Harmon column offensive

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Oct 9, 2008

I'm in Provo for school, a senior studying English and editing at Brigham Young University. I have limited experience with reading the Deseret News, but the article I read (Oct. 4) could well turn me off from reading it again. While berating the BYU team, Dick Harmon riddled his column with countless and highly offensive sexist comments. These weren't just vague, in-passing turns of phrase that could be argued to be bolstering his style. They were blatant and chauvinistic. He equated everything that went wrong with the Utah State game on Friday with femininity, and his tone is so outrageously disparaging that your readers can't help but mentally equate those feminine things with weakness. Since when is "a Band of Sisters" a negative term? Don't forget his list of "chick flicks" as parallels to the way the offense played. And of course the most offensive: his use of the sexist term "chicks" and apologizing for the offense that they "were playing without (their) Midol."

How did this article ever get past the editors? I would appreciate reading an apology.

Cassie Randall

Provo