Discussion for article #232420
So I guess what my question is, is this article advocating exactly what it is railing against? Women, don’t go out to Frat parties, stay at the sorority. Don’t go places by yourself, stay with friends who can watch out for you. Make sure you know what is in the drink in your hand.
It is the exact same advice the author spends a ridiculous amount of effort chastising men for giving women. Don’t get me wrong, it is all good advice. It is just the cognitive dissonance within the piece is stunning. I’m glad the advice that you have been deriding as sexist all this time is finally starting to sink in now that you have found a way to take credit for it.
Remember, if women only go to sorority parties and stop going out, the rapists win.
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Why, Amanda, what next? Will you be advising young women to dress modestly and only go out at night to safe places and with a male escort? My Grandma, dead at 95 in Y2K, would have felt quite at home with that advice. Ah, the old ways are the best ways!
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Kinda off topic: I wonder what the stats are for rapes that occur in Greek environments vs. non-Greek for college age students.
Why is rape the only crime where suggestions targets of the crime can take to reduce their chance of being a victim is seen as a negative? To be completely clear, women should be able to go wherever they want, do whatever they want, wear whatever they want, etc. and never have a fear of being raped. We should never stop working to make that reality, but unfortunately we don’t yet live in a perfect world.
It’s also true that I should be able to go anywhere and do anything I want without a fear of being robbed. If somebody writes an article on how to avoid being mugged though nobody attacks the author and says if you encourage people to wear a money belt the thieves have won.
Yes, I know women have frequently been portrayed as causing rape, and that is horrendously unfair. That doesn’t mean that every article or comment on how women (or anybody) can help reduce their chance of being raped (or any crime) is somehow an attack on them. It doesn’t mean we should stop doing other things to reduce rape (or any crime) in every situation.
If rape at fraternity parties is a significant issue by all means lets try and solve that. But as long as it is an issue it might be a situation worth minimizing your exposure to. Sororities hosting more parties might help with that… and to be fair even ignoring any rape issues it seems like it’s a step forward for equality.
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And I didn’t see it in the article, but who the Sororities let attend the parties should also be a factor.
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And I suspect you forever will, since the collection of such stats by universities would meet roughly the same kind of response that attempts to require cops to gather stats about gun murders do from the NRA and comparative effectiveness of drugs does from Big Pharma.
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If you can’t tell the difference between advising people not to keep their wallets in their back pockets at Mardi Gras and advising young women not to dress or behave in a way that indicates that they might, under circumstances of their choosing, be willing to have consensual sex lest they be raped, I’m really not sure how to explain it to you.
Were I to try, my answer would involve words like “disempowering” and “oppression” and “victim-blaming” but surely you’ve seen those before and still just don’t get it.
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I wonder how long before the usual suspects start arguing that a) going to a party thrown by women would emasculate men and b) that only women who want to get raped while drunk would throw a party where they invite men…
A good point, but I think what EtherGnat is saying is much more basic. He is simply saying that taking steps to create a new social scene by women, designed from the ground up to allow woman to have fun in an environment that is less-conducive to rape, is a good thing.
Let’s flip the issue over. The party scene for greeks is created, and structured by the men. The women are forbidden to do it. Rather than only focusing on changing the scene created by the men, this article suggests that the women should now be allowed to redefine the scene. This is surely a good thing.
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"We Are Women!
Hear Us Puke!"
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An idea? - yes - - - Brilliant? not really
My initial reaction to this idea was mild horror. I mean, we already have frat houses ignoring the law and binge drinking, now we want to have sororities do it too?
As I think about it more, however, it seems to me that all steps to undermine the culture around binge drinking at the fraternities need to be taken. Furthermore, it seems to me that the underground nature of the frat parties are also, to a large degree, part of the problem.
So the first, and most important step, is to remove the ridiculous semi-citizenship we afford to 18-20 year-olds. By making consumption illegal, it serves to drive it underground and outside of the view of law enforcement. It creates an environment of lawlessness. Imagine how different frat parties would be if it were mandated that security guards watch over parties? Lowering the drinking age to 18 would allow it to happen. The next step would be to legalize cannabis for all citizens 18 and over. If it were legal, and consumption could be done on campus, then alcohol abuse would be reduced dramatically.
The ban on alcohol at sororities, like the ban for all individuals under 21, does little to curb the abuse that society intended by creating these regulations.
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They have a dream that girls will one day live in a sorority where they will not be judged by the sluttiness of their conduct, but by the content of their punch.
Who said anything about telling women how to dress? This is about a suggestion for how women might avoid a situation which is apparently dangerous. Whether or not it should be dangerous is a separate issue, and one we should continue to address regardless, but that doesn’t make avoiding that situation–or being more cautious in that situation–bad advice. Idealism shouldn’t get in the way of practicality.
There are all kinds of actions I take every day to avoid some kind of crime or another. That’s a good thing. It should also be noted that NOT taking such action never means that you deserve a crime to be committed against you, or that you were asking for it. People should always feel free to take or reject such advise, and nothing negative should be directed against people who decline to follow it.
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And just because people don’t seem to get it, whether I had a son or a daughter I would encourage them to avoid (or at least be extremely cautious about) going to any kind of drunken wild parties. Other people tend to make bad decisions that may have an impact on your life, and it may lead them to make bad decisions.
So am I victim blaming in every case, or is it somehow only where rape is involved that talking about prevention and avoidance is a bad thing? I don’t understand the double standard.
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I don’t think that is what EtherGnat is getting at. A simple comment like “don’t take unlabeled drinks from strangers at a party where you don’t know anyone” is automatically considered to be sexist. And it really is no different than telling people to not put their wallets in their back pockets at Mardi Gras. If a woman does get drugged and raped at a party, it is not the slightest bit their fault, but not being at fault doesn’t help them if they have been raped. It isn’t “dis-empowering” to make a suggestion like that, nor is it “oppressive”, or “victim-blaming”. There are a lot of douchebags out there, and there are steps you can take that limit their ability to cause harm.
I think of it like defensive driving. If I am on the main road coming up to an intersection that has no stop sign except for the side streets, and I see a car coming up to a stop sign, I am going to hover my foot over the brake a little more closely. Yeah, if they hit me because they ignore the stop sign it will be their fault, but that doesn’t help me if I am dead. I shouldn’t have to be prepared to stop suddenly in a perfect world, but in reality, the road is populated by brain dead morons.
You can’t take the world as you wish it to be, you have to take it as it is. And if that means telling women to be careful with their drinks, or try not to get so wasted you pass out topless on a couch in a stranger’s house, then so be it. It isn’t sexist to give advice like that, and anyone who claims it is isn’t being logical.
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I have a sneaking suspicion you’re right on this point. I would guess that universities in general are none too happy with the idea of collecting / disseminating data like this. Data that would have a large negative impact on their reputation and, thusly, their ability to be able to recruit students or solicit donations from alums.
I would also hazard a guess and say that this reasoning is a big motivator for universities to handle rape allegations internally rather than involving the police.
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Context is everything. Sure, making those kinds of comments isn’t necessarily sexist. What’s sexist is that no one makes the flip-side comments to the dudes. You don’t hear the people giving advice to the young women telling young men “Don’t spike a girl’s drink so you can get her too drunk to stop you from having sex with her” or “If you see another guy dragging a drunken girl toward his room, stop him.” They just sort of assume “boys will be boys” and there’s nothing that can be done about that side of the deal. But if there’s truly nothing that can be done about that side of the deal, then you would think that frat members would have the same social status as member of other criminal gangs, and be shut out of most careers and polite society.
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And, above all, draw down the wrath of powerful fratboy alumni.
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