The videos on last night’s 20-20 about the Vanderbilt case were beyond disturbing. To blame the victim in any way is, IMO, despicable.
http://college.usatoday.com/2015/01/29/u-va-sororities-banned-from-attending-fraternity-parties/ Oh my heavens. This is the solution? It sounds again like it must be those tempting women that cause men to behave badly. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/01/29/a-u-va-sorority-sister-has-this-to-say-about-being-told-to-stay-away-from-fraternity-parties-on-saturday/
My response is #5032.
The solution is not to “take away temptation”. Thats like telling someone on a diet not to go go out to dinner, or into a candy store.
If you locked all the men up, assaults would vanish.
If you locked all the women up, men would still assault each other.
When women walk alone at night, they aren’t worried about attacks from women.
When men walk alone at night, they aren’t worried about attacks from women.
Sexual assault is a male problem.
@dstark, have you ever read the dystopian SF novel “The Gate to Women’s Country” by Sherri Tepper? 
^^In the bubble women seem to already practice selective breeding.
99 percent of sexual assaults are committed by men.
LOL, I’m not ready to sign on for a female-only world thank you very much. And thank heavens the police did the investigating in the Vanderbilt case - it ought to be textbook for why colleges can’t and shouldn’t be investigating.
It’s odd that on campuses with a vibrant sorority presence, the sororities concede all the campus parties to fraternities. I know the national sorority organizations forbid alcohol in the houses, but it seems hypocritical to forbid alcohol yet insist on going to other groups’ parties that have alcohol. If the sororities want to be at parties that are safer, that are not set up for and by men, why don’t they have them?
Now the attorneys are trying to vacate the verdict because one juror had been a victim of a dissimilar sexual assault 15 years earlier.
Consolation, I have never read that book but it sounds interesting.
I think my wife might like that book.
CF, I have often wondered that myself. Lysistrata has also sprung to mind.
I am all for women exercising their power based on self-respect. Don’t run after or make yourself available to jerks who don’t treat you like a fully equal human being, even if they are cute or possess “social capital.” The idea that one should be subjected to a selection process at the door of a party–or a nightclub, for that matter–based on appearance as if one is a piece of meat for sale disgusts me. What is there inside that could possibly be worth abasing oneself in such a way?
And no, this is not victim blaming. It is empowering young women.,
Like a different jury would have made a different decision. The idea that no one who has been assaulted should be able to sit on an assault jury is ridiculous; I hope the appellate court treats that claim with the derision it deserves. I understand why the defense would have wanted to throw that juror out of the jury pool before trial-- but they didn’t.
I too hope that request to vacate is thrown out quickly. But apparently the juror didnt disclose it. So the experts are saying it is not without merit.
We live in a patriarchy that has historically enabled, if not promoted, rape culture. Fraternities are part of that patriarchy. Sororities have the potential to be powerful sisterhood groups opposing the patriarchy. However, frequently the appeal of sorority membership is access to fraternity men and their patriarchal power, in the present and for the future.
I didn’t know how to name this in 1975, but I could understand it at a very deep level. It would have been easy to marry a fraternity man. I made a conscious decision not to do this, even though my grandfathers, father, uncles, cousins and brothers were all fraternity men, as well as mensches and gentlemen.
If you felt your father, etc. were “mensches and gentlemen,” despite being fraternity men, why would you need to make a conscious decision not to marry a fraternity guy? There are certainly plenty of non fraternity men out there who are clearly NOT mensches or gentleman. And by definition, all men would be part of the patriarchy, so why marry at all?
If the police had not become involved, there would be nothing. She would have never reported and there would have been no charges. The circumstances were ironic since she didn’t even know anything had happened to her, but frankly no college or university could have investigated this without the “powers” of investigation, collection of evidence, a trip out of state and all that it took to close this case and she wouldn’t have reported because she didn’t even know what had happened. The college called the police about vandalism and didn’t try to investigate and adjudicate it themselves so why on earth would a college not call the police if they knew about criminal sexual behavior? Some would say the young women have a right to choose not to prosecute, but do we really as a society want to turn a ‘blind eye’ to situations like this? She didn’t prosecute, the state prosecuted. Let the police do their job and forgetabout letting colleges and universities mess around in what are clearly criminal situations. Even UVa had enough sense to contact the local police to do the investigation into the RS Jackie accusations.
sevmom: Marrying at all was a big decision for me. I knew I wanted children. I like men. It was still a difficult decision. I married a man who could see the problems of patriarchal society and understands and fights back against rape culture.
#5177 is my response to Cardinal Fang #5170 & Consolation #5173. It is a simplistic response, but an attempt to answer a complicated question.