Soc. 3251W Race, Class, and Gender

I agree that the article referring to fraternities and the occurrence of rape was shocking but also horrifying. As a female I was so insulted to read some of the quotes and stories that were told by the men. Even though the comments were not directed towards me, I was dumbfounded that someone can speak so poorly about another human being. I felt the whole article was reinforcing the belief that women are merely objects of sex. One of the men used the word wenches to refer to the women at a party. Although I know this occurs, I cannot imagine who in the world would find it appropriate to speak this way. You commented that the statistics were shocking and although I agree, I find the language even more shocking. Every female who attends fraternity parties are victims not just the ones who are being raped.

You posed the question, “What can be done to lower the number of date rapes that occur on a college campus?� To start with, there needs to be an underlying respect for women. I think as females it is our duty not to accept when men call us names and degrade us in front of their friends. Is it possible that we do not stand up to these men because we are afraid of rejection? If that is the cause, why are we waiting around for a man who obviously has no respect for us and will continually ridicule us because of our gender? I know that there are respectful and deserving men and so I believe that the first step to lower date rapes is by having the power to respect ourselves. By no means at all am I saying that women are to blame for rape, but I am saying that we need to respect ourselves enough to socialize with men who will show us the same respect. My hope is that someday women will stop associating with degrading men therefore proving to them that it is not beneficial to disrespect us.

I agree that the article referring to fraternities and the occurrence of rape was shocking but also horrifying. As a female I was so insulted to read some of the quotes and stories that were told by the men. Even though the comments were not directed towards me, I was dumbfounded that someone can speak so poorly about another human being. I felt the whole article was reinforcing the belief that women are merely objects of sex. One of the men used the word wenches to refer to the women at a party. Although I know this occurs, I cannot imagine who in the world would find it appropriate to speak this way. You commented that the statistics were shocking and although I agree, I find the language even more shocking. Every female who attends fraternity parties are victims not just the ones who are being raped.

You posed the question, “What can be done to lower the number of date rapes that occur on a college campus?� To start with, there needs to be an underlying respect for women. I think as females it is our duty not to accept when men call us names and degrade us in front of their friends. Is it possible that we do not stand up to these men because we are afraid of rejection? If that is the cause, why are we waiting around for a man who obviously has no respect for us and will continually ridicule us because of our gender? I know that there are respectful and deserving men and so I believe that the first step to lower date rapes is by having the power to respect ourselves. By no means at all am I saying that women are to blame for rape, but I am saying that we need to respect ourselves enough to socialize with men who will show us the same respect. My hope is that someday women will stop associating with degrading men therefore proving to them that it is not beneficial to disrespect us.

In response to your third question as to why the definition of rape differs between genders. I believe it is because men see it as an attack on them to call them rapists. Rapists has a terrible connotation. In the article, when told what the definition of rape was one of the frat boys said "I have a problem with the word rape. It sounds so criminal, and we are not criminals; we are sane people." And another said "Rapists are people with something seriously wrong with them."

I think it is just a word game. A rapist as we commonly use the term is someone who grabs women off the street and beats and rapes them. This person is crazy. We see him as seperate from us normal people and therefore we couldn't possibly be him. It is almost as if we exclude that person from our society of good. It is men and women vs. rapists. I think that is part of why we always see rape from the women's view and as something they must deal with. We don't know the rapists, they are hiding in the bushes and we are all afraid of them.

For that reason it is impossible for some men to reconcile themselves with rapists even if they are. They may even say that they have forced a woman to have intercourse, but they couldn't if it means they are a rapist because a rapist is a crazy man.

If rape means a man pressuring a woman into sex, then we have incorporated it into our society as good and ok because that is what many men think you are supposed to do. They aren't doing a bad thing, they are being a man and existing as such. It is still horrible, but society has messed with all the lines and made the words mean more and less than they really should.

The comment Jon makes about men thinking pressuring women to have sex with them is okay and even expected is interesting to me. I think there's a really strong image pushed in the media that tells us that women aren't supposed to want to have sex, that they should wait until some time later (when isn't exactly clear), and all of their TV drama boyfriends are always pushing them to have sex.

The problem is that all too often on TV, the girls do give in and the guys do successfully have sex with them, and often it's portrayed as a really positive and liberating thing (although this depends heavily on the show-- we've all seen shows where it ends poorly, and I think this is changing slowly). I think we're told that society tells girls they shouldn't have sex, and it's men's job to "show them how great it can be", when often these guys aren't ready to be having sex themselves. My happiest friends are the ones having sex in mature and committed relationships, not the ones randomly trying to hook up with girls every weekend.

I wonder, however, and would be interested to discuss, how many girls feel that they were pressured during their first sexual encounter (however they might define that) to do something they weren't ready for. I would bet that the percentage is fairly high, simply because sex is so discouraged. I don't know many people who would argue that consenting adults having sex is a bad thing, but I'd bet a lot of people enter into their first sexual encounter with a decided mix of excitement and fear, as well as guilt. Assuming that a guy pressures his girlfriend into having sex by repeatedly bringing it up over time and using mental manipulation (for lack of a better word) to coerce her, but has no harmful intentions, and she eventually consents, I wonder how many women would view this as a negative experience. Is it unanimously negative? I realize this is a tremendously personal issue with highly charged emotions, and I'm not at all condoning or excusing rape, but I wonder if any women who weren't mentally or emotionally 100% on board with their first sexual encounter view it as a positive and freeing experience in hindsight. Again, I want to stress that I'm not making that as a claim... I'm merely curious whether anyone thinks that way.

In response to Cam's last question, I find it to be sad and not freeing at all. Rather, it places more worries, burdens, and pressures on a relationship. If it is something that the boyfriend has to bug his girlfriend about, then obviously there is something wrong because in a truly committed and loving relationship, one no would be enough to stop the questions coming. I don't know if there is unanimous agreement that it is negative, but I would hope that most women would agree that feeling pressured to do something and then giving into that pressure is not a freeing experience.

It is sad, for all parties involved. I remember male friends already claiming they were having sex as early as 5th grade (which was highly unlikely). So there's a fair amount of posturing, especially in high school, revolving around who has and hasn't had sex already.

I think that most people aren't emotionally or financially prepared to have sex in high school and deal with the potential consequences... and yet I'd imagine a lot of the situations I described occur at that level. So neither gender should probably be having sex at that age. I can think of very few high school relationships I would describe as a "truly committed and loving relationship".

Hell, people don't know who they are in high school, let alone who they want to be with for any long period of time. Hrm. I need to think about this some more. I'm not sure where I'm going with this reply.

In response to your second question of what can we do to eliminate date rapes that occur on a college campus, I think that kids need to be more educated in schools, about how often this occurs and how worng it is for men/women to take advantage. Often I think that if people need to realize that they need to take measures to be safe about where they go, know exactly who thier friends are,and etc. i think if people take more saftey percautions I think it would help reduce number of date rapes.

oops should of spell checked.

Answer to question 1. Seriously, I do not know how to answer this questions just because as a woman of color, just knowing this, it really puts me in a position were I feel hopeless. It is hard for me to believe that my case is not as important just because I am woman of color. It makes realize that this is out of my control; it’s like can I do they already marginalized and there are so many issues that women of color have to deal with. So, the question is which issue we should tackle first.

To answer your second question: Yes, make people more aware of it! We have to first make students aware that this is a big issue on campus. Let people know what date rape is, because some people really don’t see date rape as rape. I no it sounds stupid but I was actually talking to someone who had gone to a party, were I think a girl was raped, but the person I was talking to did not see it like that. I remember her saying, well they had gone out before and she just refused to believe that the girl was raped. But I do know about this issue and I seriously thought the girl was raped especially when the girl I was talking to told me the girl was crying after. So, I think letting people know what rape is, what date rape is, is a good place to start.

For the last question: I think the definition of rape differs between genders is because I think it is hard for society to believe a man can be raped because there is this belief that man love having sex and get it were ever and from whom ever. So, if a man had to admit he was raped then there is a risk of him being viewed as “pussy� or “gay� by society. I think that is one of the main reasons though they might be others as well.

In response to the third question, I believe the definition of rape varies between the different genders because women and men are brought up in different ways; they receive different treatment in their homes, schools and especially in the media. In my communications class we were just talking about this, and we watched a video on the difference between the way men and women are portrait in the media. What was found is that the way women are portrait in the media is in some ways encouraging men to use violence against them and treat them as objects. Many advertising give the idea that when women say no to sex they really mean yes, this is an erroneous idea because we know that that is not the case many times. These types of advertisings make men think that they can have any girl whenever they want to because even if the girl says no it will probably means yes. This thinking causes women to be raped and the men that rape may not even considered it a rape because they think that is normal for a girl to say no and still go ahead and do what ever they want, many girls of course know that when they say NO they mean “NO� and if a guy does not stop at that point, they feel like they are being raped

In response to question #2, I do think there are a variety of different prevention measures that can be taken to help lower the number of date rapes that occur on college campuses. First of all, prevention is not just the responsibility of women, who are the potential victims; prevention should focus on men as well. Many men try to rationalize their sexually aggressive behavior by the false stereotypes of what women really want. It seems that the most common defense men use is blaming their victim.

Incorporating educational and awareness programs especially on college campuses but also throughout communities is a great start to preventing the number of date rapes. These programs are likely to have a positive effect on promoting men to take responsibility for their actions as well as providing women with general information and warning signs. Even though this prevention measure is anticipated to be successful, there are always going to be some individuals who don’t get the message. In this case, there are some common characteristics of men that have been previously shown to indicate trouble. Some of these characteristics are extreme jealousy, inability to handle sexual or emotional frustration, belittling comments, emotional or physical intimidation, superiority, and negative attitudes towards women. Other warning signs are men taking offense to not consenting to activities such as drinking or going to isolated areas.

Even though it is not the women’s primary responsibility, they must be aware of warning signs and their surroundings because no prevention program will eliminate all rapists.