It's a web essay about the way that women are negatively portrayed in advertising, and I can't figure out what's offensive in it - maybe the word "sex"? My student said, "My parents read this, and they don't want me to read it." ? ? ?
Here's the link: "This Is Not Sex"
hopefully you told your student that it is their decision to read it or not but it is an assigned reading, that their parents don't want them not to read it does not change that fact
how ridiculous!
I gave her the option of reading another article from the same website that speaks more generally about the kinds of values advertising promotes, but I'll make clear she still needs to come to class the we discuss and look at on the classroom screen the assigned article.
i'm flabbergasted why anyone would be offended by this. do you instruct at a really conservative school or something? i don't even know if conservative is the right term. hetero-normative?
my pet peeve: when i use the the term hetero-normative
It's not conservative at all. Northwest Washington - Bellingham, where I teach, and south through to the Seattle area are almost uniformly left-leaning. There are pockets of conservative communities though - one farming community/town in particular that's just north of Bellingham is extremely conservative (eg. the whole town shuts down on Sunday, the grocery stores on the outskirts signed an agreement that they would not sell alcohol on Sunday, and there's actually a law outlawing drinking and dancing at the same establishment) and the college does pull in quite a few students from there. Even given that this student is probably from this community, I still don't get the objection to the article.