Local activists have a message for OSU and ODU frats with horrible banners

A group of activists in Columbus, Ohio, posted a counter-message to the Ohio State University frat members who put up banners that read “Daughter Daycare 2.0” and “Dads, we’ll take it from here” yesterday:

https://twitter.com/modbrarian/status/636527087076175872

The message reads: “Freshman son drop off, go ahead and park, the whole family should probably talk about rape culture and consent…”.

“This was a mock-up to start/continue a conversation,” the group, Sporeprint Infoshop, told Fusion. And start a conversation it did, at least between visitors to the group’s Facebook page:

It’s been a hell of a week for fraternities, kicking off with members of an Old Dominion University (ODU) frat slinging up these banners:

The ODU frat, Sigma Nu, has been suspended by the school’s administration after the incident. A professor at OSU submitted the pictures to the university’s Title IX compliance office, according to NBC4 Columbus.

“We will talk to the students involved and make them understand words have consequences,” David Isaacs, a spokesperson for OSU’s Student Life, told the station.

Setting aside what these messages say about the young men writing them, let’s take a second to consider what it means for young women getting to college in the next few weeks to be confronted by messages that manage to both infantilize and objectify them at the same time.

Correction: This post originally said the message was posted by staff at a local bicycle co-op shop. It was actually posted by a group of activists called Sporeprint Infoshop, who rent a space inside the bicycle co-op shop.