Rolling Stone’s now infamous article “A Rape on Campus” inspired a new program at the University of Virginia to help end campus rape. Unfortunately, it’s not likely to work.
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The November 19, 2014 publication of “A Rape on Campus” in Rolling Stone magazine threw the University of Virginia into a frenzy of institutional responses. The article reported the story of a woman who had been gang raped at one of the university’s fraternity houses. The university’s president, Teresa Sullivan, suspended Greek social events for the rest of the semester and anti-rape protestors marched on Rugby Road, a central site of Greek life. The university’s Greek system came under intense criticism for how its partying, hazing rituals, and sex and gender norms were implicated in sexual violence. Students and faculty hastily arranged meetings to craft their immediate responses as well as long-term reforms.
Green Dot… works by training the members of a community, one person at a time, in “proactive behaviors that establish intolerance of violence as the norm.”
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Subsequent reporting by The Washington Post and a follow-up police investigation showed that the gang rape, as reported, never occurred. This led to a backlash in defense of Greek organizations, with some Greek alumni threatening to withhold contributions to the university, and lawsuits on behalf of individuals and organizations claiming to have been slandered.
For anti-rape activists, this turn of events was a disaster, since public awareness and concern for gender-based violence at U.S. universities had been growing over the past decade. In 2007 and again in 2015, survey results showed that one out of every five university women in the United States will be sexually assaulted during her undergraduate career.
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Like many institutions of higher learning, the University of Virginia recognized this statistic and, long before the fiasco, had been working to make its campus safer, primarily through student advocacy and support groups. Yet the debunking of the Rolling Stone story gave those who were part of the backlash against anti-rape activists an inroad to question the emerging zeitgeist. Even though such violence was understood to be a problem across U.S. campuses, the story riveted the public and took the edge off the urgency to do something.
But on campus, in the aftermath of the Rolling Stone incident, the University of Virginia, where I am based, redoubled its efforts to address rape by adding the Green Dot program. This program trains community members to look out for each other’s safety and act when necessary—instead of remaining silent bystanders. Run by administrators and staffed mainly by student volunteers, Green Dot excited many students, staff, and faculty who signed up for training workshops. In its first year at the University of Virginia, Green Dot reached almost 2,000 people—a significant number but only a small percentage of the total community.
In reading about cultures in which rape is rare, or unimaginable, students became aware of how the prevalence of rape in our own society is more a function of a system that teaches men to be men, and women to be women, in certain ways—and less a result of biology or individual choices.
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Green Dot describes itself as “a comprehensive approach to violence prevention” that works by training the members of a community, one person at a time, in “proactive behaviors that establish intolerance of violence as the norm.” People proficient in the new norm become “green dots,” and when these “engaged and proactive bystanders” come to outnumber the untrained “red dots” of the community, the culture will have changed.
Itoo enrolled in a Green Dot workshop. But I quickly became convinced that such programs, although well-intentioned, are bound to fail because they attack a social problem by way of an individualistic solution. And since administrators set it up and students run it, Green Dot bypassed the faculty, who were seen as community members to be trained or “sensitized” but not as experts to be called on to educate students about the larger social issues surrounding rape—and possible solutions. In other words, the members of the university community most skilled at analyzing social problems were not consulted.
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I stepped forward with my own solution. Faculty, I thought, should teach courses in response to the crisis, and so in the fall of 2015, I dug into these issues in a new course called “Culture, Gender, and Violence.” With a group of 120 students, I investigated the cross-cultural research on rape.
In reading about cultures in which rape is rare, or unimaginable, students became aware of how the prevalence of rape in our own society is more a function of a system that teaches men to be men, and women to be women, in certain ways—and less a result of biology or individual choices. The Gerai, for example, a community of Dayak peoples (non-Muslim Indigenous people) in Indonesian Borneo, think that “women’s sexuality and bodies are no less aggressive and no more vulnerable than men’s,” writes anthropologist Christine Helliwell, based at Australian National University in Canberra. For the Gerai, sexual assault is “almost unthinkable,” Helliwell says.
Universities depend too heavily on those institutions (for many reasons, but in most cases because they are generators of alumni donations) to try to change them.
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By contrast, in the United States rape stems from our cultural definitions of sex and gender and the patterning of social relationships that follows from them. And the Greek system, particularly, reproduces harmful gender norms among college students, as Peggy Reeves Sanday showed in Fraternity Gang Rape. In her book, she detailed how fraternities taught men to be men by expelling what they saw as their own womanly tendencies and using violence against women—ritualized as gang rape—as a rite of passage for full entry into the brotherhood of fraternity men.
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Sanday, a feminist anthropologist who was at the University of Pennsylvania at the time, wrote her book in response to a rape on her campus. But in her previous work—extensive cross-cultural studies of rape—she had found that rape was rare in many societies, especially those in which women had high social status. In poignant contrast, Fraternity Gang Rapeexposed how both college social life and the treatment of rape in the U.S. legal system conspire to reproduce the low status of U.S. women.
It is much easier for universities to establish programs like Green Dot that emphasize changing the choices and actions of individuals than it is for them to attack the institutional structures—fraternities, athletics, the advertising industry—that have a much greater influence on the gender norms that guide students’ choices. Universities depend too heavily on those institutions (for many reasons, but in most cases because they are generators of alumni donations) to try to change them.
Indeed, breaking news from The Washington Post—based on a Freedom of Information Act request—details how pro–University of Virginia lobbying led the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to tone down a draft report of its four-year investigation of sexual violence at the university. Missing from the final letter was an assertion from the first letter that the university had “abdicated” its responsibility for oversight of the Greek system—to the fraternities—in cases of sexual violence involving fraternity members.
I do not propose the abolition of the Greek system as the solution to gender-based violence at U.S. universities, but it seems clear that we should pressure administrators to exert more control over fraternities. And, as a faculty member, I argue that we should multiply the number of college courses that can educate students about the social underpinnings of rape. Let’s start there, and perhaps our next steps will then become clear.
By: Richard Handler
This article was originally published on Sapiens.
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Photo: Getty Images
A feminist group falsely accuse a fraternity of rape, throws a campus into chaos, cost thousands upon thousands of dollars and man-hours, the frat house to be descended upon by rioters and trashed…and the we are coming down upon the fraternity rather then those that caused it all?
Okay so I’m not the only one wondering about this. Funny how the story goes. 1. Rape claim is made. 2. Activists call the head and blood of the accused. 3. The accused is found guilty in the court of public opinion. 4. The accused is punished in some way before any sort of hearing or trial. 5. The claim turns out to be false. 6. Activists downplay the fact that it was false, renew their vow to help “real victims”, then move on to the next major case. And somehow the lesson here is rape needs to be prevented… Read more »
@ Danny “They almost never actually hold the false accuser responsible for their actions.” Based on my understanding of rape culture, trivializing rape, calling things rape that are not rape; a false rape accusation IS rape culture. “Its almost as if they want to use the false claim to go after men and men’s groups/clubs…… ” It has to do with numbers. Never mind that the 1 in 5 claim includes women who were non-consensually kissed, groped, and in some cases stared at, which would all be you know equating things that are not rape with rape; some feel they… Read more »
The Dayak engaged in genocidal massacres, head-hunting and cannibalism in this century. Forgive me if I do not look to them for enlightened social mores (they did tend to be indiscriminate killers of men, women and children which makes them egalitarian in a way.). The lack of rape probably has more to do with the traditionally communal family living style (tribal groups are akin to family groups and live in small communities lodging in very close quarters (often one long house). Secondly, Peggy Sanday isn’t exactly credible- in her book she discusses the Duke Lacrosse Case thusly: “one can only… Read more »
Please read my comments below about events that have happened in frats. I know there are more cases then the ones I presented. Please don’t deny the issue. Please. Your daughter will have a much happier life if she is able to be seen as an equal to her male peers instead of a means to an end for their personal fun.
Erin- I was in a fraternity as were most of the men in my family. First hand experience trumps the breathless narrative stringing together individual events. My wife, sister, cousins, and niece all have been part of the Greek system as well. I certainly assure you that the women in my family feel quite equal to their spouses. All of us regard Peggy Sanday’s conclusions with skepticism. Again- do you honestly think that an annual gang raping as part of initiation could be kept quiet over years? 5 to 10 men (at a minimum) and one woman every year? In… Read more »
@ SEEEDubya
Yes, but what about this?
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/a-grown-woman-goes-undercover-at-a-frat-party?utm_source=vicetwitterus
You’re telling me this is normal behavior? Sorry, spent too much time on reddit. My sarcasm meter is in overdrive.
That’s freaking priceless. Such an expose of the evil inherent in male patriarchal reactionary retrograde something or other institutional sexist toxic masculine problematic (couldn’t forget that one) old boy clubs for young men.
You don’t want to get rid of the Greek system? What good are they for besides teaching men to be rapists? You get rid of the fraternities, you get rid of anyone accused of sexual assault and you should be well on your way to solving the problem.
I think brotherhood/sisterhood is important and can be a lot of fun. I was never in one myself but I can see how in a positive environment, it’s a good thing. Even if you eliminated frats, there is still other venues that support similiar sexist values that limit women to lower status.
Half measures aren’t going to work. It sounds like you are supporting fun over rape culture. I’m sure you don’t mean that. Why would brotherhood/sisterhood go away because of the demise of the Greek system? Frats also support racist and class systems. I don’t believe they can be reformed. They have to go.
Not sure if you’re serious or just being sarcastic… Not all fraternities are the Alpha Betas from Revenge of the Nerds. Mine had members of multiple ethnic groups and socioeconomic classes. I had one brother whose family had a private jet and another who grew up as a son of a single school teacher.
There are a whole slew of traditionally black fraternities and sororities as well.
“she had found that rape was rare in many societies, especially those in which women had high social status. ” Is it rape that is rare or the rape of women. There is a significant difference. Many people still think the rape of men in the U.S, is rare, yet a study by the APA found 43% of young men experienced unwanted sex with18% saying that force was used. The CDC studies indicate that the rape of men is significant with some estimates finding it nearly as prevalent as the rape of women and the CDC doesn’t count homeless or… Read more »
It is hard to get truly accurate numbers about the amount of rapes that actually are happening. This is true of women too who don’t always report it either. That shouldn’t prevent us from talking about this this topic though. Sexism and misogyny are serious issues. Just like racism is (which is also a big problem in traditional frats) – which we are proving still very much exists in this country. You have actual frats who are singing actual rapey songs like it’s the most awesome thing in the world. Such as the frat from Yale that liked to walk… Read more »
You also don’t ever having instances of men raping a woman then charging her with rape and providing evidence that he raped her then have her thrown out of college like with what happened to a male student at Amherst. He was unconscious when a woman decided to have sex with him then charge him with rape admitting that he was unconscious at the time. 70 – 80% of staff perpetrated sexual abuse in prison is perpetrated by female staff. Sexual abuse isn’t limited to just male perpetrators or female victims and we see especially in the prison systems where… Read more »
John – Is there a reason you don’t want to talk about the frat situations I brought up? You didn’t even make one comment on them. Are these situations just that unimportant? Are they not valid? How would you like me to respond? Should I ignore the points I brought up in favor of *only* addressing your points instead? Are the issues you care about of just more importance and significance? False rape allegations are important to talk about. But they are actually rare. And too often, our society latches onto them to discredit those who are raped or to… Read more »
@ Erin The PREA stats change every year so I provided a range where them seem to “group”. Here is the report from 2008. Go to page 15 Table 7 all staff misconduct. Male inmates reporting incidents with ONLY female staff accounted for 78.7% of ALL staff sexual misconduct. http://www.prearesourcecenter.org/sites/default/files/library/sexualvictimizationreportedbyformerstateprisoners2008.pdf Now I believe that you’re correct in noting that staff is probably disproportionately male, but your wrong in assuming that makes female staff less culpable because that means it’s even a smaller group thats committing most of the sexual victimization. (Maybe) 30% of the staff is committing 80% of the… Read more »
@ Erin Let me see if I can address some of the other issues you raised. Yes both men and women under report having been raped. Based on the data I’ve seen (CDC and APA) I’d say that men under reported significantly more often than women for multiple reasons. It’s difficult to get an accurate count, but that isn’t exactly defending the statement that in certain societies where women have elevate social status that rape is rare. That’s saying that we can’t know. The reason I mentioned the HYPOTHETICAL column stating most rape reports are false was because I thought… Read more »
@ Erin
Last point. I think we can talk about these things. I think we do talk about these things. In order to minimize the “noise” surrounding this (by that I mean there are people who will take exception to things without the proper “context”). We need to be careful how we talk about them. We need to put them in proper context. Look at the fuss caused by simply questioning whether the statement rape is rare included male victims. It didn’t elicit the response good question. I wish we knew.
Men dont rape. Criminals rape. Stop attacking the good men along with the criminals
The biggest issue I have with the article is that it didn’t mention the vandalism to the fraternity house and that several of the fraternity members had to essentially go into hiding. The response to the Rolling Stone story was a lot more damaging to the falsely accused than the article would make it seem.
Its amazing that people can be so brazen as to use a completely discredited story to forward a narrative. It literally DOESNT MATTER to them that Jackie’s story was fabricated.
Unfortunately, people like Jackie certainly don’t do these sensitive and important issues any favors. Her lie becomes a justification to blow off the importance of discussing rape culture. Or a way to minimize it by planting the seed that women only lie about these things. But this article was pretty clear about the perspective it wanted to address. It didn’t want to address the side of it that focused on Jackie or the frat being vandalized. And there is nothing wrong with that onto itself. The author wanted to talk about rape culture. And that’s totally fine. Just as if… Read more »
@ Erin I think you’re both right and wrong. The difference is HOW they choose to do it. If I wrote an article on the frat brothers and said something like sure 1 out of every 100 rape accusations is true and we have to be aware of that, I’m sure there would be several comments challenging that statement or if I made some other minimizing statement like comparing being raped to watching a 1 star movie. My point being that the affect on the falsely accused was significantly more than feeling slandered. One other thing I think is interesting… Read more »
@ SEEEdubya I wouldn’t say that the falseness of a story would necessarily mean it has no value to the discussion. Truth is often times stranger than fiction and we know how organizational mentality often trumps personal morality. We see that in prisons where guards protect guards or in schools where they sweep things under the rug so that the organization and consequently the individuals within the organization don’t suffer. How many people at Arther Anderson or Enron knew what was going on, but remained silent because everyone were getting bonuses? That said. We need to ensure that if we… Read more »
Not all that many people were plugged in to the Arthur Andersen thing- if you know how audits worked back then very few people get to see the full contextual picture. Most everyone works on a tiny slice which is aggregated up to the next level. Lots of worker bees in little cells passing work upward. The partner owns the whole show and is surrounded by peers who didn’t inspect each other’s clients. There are now many more controls precisely because of this. Enron was the same thing- CEO, CFO and some select few others. Anyway- that conspiracy came out… Read more »