Ours is by no means the only culture in which males engage in the schizophrenic practice of glorifying women (especially mothers) on the one hand while demeaning them as throw-away sex objects on the other. We often find this paradox in honor cultures, in which male honor is a paramount value.
Scientists report that an extensive repertoire of misogynistic language and attitudes is cultivated in middle and high school, which contributes to the mental and emotional conditions conducive to verbal and physical violence against women. (See, e.g., Dating Aggression, Sexual Coercion, and Aggression-Supporting Attitudes Among College Men as a Function of Participation in High School Sports.) Too often, coaches tolerate this behavior or pretend not to know it’s going on.
Should it surprise us, therefore, when violent language targeted at women continues unabated at the college level?
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont now has the distinction of joining Yale University in having male students who have openly engaged in despicable acts of woman hating. According to the Burlington Free Press, members of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at UVM circulated a survey containing several inappropriate questions, including the following: “Who would you like to rape?“
Whoever composed this survey question seems not to have thought at all. If they did consider what they were doing, they exercised extremely bad judgment, to say the least. But my guess is that those responsible were surprised at the outcry. Why? Because they’ve probably heard or said worse while growing up, and no one ever told them it was wrong. To the contrary, as noted above, woman hating is part of male adolescent culture.
There is a growing body of research on the prevalence and function of rape myths in the facilitation of violence against women. (See, e.g., “Rape Myth Acceptance: Exploration of its Structure and its Measurement.”) Those at the University of Vermont and other organizations who want to prevent sexual harassment might want to spend time reading this literature.
Another aspect of the problem is the herd mentality that can neutralize normal moral sensitivity and silence those who might have misgivings. It is a kind of feral groupthink. Once this kind of group action is set in motion, it rarely happens that any individual will speak up to call a halt to it. Organizational leaders must work proactively to prevent it.
It is a sign of the progress we are making as a society that the national Sigma Phi Epsilon organization immediately suspended the UVM chapter and the university leadership has launched a full-scale investigation while expressing the view that the survey question was both morally wrong and possibly a violation of criminal law.
Yale University
At Yale University earlier this year, fraternity students marched around campus chanting, “No means yes. Yes means anal.” over and over and over again. 16 Yale women filed a class action law suit, claiming that Yale had a long history of tolerating not only blatant sexism and misogyny but even repeated incidents of rape and other forms of violence against women on campus.
We rightly expect college and university officials to act swiftly and decisively not only to stop sexist and misogynistic behavior when it occurs but to put programs in place designed to prevent it in the first place.
Even if academic institutions ignored their moral obligations to prevent sexual harassment, the force of law should get their attention. Sexual harassment is illegal under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Violations can lead to sanctions up to and including the cancellation of all federal research grants and other funding. Yale University receives over $500 million in federal research money.
In the wake of the Yale story, Vice President Biden traveled to the University of New Hampshire to call attention to that institution’s Sexual Harassment and Rape Prevention Program (SHARP). In his speech, the Vice President stated: “No means no. No means no if you’re drunk or you’re sober. No means no if you’re in bed in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind.”
Sexual harassment is a societal problem, which our society has been working for decades to eliminate. The 17th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act on September 11 was marked by various observances, including a video on the White House website: 1 is 2 Many.
To return to the question at the outset of this post, what responsibility does each of us have to help assure that the public schools in our area put a stop to misogyny in the locker room?
We can all contribute to putting an end to the scourge of sexual harassment. Sometimes it requires little more than picking up the phone to call the local school administrators.