Frat antics aren’t particularly known for their sensitivity.
This week, a YouTube clip of a Yale University Delta Kappa Epsilon pledging ritual went viral on campus. Posted Wednesday night, immediately after the events took place, the video documents the DKE pledges marching blindfolded on Old Campus—home to the majority of Yale’s freshman women—shouting chants such as “No means yes, yes means anal” and “Fucking sluts.”
The Yale Women’s Center responded in a statement to the Yale Daily News:
This action by DKE has made public that they see rape as a joke or, worse, something they support. That these calls may have been made in jest should not distract from the fact that they incite violence.
On Thursday, DKE president Jordan Forney made a public apology, calling the chants “inappropriate, disrespectful, and very hurtful to others.” He said the stunt was “a lapse in judgment” and “in poor taste.”
Is this statement enough? Broad Recognition, a Yale feminist publication, urged students Thursday to demand administrative action against the fraternity, whose actions it called “fear-mongering” and “a call to violence.”
“Yale women are not new to fraternity misogyny, nor are we a stranger to our administration sitting on their hands and doing absolutely nothing about it,” the writer of the article, Hannah Zeavin, told the Good Men Project.
Other students think the reaction is overblown. “These chants are not dangerous,” said a comment on the Daily News story.
Do the frat’s actions merit university discipline? More importantly, will a slap on the wrist—which is more likely to occur—do anything to prevent future demonstrations of frat-sanctioned misogyny?
About Cooper Fleishman
Vocalyze
Acts of violence are not protected by free speech, nor is speech encouraging violence.
Thumbs down for a profound misunderstanding of first amendment jurisprudence.
In the 1969 Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio, speech which would be directed to and likely to cause lawless action was banned. So speech encouraging violence against a specific group is banned. However, the issue becomes whether or not this was encouraging violence against women, which these men would make the argument that it was not, just a thoughtless antic.
I don’t personally believe that these kids thought these sayings are true, but the fact that they are saying them is what’s important. You should never say such things, even in jest. Having someone say these things starts them thinking that they’re true, or at least not wrong.
Never mind that the best way to cancel out the importance of a topic is to make fun of it. Arguing against humor never wins, because humor robs whatever power a problem has. Imagine arguing against a comedian about misogyny–honestly, in the end, you’d look like someone arguing with a ten-year-old to the audience. Humor does not lead to serious discussion, and serious discussion is what this frat needs.
I wonder what Yale’s sexual harassment policies are and if Yale women could band together to form something like a class action suit against the fraternity…
Maybe there is something in the water at Yale. I dated a guy from Yale and he turned out not to be a good guy.
“On Thursday, DKE president Jordan Forney made a public apology, calling the chants “inappropriate, disrespectful, and very hurtful to others.” He said the stunt was “a lapse in judgment” and “in poor taste.”
I hope all the mothers, sisters and girlfriends of these “men” know exactly what they were doing.
But you know what’s just as bad? Other men that let guys like this get away with this stuff and stand on the side lines not protecting women.
Could you imagine a group of girls running throw the streets saying stuff like “ Men are just wallets, take them for all they are worth.” There are things you can say about women, there are things you can do to a woman through the media that you could NEVER do to any other man in a social, ethnic or religious groups.
A group of Yale frat boys said reprehensible things on initiation night
+ the one guy you dated from Yale was “not a good guy”
=/= “there is something in the water at Yale”.
Yale ’09
Ah, yes, women are equal and therefore it’s the responsibility of men to protect them since they can’t protect themselves. If a woman feels intimidated, that’s because of misogyny. If a man feels intimidated, it’s because he’s a coward.
I was going to comment to say roughly the same thing. I don’t think the women standing idly by are any more innocent than the men. Some might say it’s scarier for a woman to confront that kind of situation, but I think it would be equally hard for a man to do it.
Men don’t owe women protection, but good people stand up for other people.
There’s a lot of interesting discussion going on, and I dunno if anyone wants to revisit it, but boys will be boys and call each other faggots and punch each other and eat dirt. I think its part of the developing process. If you remember how you felt when you were younger, it was fucking weird and middle school will always suck forever since its middle school and biology dictates you have hormones making drug cocktails for young developing minds, so you act crazy anyway! If they aren’t doing this, they are hanging out with girls and playing with other gay little boys and dolls. They’re going to yell about fucking sluts and how much dey luv pussy, and run around like psycho pervs. The thing is you can meet in the middle, but only can do that if you also make fun of yourself, and there is an understanding that no harm is meant, it is only in a joking spirit. That way, everyone has a good laugh. If you can’t do that properly, you should then obviously shut your dumb face, and think of something better to say to women, since they deserve nice things, since quite frankly, they’re smokin hot. and gay dudes are awesome too, we cant have complete equality without bearded cock gobblers (<3 waltwhitman). I think ultimately solutions to these issues are solved through education, understanding, and communication, not censorship and Big Sister getting all huffy and puffy (get it? they're feminists!) and suppressing male sexuality instead of redirecting it (come on yale, you're supposed to teach your students not let sexually confused(or disturbed) men loose upon you're student population). It for reasons like this that I think we should change it to humanism (a sweet ass name, same idea) feminism is a shitty word since it lets girls use the "feminism" card, but if its humanism, we can just to instant reverses constantly and actually live in a world that respects people equally. Unite and overcome! Sorry Big Sister, but little brother has had enough.
If the frat boys had been saying racist stuff nobody would defend them. I wonder if boys will be boys would be a good enough excuse for KKK style chanting outside a black church for instance? Would that be all good fun and letting off steam?
Oh yes and Feminism is just fine because it gets to the reality of our nasty little rape culture – something I suspect you’d like to deny or trvialise.
Boys will be boys is always a nice excuse for the threat of rape. Good job.
Male organizations that promote an aggressive version of masculinity are going to be considerably more likely to have rape problems. This is true of the military, of fraternities, perhaps of sports teams. I should stress that these are tendencies, not universal maxims–I have friends and family in all of the above groups–but, as tendencies, they are supported by data. (In fairness, I haven’t found much data either way on sports teams.)
Late to this discussion. The headline led me to think there may have been rape involved.
Apparently not. I guess that’s journalism today.
How ridiculous. Is rape a problem on the Yale campus? How many have been reported? Probably zero. So fraternity antics are just what they are …antics. If you want to see REAL hatred, take a “women’s study” class at Yale, and I’m sure you’ll see more bigotry and fearmongering than you EVER would during pledge rituals.
I thought this site was to celebrate men…but it’s just another propaganda site for the politically correct, it seems, based on the uncritical inclusion of articles like this.
That’s a terrifying thing to say. The number of rapes that occur (and the smaller number reported) on post-secondary school campuses is obscenely high. If you don’t think “No means yes, yes means anal” is hate-filled, you’re blind.
Let me suggest you imagine a troupe of women with dildos and gay men shout that at you as you head to your job or classes. Feel good? Feel safe?
It’s also a site to explore what being a good man is and to challenge men to strive for that ideal.
People that get annoyed about feminists getting annoyed = not really people that have a full grasp on what feminism is. Terming feminists as uppity, picky and easily offended, irrational idealists invalidates what is their argument, and their argument is based on something quite rational and real. To deny that what happened is sexist is ridiculous. Someone else made the point that if they had gone marching through a black neighbourhood yelling about lynching and torturing black people, the reaction the public would have would be a lot different. Call me an uppity feminist- I suppose I see nothing funny about a crowd of people parading through a residence yelling about rape and how it’s awesome. Weird.
This is in no way an excuse for their behavior, but I would point out that these young men probably make lots of jokes about men being raped, probably lots of jokes about frat members raping each other. This is an outward manifestation of internal stuff that just happens to be directed at nearby women. My theory is that much of this is just overcompensating for their own insecurities about their sexuality. It’s homophobia twisted around into misogyny: “Look how straight I am – I’m yelling that I want to have sex with women whether they consent or not!”
Men in fraternities and other male-only institutions often express misogyny and hyper-heterosexuality as a way to prove to themselves that they are not gay. They feel the need to compensate for all the homoeroticism inherent in all the things they do to each other — tying each other up while naked, watching each other have sex, being obsessed with anal sex, etc. Think about how many frat initiations involve being tied up, being naked, covering a man’s body in something, decorating his bare skin, dressing him in women’s clothing, etc. It reminds me of hazing you see in the military sometimes. If you ever saw the movie “Jarhead,” you might wonder how you would ever tell the difference between an openly gay Marine and one who isn’t.
Someone pointed out to me years ago that the stereotypical frat aesthetic – very short hair, baseball cap, preppy clothes, etc., was originally a stereotypically young gay man’s look. Gay men pioneered the whole Abercrombie & Fitch look so popular among oh-so-straight frat boys. If these guys could just accept that they may not be entirely heterosexual, a lot of this garbage would stop.
If this happened at my university they would have been in deep, deep shit (our frat boys put up anti-rape posters around campus and serious things can happen to people for hate speech, even when it isn’t organized).
Quite honestly, I don’t think there’s anything lawful or harmless about something like this and I don’t consider it reasonable to expect anyone, male or female, to stand face to face with a mob like that and try to make them stop.
Something like this doesn’t come out of nowhere, and it certainly makes me glad I don’t go to Yale (I had actually considered it at one point).
Boys will be boys. I still say and do stupid things to my friends, men and women. The operative word is friends. They’re people who’ve known me a long time, people I trust and who trust me. These chants were not directed at their friends. I don’t know if it was criminal, but it was definitely uncool. One way to check their intentions is to look at their behavior after the fact. Does anyone know if they issued an apology and did it seem sincere? Everyone does stupid stuff now and again, but when you hurt someone, you apologize.