CINCINNATI – Temporary billboards placed on the University of Cincinnati campus are causing controversy among students.
Twelve billboard-sized photographs of vaginas will be placed outside McMicken Hall through Friday by the UC LGBTQ Alliance and UC Feminists. The student groups say the “Re-Envisioning the Female Body” project is their way of countering an abortion protest that happened on campus last year. (NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT: To find out more about the project, you can visit their Facebook page .)
The groups say The Genocide Project compared abortion and a woman’s choice to the holocaust.
“We’re using shock as a tactic to start conversation,” said Kate Elliot, who helped organize the project.
Thursday’s demonstration was planned over the course of several months and features artwork by a UC student.
“Our hope for this project is to combat social inequalities and abuses through the use of our vaginas as a form of collective resistance to oppression and to claim our positions as individuals with unique experiences, perceptions, and needs,” a post on the group’s Facebook page explained.
The anatomical images are accompanied by statements from the models, who are all local adults dealing with their feelings regarding their sexuality.
“Our demonstration serves to call attention to the vagina as a site of conflict in medical, legislative, domestic, and representational arenas,” the post said on the event’s Facebook page.
The UC Students For Life group is tried to put a stop to the display before it went up, saying the billboards have no purpose other than “shock value.”
“It’s just pornographic,” said vice president of UC Students for Life, Annmarie Condit. “An exploitation of women, and it is really, really disappointing that our university is allowing this.”
In a letter given to UC President Santa Ono and Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, an attorney for UC Students For Life wrote, “the billboards are a clear violation of Ohio law,” according to a press release. The name of the attorney was not released.
The attorney argues the groups are pandering obscenity, which is a felony offense. The attorney states even more laws could be violated if juveniles are exposed to the photos.
“All this display was going to do is promote a rape culture on campus. These pictures look at women the way a rapist would look at them,” added Condit.
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