This week, the Georgetown University Grilling Society (GUGS) is coming out with a new campaign; it is one that has been surprisingly controversial considering the group is best known for selling burgers on Friday afternoons. In fact, other than grilling burgers in warm weather and at school events, I’m not sure what GUGS does. However, the usually apolitical organization has caused quite a stir with its promotion of “Grills Gone Wild Week” and the associated selling of t-shirts that say “Grade A, Size D.”

While most students either find the campaign mildly amusing or simply have yet to take notice of it, many members of the pro-choice organization “H*yas for Choice” are outraged. Many of the group’s members feel that both slogans are rather degrading to women, and some have even gone so far as to create a Facebook-organized boycott of GUGS. The group is especially enraged because GUGS is an official club and consequently receives university funding, while H*yas for Choice does not. Thus, not only is there a chauvinistic theme being promoted, but it is also being indirectly supported by the University.

On the other hand, not all of members of the group or the student body for that matter agree with this condemnation of GUGS.  One member of H*yas—the only male member of course—noted that he felt that women were not being degraded at all. The campaign does not have any lewd pictures of women or any real use of women in a sexual way at all; it is simply a way to promote hamburgers with a cleverly worded slogan. With so much objectification of women in the world, would it not be better to focus on a more serious issue that actually threatened women’s rights? After all, Grills Gone Wild would not exist if Girls Gone Wild did not exist. Videos like these and the Hollywood image of women as a whole are what are to blame for the sexism in today’s world, not a few $3 burgers.

Nevertheless, GUGS put out an apology today noting that “GRADE A, SIZE D” was meant to indicate meat, and that the obvious goal of the campaign was to be funny and get the campus excited about the Spring ’08 debut of their burgers. They said that they never intended to offend anyone. They have decided to continue ahead with Grills Gone Wild Week, though they will pull the t-shirt sales for now.  Is GUGS a sexist organization for doing so? I do not think that even the hardliners of H*yas for Choice would go this far. However, it is true that the organization has no female members, which is perhaps a much more significant issue than this specific campaign itself.