“Why So Pointless?”

“Why so gendered?” This was the bold-fonted message that seem to be slathered every five feet across campus. Reminiscent of the “DOS” posters from last spring, these signs were anonymously posted in large numbers. Mass-produced on simple printer paper, the meaning is lost to those who read it, and nobody has yet claimed responsibility. Upon first glance, one would assume that it was just another GSA-esque clubs’ bid for attention on campus, but when you read the signs a little bit closer, you see that it is not entirely clear what issue they were taking with how Exeter is being run. Were they implying that Exeter is gender stereotyping by having a dichotomous set of policies based on gender? Was it a call to attention that we have no guidelines for cisgendered, transgendered or any other form of mismatched gendered students, and that this is unacceptable? Is it just another left-wing concern? With everyone on campus refusing to take responsibility, there is no way to tell for sure.A few days ago, when the next set of pointless rhetorical questions were put up under the equally meaningless slogan “When did you consent?”, the signs’ purpose became even more ambiguous. They obviously had a bone to pick with the dress code (which, by the way, you consented to once you signed your Student Contract) and seemed to think that it was incorrectly gender-specific, but it offered no advice, solution or request of any form. When I asked one of the people putting up the signs who she thought was behind it, all I received in response was a snarky “Dumbledore’s Army”, which must’ve sounded cooler in her head. The true organizers of the mysterious signs are still unknown.What is obvious, however, is that whoever posted the signs is going about it in a not very thought-out manner, as nothing on campus will change as a result of them. Aside from having them torn down by Republicans, irritated students, or teachers who claim that they were hung up in inappropriate locations, the signs carry no political weight. With the exception of a pair of attention-getting slogans obnoxiously plastered on every wall in the academic buildings, there was either too much text to really get anyone to slow down and read it or a question whose answer was not even mysteriously ambiguous,but just repetitive. Even if someone did read the signs, neither of the messages were clear enough to anyone.The next question is, why? Loosely accepted consensus seems to be that the posters are complaining about the gender-biased dress code, but the fact of the matter is: who cares? Exeter may be “trapped in its own little Exeter bubble”, but there’s still an outside influence on how the school is run. When more women started to push for equality in the late 60’s, Exeter quickly became a co-ed school in 1970. As the LGBT movement began to grow outside of campus, so did the inter-school clubs. However, a separate dress code for both genders is accepted nationwide, and there’s no reason for Exeter to be any different. To form one mandatory uniform for both genders would lead to many clashing issues such as either males looking sloppier without ties or females being forced to wear them. The “pros” of having a singular dress code are entirely lost on me, and aside from possibly creating a separate dress code for flip-flopping gender identifying students, I can’t say that I agree with any of the presumed implications behind the signs pushing for a singular dress code.What’s interesting is that these mysterious signs started appearing at the same time that there was a push for more gender-neutral bathrooms, another unnecessary expense that was mentioned in some of the signs. Turning bathrooms co-ed creates an uncomfortable dynamic for people who aren’t transgendered by forcing two different genders to awkwardly hide from each other and fear judgment. I don’t think that there was a mysterious coincidence between the signs and the bathrooms; the two are obviously correlated. Anyone who cares enough to put hundreds of signs around campus would have to be familiar enough with the LGBT movement on campus to know that the timing of the signs would call more attention to their agenda, and the sudden push for absurd change would be larger and more noticeable. I’m not against the LGBT movement, but I’m just saying that putting up a bunch of signs with an unclear message that are being taken down, spoofed or defaced by student is not an effective way to get your point across, no matter who you are.