After the Raleigh News and Observer printed a picture of three children, one girl and two boys, having fun in the water—the girl lying down on a raft while the two young boys aimed their Super Soakers at her—a letter arrived from Sylvia Clark McKeean of Carrboro, North Carolina. The following are excerpts:

It depicts two young male predators threatening a female with weapons. The faces of the attackers are fixed with gleeful leers as they assert their societally sanctioned male dominance over their prone female victim. One does not have to be a trained rape crisis counselor and active feminist as myself to see that the long barrels of the weapons are typical representations of the phallic terror used by heterosexual white males to enslave women throughout history.

Your newspaper is a prime example of why all major publications should be subject to a national review board made up of women, people of color, gay men, and other traditional victims of white male terror to prevent such gross insensitivity from contributing to the countless violations that all women collectively suffer on a daily basis.

It is clear that all schools of journalism must redouble their efforts to be ever vigilant against those white heterosexual males who seek to once again to return women to the cages of outdated male-propagated, male sexual and social orientations. It is only through the precepts of radical feminism that the violence of war and sexual assault, as embodied in this obscene photo, can be eradicated.

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