Two days after The Peninsula, the campus' conservative journal, released an issue condemning homosexuality in the fall of 1991, nearly 100 students attended a meeting of the Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Students' Association (BGLSA) to plan eat-ins and a rally in the Yard.

In the fall of 1993, after Peninsula released an issue that bashed the Radcliffe Union of Students, RUS Co-Chair Deborah J. Wexler '95 started to write a letter of protest. And then she stopped.

"I didn't think it was worth talking about in any serious way," she says. "I just didn't want to stoop to their level."

Since Peninsula debuted three years ago, it has provoked heated campus debate on such political hot buttons as abortion and homosexuality. But today the magazine evokes fewer headlines and less campus controversy, according to both the magazine's editors and critics.

Peninsula's staffers say the journal is persuasive and presents well-reasoned arguments. Critics, however, say the magazine is so conservative that it does not represent reasonable viewpoints. Peninsula's views, they say, do not even merit response.

Peninsula Attacks Feminism

When Wesler first read Peninsula's issue on feminism, she says she was angry. "On the one hand, [the issue] was infuriating to read," says Wexler, who is a Crimson editor. "On the other hand, it didn't ring true."

The issue featured articles such as "Sex, Lies and Videotapes" which questioned the academic value of Women's Studies 10b: Current Problems in Feminist Theory, and "RU- What?," which attacked RUS' legitimacy as therepresentative of women's voices on campus.

G. Brent McGuire '95, a Peninsula councilor andspokesperson, attributes the relative silencesurrounding the feminism to issue to itspersuasive nature.

"I think to some extent the lack of a visiblereaction to the feminism issue was simply afunction of the fact that our arguments are socogent," he says. "I'm not sure the feminists oncampus had so much of a response to what we had tosay," he said.

Kelly A. Bowdren '94, who in the last issuepenned the articles on RUS and Women's Studies10b, says she agrees. Bowdren is a Peninsulacouncilor and spokesperson and is also a Crimsoneditor.

"[The response from Women's Studies] has been alot quieter because frankly they don't want tostart a lot of noise," says Bowdren. "If they do,that committee will never come a department."

And Bowdren says she thinks RUS's reaction toher recent article was toned down for similarreasons.

"RUS is best not seen in the light," she says,"and therefore they don't want to start acontroversy."

But Wexler says the articles in the issue wereanything but cogent persuasive and that the pollof undergraduate women, a centerpiece of thearticle, was conducted unfairly.

Peninsula randomly surveyed 120 undergraduatewomen between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10:30 onThursday, November 4. The poll found that 50percent of those surveyed did not know what theletters RUS stood for.