What was intended to be a public service announcement has now led a B.C. University to apologize for sexism.
Simon Fraser University (SFU) has issued a public apology after releasing a controversial National Sweater Day Video.
The video shows a fictional female SFU faculty member, “Miss Pinkham,” turning her thermostat down and putting on a pink sweater.
A young male student then walks by her door, spotting Miss Pinkham in her sweater. He stands in the doorway and says, “Miss Pinkham?”
“Yes, Chad?” Miss Pinkham answers.
“Nice sweater.”
“Thank you,” says Miss Pinkham.
“Thank you,” the male student replies.
The video concludes with Miss Pinkham giggling and words on the screen appear reading, “saving energy is sexy.”
Wednesday, SFU Vice-President Joanne Curry released a statement Wednesday saying the video had been flagged by members of the SFU community as inappropriate. Curry said she had not seen the video before it was posted to the school’s YouTube page.
“When I did watch it, I immediately agreed with the feedback we had received that the video is inappropriate, sexist, and not in keeping with our equity commitments,” Curry said in her statement.
Elise Chenier, a Professor of History at Simon Fraser shared her disapproval with the video on her personal blog.
“When the very place you work promotes the kind of sexism that your intellectual work seeks to contest and ultimately destroy, you feel like you are being eaten from the inside out.”
SFU’s Facilities Services originally posted the video (which was created by an external vendor) to encourage staff to save energy and raise money for the World Wildlife Fund.
The video has since been removed from the Facilities Services page, as well as the school’s YouTube Channel.
While Chenier said it was the correct course of action to have the video removed from the SFU website, she questions, “how do we get to a place where such a thing never gets put up there to begin with?”
Curry said she plans to put into place additional procedures to ensure that something like this will not happen again in the future.
The video has been removed from the school's YouTube page, but can be viewed through Professor Chenier's blog.
