As one of the VDay Commissioners this year, I am incredibly upset and appalled to hear that at the presidential debate at Huron on February 9, two candidates promoted false and slandering information about the VDay Western campaign. It was asserted by Jon Silver that VDay does not allow men on their executive team. Logan Ross’s response to this was that this practice is unfair and discriminatory. Now, this would be an entirely reasonable discussion to have in a presidential debate, WERE IT TRUE.

In actuality, VDay Western has two male executives on our team this year, and has had men on the executive for many other years in our eleven year history on this campus. We also include men in the cast of two of our plays, provide men-only workshops (VMen, happening March 15), and donate to a community service, Changing Ways, which provides education and resources to men who are working to build healthy and safe romantic partnerships. VDay Western understands the importance of including men in the conversation surrounding violence against women and sexual violence of all kinds. We also already spend a lot of time combating stereotypes of feminists of being “anti-man” or “manhaters” and certainly don’t need the future leaders of our student council promoting such damaging stereotypes

Not only is it extremely concerning that Jon and Logan know so little about such a long-standing USC campaign, it is also worrying that Adam Fearnall and Claire McArthur did not a) recognize for themselves the mistake that was being made, or b) feel this mistake was important enough to correct. Frankly, I would be embarrassed if I was any one of them. The event of Thursday night exposes these candidates as having not done the research necessary to truly understand the Support Services and Campaigns offered for the student body they hope to lead!

Also extremely troubling is the USC’s practice of not allowing corrections to be made during public debates when the candidates get their facts wrong. I am personally confused as to how the USC can propose to run a transparent election campaign with a policy like this. Students and their allies (i.e., the current USC president and vice-presidents) need to be able to make potential voters aware that these candidates are misinformed and have not done their homework. Instead, I was told by one of the current representatives of the USC board that “We don’t make corrections during debates as we’re not supposed to publically call them out for making mistakes. In truth they do often get facts wrong”. I don’t know about the rest of the student population, but I certainly don’t feel confident in voting for any USC presidential candidate in this or future years’ elections knowing that their potential misunderstandings of student groups and services get held in such secrecy.

Adrienne Berchtold
VDay Western Commissioner

Vday Western presents MMRP and the Vagina Monolougues.

In her memory… until the violence stops.

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