Not just ACORN: O'Keefe previously taped distribution of “good wife's guide” to women's studies class
Published
Over the past week, media outlets have given significant coverage to conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe, who, with Townhall.com columnist Hannah Giles, dressed up as a pimp and prostitute and secretly videotaped ACORN employees providing them with counseling. But this is not the first time O'Keefe has engaged in such activities in support of conservative causes; as a Rutgers University undergraduate, O'Keefe videotaped a classmate distributing to a Women in Culture and Society lecture a handout that emphasized that a “good wife always knows her place.”
October 2005: O'Keefe videotapes distribution of “good wife's guide” to Women in Culture and Society class
O'Keefe's magazine says he was “chased ... out” after he and a colleague “attempted to distribute literature.” In an article for its October 2005 issue, The Centurion -- a Rutgers University conservative magazine at which O'Keefe served as editor-in-chief -- reported:
[Centurion reporter] Greg Walker and James O'Keefe attempted to distribute literature (below left) in Professor Munem's Women in Culture and Society lecture. They felt that this literature would be of interest since it involves one aspect of the role of women in our culture and society. However, Professor Munem felt that the literature was “inappropriate” for her class and chased them out. She accused them of interrupting her lecture even though they had asked - and had been granted - permission to enter, and had done so immediately prior to the start of the lecture. Considering that many other organizations, from the Eastern Service Workers' Association to Free Palestine to NJPIRG, are allowed to distribute their literature unmolested, we feel that her actions constituted ideological discrimination.
Article Walker and O'Keefe distributed was from a 1955 edition of Housekeeping Monthly titled “The good wife's guide.” The handout as posted on The Centurion's website is a copy of a May 13, 1955, article in Housekeeping Monthly titled “The good wife's guide.” The article urges readers, among other things, to "[b]e a little gay and a little more interesting for him" and not to “ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment” because “he is the master of the house” and "[y]ou have no right to question him." The admonition "[a] good wife always knows her place" is circled.
Centurion article urges readers to “Watch the Video” at its website. The Centurion article names the professor who “chased” O'Keefe and Walker “out,” Bahia M. Munem, the recipient of “This Month's Centurion Award” for “Partisan Feminist Hypocrisy” and urges readers to “Watch the Video at www.rucenturion.com." In the video, O'Keefe tells Munem, “We just want to inform women, like, we just want to inform them, and we want to add to the diversity of the dialogue.” When asked for his name and school, O'Keefe gives his name as “Tom Smith” and says that he attends “Worker's College.”