Students from St Hilda’s College
have this week reacted angrily after Cherwell’s Passé Notes last week contained irreverent comments
about the College.The article, written by Simon Akam,
Cherwell Features Editor, described the
college as perennially placed “in the Vauxhall conference of the Oxford academic league”
due to the fact that “they just haven’t got any boys to get Firsts for them.”The article also stated that “few
of the beasts grazing the banks of the Cherwell are particularly leggy or
graceful, unless they happen to be an errant deer from Magdalen.” Akam’s
comments have provoked a barrage of letters to the Cherwell editors. In a joint letter Sophie
Brighouse and Sophie Griffiths, both students at St Hilda’s, described the
article as “superficial, sexist and utterly pointless.”They added: “would like to
suggest that an Oxford
University college is
perhaps more than an institution in which to find the ‘particularly leggy’. I would
even go so far as to claim that lumping people together by sexuality may not be
the most mature or politically correct thing to do.”Alice Ramsay, another student at
said: “Last year, in Literature alone, seven people from got a First in their
Finals. So, it seems that students at St Hilda’s don’t need ‘boys to get Firsts
for them’ after all.” Georgie Edwards and Tamsin Chislett, Entz Reps, added “Obviously,
we generally wish to avoid being hypocritical about expressing stereotypes, but
the author may wish to ask LMH what it feels like to be at the bottom of the
Norrington Table, because frankly, we Hildabeasts wouldn’t know.”Akam also informed his readers
that “contrary to popular belief, and the pictures in the alternative prospectus
of drunken girl-on-girl twister action, not all students are lesbians. With
such a foreign legion present many of them are bi…lingual.”To this, Edwards and Chislett
retorted: “is it our fault that we enjoy the occasional naked pillow fight?! If
we didn’t feel that such activities were met with the current level of
negativity within the University, we’d invite more of you to join in.”Simon Akam said “is unfortunate that
the students of are perhaps not taking the column in the manner in which it was
intended. I, however, have absolutely no desire to get involved in further
discussions.”Cherwell editors, Luke Alexander and
George Davies, defended their decision to print last week’s Notes, saying in a
joint statement: “Clearly the piece itself was just a bit of banter. All
colleges suffer some form of stereotyping, for example Jesus as ‘sheepshaggers’,
St Hugh’s for its close proximity to Birmingham, but apparently some take these
things more seriously than others. We hope that at some point in the future,
the good women of St Hilda’s will find it in their hearts to forgive us.”ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005
Hilda’s hits back
