Censorship effort appalling but did ‘Critic’ cover go too far?

ON behalf of the 40yearold international Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, I write to express our extreme dismay at the University of Otago’s censorship of the student magazine Critic’s menstruation issue, and our support of and solidarity with the current and former editors.

Censoring material on menstruation has a long and shameful history, of which the university is now a part.

Proctor Dave Scott said the action was needed as the university is a ‘‘public place, where nonstudents regularly pass through’’ and ‘‘the cover was objectionable to many’’.

In so doing, the university ironically made the students’ point for them. That depictions of and education about menstruation are considered ‘‘objectionable’’ and unfit for public consumption makes plain the very need for the special issue.

We would point out the hypocrisy of such censorship in a world where every media format is rife with images of victimised girls, women and trans people that are sexually explicit and bloody, while most people remain uneducated about the menstrual cycle and other aspects of their body’s health and functioning.

Critic’s menstruation issue was designed to address the taboo that silences, hides and makes shameful what is a simple fact: blood happens.

TomiAnn Roberts Professor of Psychology, Colorado

College

[Abridged]

IF the point of the Critic cover was to bring ‘‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’’ down on their head, they have achieved their goal with panache.

If their idea had been to bring some sympathetic focus to the life processes that are basic to the regeneration of our species — which are part and parcel for 51% of us — a cover depicting a student or two clutching a few sanitary products and a bottle of painkillers, with faces in obvious distress and/or clutching their midriffs, would have advertised the contents of their rag successfully.

John Van Buskirk

Wakari ...................................

BIBLE READING: My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. — Exodus 33:14.