to the student body. Additionally, in encouraging all to attend Livingston said, “This is the age where people are developing beliefs and values outside of family. The privilege series allows for this development.”

If this discussion of socio-economic privilege was missed Livingston strongly suggested attendance at the final privilege discussion.

On Monday Nov. 16 a second “Got Privilege?” panel discussion will take place focusing on language privilege. The discussion will be centered around the privilege to speak english as a first language in the United States.

As for the future of the “Got Privilege?” series, Livingston is hopeful it will continue to encourage discussion across the PLU campus, “Hopefully these discussions will create a generation of people who are willing and eager to address these problems.”

For panelists Jason Skipper, he uses his passion of writing to continue a personal discussion, “I am able to write from that perspective [low socio-economics status]. While I am well off now, that person from the past still lives with me.”

For further discussion of these issues Livingston invites anyone and everyone to stop by the Pacific Lutheran Diversity Center.

The PLU Diversity Center is located on the lower level of the University Center, across from ASPLU Office. For information on how you can become involved, visit the Diversity Center website by going to www.plu.edu/dcenter or by phone at (253) 535-8750.

Lorna Rodriguez

rodriglb@plu.edu

By: Kyle Maxwell

Lorna Rodriguez

rodriglb@plu.edu

PLU students listen as the panelists discuss issues mentioned in the documentary. Photo by Lorna Rodriguez.

Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) students walked out of the “Pornography and You: Got an Opinion?” panel shocked.

“I would say the documentary was much more graphic than I expected,” student Andraya LaFredo said.

During the film, many students covered their eyes as graphic images filled the screen and/or felt nauseous.

Visual images are much more powerful than reading about the issue in a book because you can’t compromise or forget the image, student Daynelle Thomas said.

The packed room kicked off one of Gender and Exploration Week’s first events Monday night in Ingram 100.

The event featured the film, “The Price of Pleasure; Pornography, Sexuality and Relationships,” a documentary about violent and graphic porn becoming a normal part of American Culture.  After the film, a conversation with PLU faculty members Jennifer Smith of English, Greg Johnson of philosophy and Christina Graham of psychology commenced.

The occasion was co-sponsored by PLU’s Feminist Student Union and Men As Partners Promoting Equality (MAPPE) student organizations.

“We want to talk about how porn has become mainstream and what the consequences are and how it affects us positively” Feminist Student Union faculty advisor Smith said.

In the documentary, the filmmakers claim the American pornography industry makes $10 billion annually, more than the top three or four American professional sports teams combined.

To support this argument, the filmmakers showed clips from child pornography videos, extremely provocative advertisements and scenes of Americans consuming porn.

But more disturbingly, the documentary demonstrated the extent to which women are objectified and sexually and violently abused while filming porn videos.

The pornography panel is part of a week that asks students to question and explore various issues surrounding gender.

“My main focus as Social Justice Director for Residence Hall Association (RHA) is to break down stereotypes and tear down walls,” Thomas Siburg said.  “I know for a lot of people… sexuality and gender go hand in hand.  People have a preconceived image, which limits opportunities for men and women to express themselves.”

In addition to the pornography panel, some of the events during Gender and Exploration Week include a Brownbag lunch discussion on Gender Identity, a discussion on what the ELCA churchwide assembly vote concerning homosexual clergy means for PLU and a CisGender panel discussing what it means to be “male” and “female.”

Siburg said he is trying to utilize lots of clubs, organizations, and resources that PLU offers.  As a result, the Harmony club, Diversity Center, Health Center, Women’s Center, Wang Center, Campus Ministry and Harstad’s Resident Hall Congress (RHC) have all become involved in hosting events.

After showing the 54-minute film that caused outrage and laughter from audience members, Smith led a discussion that focused on the importance of being able to separate fiction from reality and whether individuals’ desires to purchase porn is inherent or constructed by society.

Smith began the conversation by asking about how porn fit into the panelists’ respective disciplines.

Graham answered first, saying from a psychology perspective, it is interesting to examine how individuals respond to porn and how porn shapes a person’s attitudes, behaviors and belief systems.

Many audience members nodded their heads in agreement with this statement.

Next, Johnson said he wanted to know how porn emerges and becomes a possibility in society.  Johnson also asked how what society says about men who purchase porn, and what effect does this have on society?

The second question, how the lines between fantasy and reality become blurred as viewers watch porn on a repeated basis, sparked a lengthy discussion.

Through a psychologist’s lens Graham said that although viewers understand porn is recreational to some degree, repeated exposure breaks down this distinction. Eventually, Graham said, at an emotional level the line becomes blurred.

Johnson responded by asking students to reflect on how American society lives out some of the values the media and porn industry expressed in the documentary.

Once the event concluded, both Grove and Smith were pleased with the outcome.

“Anytime you have to bring in extra chairs that’s good,” MAPPE advisor Jonathon Grove said.  “This was a good example of talking about topics that don’t get the attention they deserve.”

Meanwhile, at Tuesday’s Brownbag lunch discussion on “Gender Identity” students continued to discuss taboo topics in the Diversity Center with Director of Health Services Susana Doll, Michelle Ceynar of psychology and Diversity Center Director Angie Hambrick.

The event focused on probing deeper into issues surrounding gender, and the affects that can have on society.

Doll opened the event by asking students and staff to list “girl careers” and “boy careers.”  Architect, nurse, secretary, counselor and doctor were some of the professions mentioned.

After participants listed careers, Doll had students place themselves on a spectrum, with one extreme being “female” and the other being “male.”

During the discussion, students disagreed on whether various occupations such as doctor and counselor are considered more male or female.  Others such as nurse and secretary quickly were categorized as female, while architect was considered a male vocation.

Next, Ceynar and Doll did a similar stimulation on colors. This time students stood on the continuum based on whether the color they were wearing was feminine or masculine.

All of the stimulations gave students a new perspective on gender and something to think about, Ceynar said.

“I think it went really well, everybody did his or her part,” Doll said.  “I’m always interested in what other people think.”

Both the Brownbag lunch discussion and the pornography panel raise awareness and allow students to break down gender stereotypes, according to Siburg.

“A general goal [of Gender and Exploration Week] is to get most people involved and to raise awareness about gender,” Smith said.  “We need to have a conversation about what it means to be a gendered person, there’s a lot more going on with it than just being born one way or the other.”

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