AN UGLY CORSET

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Two months ago The Crimson ran an excellent article entitled "The Thesis That Almost Wasn't." Scott Kaufer centered this article on the experience of one student George Reyes, and before he started writing Scott spent a full day talking to George and getting to know him. The result was an article which conveyed an accurate impression of George as a person, and dealt with George's experience in an interesting way.

The girl who lives next door to George a good friend of George's was interviewed last week for another Crimson article, part of the first installment of a series on the subject of grades. Since I know both of them very well I was struck by the difference between the manner in which the two interviews were conducted and by the difference between the finished articles. The portrait of George Reyes was accurate and interesting; the caricature of "Phi Beta Phyllis" was neither.

I object not only to the fact that Maud Gleason was misrepresented in the article-which conveys an entirely distorted idea of her personal interests and values. I object to the style of journalism which crams the identity of a living person into an ugly corset like "Phi Beta Phyllis." We all have to struggle against the labels with which family, teachers, and institutions occasionally brand use "the smart one," "the pretty one." "the down-to-earth-one," "the artistic one," "the grind," "the goof," ect. I think it is our duty as fellow students to try and protect each other from these epithets. Some labels are more attractive than others (I would rather be "Good Time Charley" than "Phi Beta Phyllis"), but they are all usually more limiting than revealing, and may be destructive. --Maggie Hivnor '75