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<p>That one seems to fit.</p>
<p>From what I am hearing though, “rapey” doesn’t actually mean that girls have been raped there.</p>
<p>Girls on campus will be warned by older girls if a team or fraternity is rapey. If I had a girl going to college this fall, I would encourage her to find out what houses are rapey since administrators do nothing to get rid of rapists on campus. The first semester of school is the dangerous time. After that the girls know more or less the places and people to try to avoid. Not that it’s not still advisable to be careful, just that they know better how to be careful since they’ll have seen it not go well for someone. </p>
<p>It would be dangerously naive for a young woman arriving on a college campus not to be aware she is at risk for rape and that she must protect herself.</p>
<p>How can we turn that statement around to be about disadvantaging young men on campus? Oh, I know: I’m stating there are male rapists on campus. By implication, I’m tarnishing the reputation of someone’s son. Because some of us have sons on campus. Shame on me.</p>
<p>for the record- I only have sons. </p>
<p>alh, you are being hyper-sensitive.</p>
<p>Now if people were advocating for all men to be banned from colleges because a few of them are rapists, I’m guessing you would have a different reaction.</p>
<p>“And just out of curiosity, when you were in college and in a sorority, were there some fraternities you understood to be potentially risky situations? Or at least some fraternity houses where you wouldn’t consider going upstairs? Did your sorority discuss this sort of thing with pledges?”</p>
<p>Since this was addressed to me personally by alh, I’ll answer it.<br>
We were always told to keep our wits about us, go in groups, not leave your sisters alone. However, that advice was applied equally as well to off-campus parties and going to bars as it did to frat parties. And while I’d be lying if I said girls didn’t get drunk, routinely getting drunk enough not to know what you were doing wasn’t encouraged. Truth be told, it was kind of tacky to get that drunk. It certainly wouldn’t reflect well on a sorority if their girls got blitzed and out of control. </p>
<p>There were some fraternities that were seen as wilder / crazier / more Animal House-like, but I didn’t get the sense it was about rape – it was more about “they’ll just get wild, smash things, etc.” And it was true - there were some that were wilder like that, and some wound up getting kicked off campus because they behaved inappropriately (trashed their property, etc.). In my case, the Greek houses were on the campus itself – intertwined with regular dorms – so the university had jurisdiction / control in a way they don’t when houses are off-campus.</p>
<p>But I’m the wrong person to ask, since I can count the number of times I ever got drunk in college on one hand, and I dated / got serious with someone from a “milder” fraternity, so I didn’t spend a lot of time in frat houses. Someone else who was there at the same time might take away a very different impression depending on their social circles. </p>
<p>Thanks for responding PG.</p>
<p>Bay - I guess you really don’t want to talk about that Deke incident. The fact they were walking around campus shouting what I would consider to be rape slogans doesn’t count as rapey in your book. Instead you call it slanderous when someone names it so. And you don’t want to comment on what you would consider appropriate language to describe that incident. And you know no fraternities that fit that definition and you have family friends in that fraternity. Instead you want to talk about rapey as a pejorative that damages men. What is the point of that discussion? The only point I can see is silencing talk about rape. About distracting from a real problem on campus.</p>
<p>I read somewhere - here? I can’t remember, a recommendation to go straight to the city authorities and skip campus police in the event of an assault, because campus government in general tend to hide this stuff so it won’t show up in safety statistics that the public sees. </p>
<p>The college age daughter of a friend from high school was assaulted on campus and received a lot of pressure to let it go. She learned of others who had been assaulted by the same man and dug deeper, learning he had been kicked out of a college a couple of states away for similar accusations. He got a slap on the wrist and was able to transfer to another university and force himself on young women. </p>
<p>An mass electronic message went out asking for emotional support for this woman and the anecdotes began flying. Many of the recipients of this message were women who’d been assaulted in college, too. I was shocked. I knew a couple of women in college who were assaulted and refused to press charges, but I had no idea how common it is. Sad.</p>
<p>I know the young woman testified against the man but I don’t know the outcome of the hearing at the university.</p>
<p>I know what they were saying is offensive to many people, but that may have been the point. Rather like satire. This is more like someone thinking they are being ‘edgy’ and failing badly. </p>
<p>Somehow, Americans seem to have a problem where they think anything offensive that is said should be outlawed. What happened to free speech? When we allow ourselves to be offended by words people use, we give them power. That power is the problem. Without the power you give them, the words are but words.</p>
<p>I am not condoning what they said. Poor judgment on the part of someone. Frankly, I think it reflects more on Yale than on Deke, per se. (it is not like Deke houses were doing this across the world) The solution should really be for pledges and peers to simply shun the house. When someone steps in from the outside and slams the group for being stupid, it does little to help them learn. It is not the fraternity, but those individuals who orchestrated the event who need to be taught.</p>
<p>I liken punishments like this to ‘banning’ schools from post-season play for something that a former coach did. The punishment does not really affect the perpetrators, it is affecting others who are often times completely innocent of any misdeeds.</p>
<p>Alh,
The Deke incident was discussed to death on another thread, and both you and I were there. That is why I don’t want to hijack this thread by repeating it. Maybe you can pull it up and read it again to make yourself feel better. </p>
<p>Adding my D was a student at Yale when it happened, and although she thought it was an extremely stupid act, she was not threatened by it in the least. </p>
<p>"Bay - I guess you really don’t want to talk about that Deke incident. The fact they were walking around campus shouting what I would consider to be rape slogans doesn’t count as rapey in your book. Instead you call it slanderous when someone names it so. "</p>
<p>I don’t know the specifics of the Deke situation so I’m speaking more in generalities, but I submit that it gives waaaaaay too much power to jerks who say stupid things, to make a big deal and draw attention to them. Far better, IMO, to roll your eyes and move on with your day. The moment you act as though you’re bothered by their statements, they’ve won and you’ve lost. </p>
<p>Far better to telegraph with your words and actions that you’re empowered enough and confident enough in your own self-worth that you think they are a bunch of tasteless boors not worth the time of day, and of no more significance than the mud on your shoe.</p>
<p>These people want a rise – why indulge them and give it to them?</p>
<p>"The fact they were walking around campus shouting what I would consider to be rape slogans doesn’t count as rapey in your book. "</p>
<p>As obnoxious as "no means yes, yes means … " is – and I agree it’s fully obnoxious – there is a line between that, and the actual act of assaulting a woman against her will, and we don’t do anyone any favors when we act as though the two are the same. </p>
<p>Another thing is you can send your daughters to all girl schools like pizzagirl did, which eliminates this kind of stuff from the dorms and campus altogether. But girls who go to regular campus should simply be aware of the fact that the most dangerous time for them is the time they are living on the actual campus in campus housing, in particular during the first year. </p>
<p>Or you could believe the stories about all girl schools that say that some girls prey upon other girls as well. There is enough stupid to go around. Happens everywhere. Prepare your kids to avoid as much stupid as possible and they will be fine.</p>
<p>It does make one wonder how many of these assaults would ever take place if schools actually bothered to enforce the under-age drinking laws in their states. </p>
<p>PG: poetgrl has made what I consider to be an excellent point on several threads. When young women (and men) are brave enough to speak up, campus culture changes. I think speaking up changes the world. Ignoring usually enables the status quo. Our kids are changing the status quo and the world.</p>
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<p>Freedom of speech means the government or its agents can’t arrest you merely for saying something offensive unless it constitutes a threat narrowly defined under the law.</p>
<p>It doesn’t necessarily mean one is free from the negative judgments and/or consequences of such speech…especially private colleges.</p>
<p>Calling men who have not committed rape or sexual assault “rapey” is slanderous in my book. It also cheapens the real meaning of the word “rape.” I won’t be using the term, no matter how many people tell me it doesn’t really mean the men are rapists.</p>
<p>When I first heard there were “dry” fraternities, I wrongly assumed it was for students who vow not to drink alcohol during their college years. It turns out that they likely lost their permission to have any alcohol on the premises due to alcohol-related incidents. The few remaining “wet” houses are only allowed alcohol in private rooms of 21+ residents.</p>
<p>The way Greek Row gets around this, though, is they rent a private party house where vodka shots can flow freely, filling it with only fraternity brothers. Much like that Georgia Tech letter or the Hobart incident, the most predatory of these houses have ritualized their targeting of the susceptible and the naive, overwhelming them with attention and sweetened vodka drinks. </p>
<p>I went to a talk given by the person in charge of sexual assault response at one of these campuses. 8% of women had been sexually assaulted in ONE school year, about the national average. The vast majority of these stemmed from unofficial fraternity functions near a campus that is less than 20% Greek. There are all sorts of reasons to leave a fraternity; unacceptably poor treatment of women is a valid one.</p>
<p>It does not generalize to every fraternity and every fraternity member (heck, I’m one), but it does show a disturbing trend that will have to be addressed. The Hobart response to Anna is typical of the stories I have been told and, as a guy, I am told very little. </p>
<p>By the way, I found this rebuttal by Hobart and William Smith President Mark Gearan:
<a href=“http://www.hws.edu/about/statements2.aspx”>http://www.hws.edu/about/statements2.aspx</a></p>
<p>After exonerating Kappa Sigma and the three football players, they formed a committee. Swell.</p>
<p>Yes, and speaking up may be warranted in certain situations. I think, however, I see a lot of young women approaching speaking-up from an unempowered stance instead of an empowered one, if that makes sense. </p>
<p>If, however, a handful of jerks go around saying Offensive Thing XYZ, is that REALLY “campus culture” or is that a handful of jerks? Again, don’t give them so much power by insinuating that they define campus culture. </p>