Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 16, 1993 TAG: 9312160155
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The coat and pants are unbuttoned, revealing part of her body.
The cadets also knew they might create controversy. At the top of the poster is the caption, "WOMEN OUT OF UNIFORM . . . A GRATIFYING SPECTACLE."
The caption is more than just sexually suggestive - it could also be read as a commentary on the federal government's attack on VMI's all-male admissions policy.
Kincer, vice president of the junior class, said the fund-raisers didn't intend to make any kind of statement about the 3-year-old legal battle.
But they did avoid getting approval from VMI's administration. They sold the poster quietly around the institute's barracks and at a store in downtown Lexington.
"We knew we were going to get into a little bit of trouble," Kincer said. "We didn't go through proper channels."
They sold about 1,500 posters before a local magazine, the Rockbridge Advocate, ran a story. A VMI spokesman says Commandant N. Michael Bissell gave Kincer and his fund-raising partners an oral reprimand and ordered that the remaining 500 posters be pulled from the thriving underground market. They are now locked in a storeroom.
But that didn't end the matter. A story in Wednesday's Richmond Times-Dispatch was picked up by The Associated Press and has spawned a flurry of media attention.
Kincer and VMI public affairs officer Mike Strickler spent Wednesday dealing with calls from the New York Post, CBS Radio News and media from around Virginia - and answering questions about whether the poster is sexist.
Kincer said it is not. "The only thing sexist about it is: It's what would sell in the barracks. You're not going to sell a poster of me. You've got to have a good-looking lady. And it obviously sold well in the barracks."
Hazel Bernard, a Rockbridge County resident who is active in the county's Coalition Against Sexual Assault, says the poster is degrading to women.
Bernard said the message is " `Boys will be boys. You don't like it lady? Tough.' I think that's kind of the VMI attitude. . . . Somewhere the concept of `an officer and a gentlemen' has been lost."
But Bernard she said she puts most of the blame on the institute's alumni, board of visitors and the VMI Foundation.
She said these three groups' "bitter opposition" to admitting women have sent the message that women are inferior.
"It's to be expected that the boys would pick up on that attitude and mirror it in their own juvenile fashion," Bernard said.
Kincer said the poster "is not vulgar. We could have done a lot more, vulgar-wise. . . . You see worse than this in any magazine ad, a beer ad, a Calvin Klein ad, anything like that."
The posters, which cost $2.25 each to produce, sold for $6. The money went to finance the recent junior class ring dance.
The woman in the poster is a model. Kincer won't say anything more to identify her. Rockbridge Advocate Editor Doug Harwood said one of the "wild rumors going around" had it that she was actually a paralegal working for the lawyers defending VMI in the sex-discrimination lawsuit.
Along with a hat that covers much of her face, she is wearing a regimental commander's dress coat with six stripes on the sleeves.
Senior Jon Lauder, the owner of the coat, said he didn't know what it was going to be used for when the junior fund-raising committee borrowed it.
He said he found out - after it came back with a hint of perfume on it. The juniors confessed, but Lauder didn't have any problem with how it was used.
"All the cadets here thought it was all in good fun," Lauder said. "But it doesn't mean that we're any more sexist than, say, students at UVa. We think it's been blown out of proportion."
But now Kincer is worried that the poster may somehow be used against VMI in its court case. Kincer and Lauder both said it was the court case that attracted attention to the poster.
"If it was any other school, it wouldn't have mattered," Kincer said. "Since it was us, it just exploded."
Kincer said that along with the critical attention, there has also been "an amazing response" from alumni who've called in - wanting a copy of the poster. "I'd say we could have sold the whole 2,000 today."
by CNB