Users sign in with a Boston University (BU) e-mail account, are presented with the pictures of two BU girls side by side, and then click on the one they think is more attractive. And there you have it: a recipe for upsetting a lot of people, really fast.
Users have cast more than 1 million votes on more than 500 girls since the website’s launch last Friday. Justin Doody, the website founder, says he plans to create a male version of the website as soon as this version is “perfected.”
All of the pictures that ended up on the site have been user-generated. Most BU girls know someone who has ended up on the site against their will.
However, Doody said in an interview with Boston University’s independent magazine and blog, the Quad, that many girls are putting up their own photos and nearly half of the submissions are by females.
The university’s Women’s Resource Center (WRC) was the first to publicly voice concerns about the website.
“At the Women’s Resource Center, we are trying to make the feeling on campus that of safety and inclusion and empowerment. … RateBU sort of personifies everything we are working against,” said Ariana Katz, the codirector of the Women’s Resource Center at Boston University in an interview with The Epoch Times.“It’s a group of people with a ring leader who is throwing everyone on campus into turmoil and into a state of fear with something that they created. It really feels like an attack on everyone on campus, not just women. It affects everyone who knows a woman.”
After discussing it at their weekly meeting on Monday, the WRC decided to inform the university’s student union. In a quick call to action, the university’s student union then decided to immediately begin drafting and passing a resolution condemning the website later the same night.
“The website ratebu.com creates a platform for Boston University students to rate their female peers, in some cases without the females’ consent, and encourages a culture of judgment and objectification,” reads the Boston University student union resolution.
The two organizations then went to work organizing a committee meeting that took place Wednesday night to voice their opposition. A petition condemning the website is already being circulated, and plans for a public protest are on their way
“I didn’t maliciously try to do this,” said Doody, a sophomore in the engineering department, in his interview with the Quad. “I think people are going to do this no matter what. I just created something that’s a little more public and visible as opposed to just like, gossiping at lunch or whatever.”
The Quad first reported on the story after they uncovered the identity of the website’s once anonymous founder.
