Misogynistic emails sent out to Rugby Club mailing list

Emails sent to the ICU Rugby Football Club (ICURFC) mailing list recently have contained misogynistic content, despite previously being warned by Imperial College Union to moderate their “inappropriate” language.

One was sent earlier this month, describing players on the IC Netball team as “too loose,” whilst another described the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) netballers as “easy pickings.”

The emails, sent to the entire ICURFC mailing list, were sent by the social secretary of the club.

The team took part in the Netball pub-crawl, back in the beginning of February. One of the emails informed the team that they were planning to leave the Union bars later than expected however, “due to the netballers being too loose.”

The team also planned a social with at the RVC, which took place this Wednesday. The email sent to the team by the social secretary described how, due to the high number of women at RVC, their netball team is starved of “male contact,” and how last time they attended, the team saw a “86% success rate, and certain individuals claimed to have necked 31 different ladies.”

Felix contacted the team, and were told that the “The comments were written by [the social secretary] and do not represent opinions held by any members of the club.”

Felix was also asked not to reveal the identities of those who sent the emails, after one of them contacted Felix directly and told us how they were in the process of applying for internships, and didn’t want their name printed online.

The club captain has since revoked the mailing list privileges from the social secretary, and has warned the rest of the committee that such content is inappropriate.

They also told Felix that they were sorry the emails were released in the first place.

The club captain said: “These messages were not the approved by the club. For years the mailing list has always been accessible by all members of the committee, however as the committee grew these rules were not changed and with recent events we now made it so all emails must be approved by somebody of the Exec committee.

“We are very sorry that it took us this long to update our system and that it took someone to have to send out these emails for us to notice it needed updating.”

Felix also spoke to RVC, who told us: “The RVC Student Union does not condone the use of sexist or derogative language used in the email, and we would not allow any RVC teams to act in such a manner.”

The RVC Rugby Football Club (RVC RFC) stated that, considering the “university rugby scene”, the email could be “far worse.”

Despite that, they also added: “The RVC RFC does not endorse the sexist language used in the email, nor does the club like the women of the RVC Netball Club being objectified in the way that they have.

“The email suggests a lack of modern thinking and thoughtlessness.”

The RVC Netball Captain appeared slightly more forgiving, telling Felix that: “We understand that the email was aimed at a specific audience and that the boys would not speak in this manner to any of our girls.

“They were charming and polite throughout the social and no girls felt there were any sexist or derogatory remarks made that evening- Perhaps the language was a crude attempt to tempt more boys to attend the social. “I have had no complaints or comments of any kind and it seems a shame that one member’s moment of stupidity could ruin the reputation of the whole rugby club.

“I am sure this will not happen again and that our relationship with the IC rugby club with not be affected.”

NOTE: Felix has been told after publication that the emails, despite being signed off with the names of two of the social secretaries, were allegedly only penned by one of them. This article has been modified to reflect this.