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[quote=Anonymous]Some particularly good comments from a NYT op-talk about this:

lulu
I recommend reading the original,article in Rolling Stone. The young woman, who had not been drinking, was lead like a sheep to slaughter and attacked by a group of "brothers." She was in a sense pimped by her date. The truly disturbing element of the story, besides the reaction of the young woman's supposed friends and the school administration, is that the attackers come from a fraternity of wealthy students. These are the men who move into positions of,power after graduation. The same for Harvard, Yale and the other Ivy League schools. Then ask yourself how the rape culture is perpetuated. Duh...the power players are part and parcel of these systems.
Nov. 21, 2014 at 5:16 p.m.

jim
I work in the emergency room at UVA Hospital so I see a lot of violence, suffering, and tension up close. The Rolling Stone article focuses on sexual assault, but rape is presented as a subtext to the nature of privilege, power, entitlement, and social hierarchies. Rape is an act of power - not an expression of sexual need gone awry. That is why men are raped in prison settings; to achieve a line of authority. The questions that need addressing are: how is power distributed in our culture? Who gets to feel safe and who vulnerable? What mechanisms exist to level the dynamics of power relationships in our work, social, and political lives? Charlottesville is in the South where the tensions between class, race, and privilege are both stark and, as the article states, silent. The article and the brave victim will add to a badly needed out loud conversation. It already has.

UKpatriot
As a father of two little girls, who are way too young to go to college, I read the Rolling Stone article in horror.

My initial reaction was extreme anger at the cowardice and sense of entitlement that led these fraternity members to treat a young girl in this way.

As I thought about it some more, I could not help but comparing their attitude and actions to my own college days when I was a similar age. I was a member of the rugby team at university and as readers will appreciate rugby clubs are also known for raucous behavior and a drinking culture. However, there is I think a huge difference between the rugby club culture and etiquette and the fraternity culture. It is simply that any ill-treatment of women, even minor ways, such as bullying, ridicule, debasement would be regarded as cowardly and insulting and the other members of the club would view the perpetrator as a weak, pathetic and quite frankly not worth knowing. I therefore never saw it in my time as a rugby play (from age 8 to 35)

I felt compelled to write this post as I think this comparison shows that there is something deeply wrong about a fraternity culture, where to be proved a man you must hunt down individual young women in a pack.

So, one final message to you fraternity 'brothers' out there. If you behave like this at any event that a rugby club is attending you had better watch out because you will be dealt with swiftly and you will find out how real men conduct themselves.
Nov. 21, 2014 at 4:23 p.m.
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