Just ribboned campus and now I’m scared.

submitted by wokuspokus from (self.GenderCritical)

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[–]BEB 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

When I was at university, decades ago, as part of initiation, a frat did a horrible "joke" about rape, in a very public space.

In protest, I wrote a letter to the university newspaper. The paper didn't publish it, but instead gave it to the frat.

The frat boys then hounded me, not in a truly scary way, but I was the butt of jokes, and they'd bang on my door. I knew most of the guys. I liked most of the guys. I fought back when I would see one of them - calling them out on their misogyny.

Not too many years later, I saw one of the leaders of the frat and he apologized. And he meant it.

All to say that even the people who seem to be going along with the gender bullshit probably have deep reservations about it and you having the courage to voice what others are feeling will help them find their courage too. You have opened the door and others will find the ovaries now to walk through it.

WELL DONE!!!!

[–]TheOnyxGoddess 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

a frat did a horrible "joke" about rape, in a very public space.

Was this like a published newspaper joke, walking around making jokes? I'm wondering because it's strange that a newspaper would give the paper to the frat unless he was affiliated with the paper or his joke was published in one of their newspaper.

The frat boys then hounded me, not in a truly scary way, but I was the butt of jokes, and they'd bang on my door. I knew most of the guys. I liked most of the guys. I fought back when I would see one of them - calling them out on their misogyny.

Not too many years later, I saw one of the leaders of the frat and he apologized. And he meant it.

All to say that even the people who seem to be going along with the gender bullshit probably have deep reservations about it and you having the courage to voice what others are feeling will help them find their courage too.

I didn't expect the ending.

[–]BEB 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The frat did a physical "joke" - they placed an effigy of a woman in obvious distress, in a place where almost everyone on campus would walk by, and indicated that she had been raped and her rape was funny.

This was a long time ago, when US women had just gained some basic civil rights, and there was ferocious push back against feminism. Whoever at the newspaper leaked my letter to the frat was probably pushing back against "femi - nazis" - you know - women who don't view rape as a joke.

Men back then could be Male Chauvinist Pigs, but a sizeable % of men of my generation were actually pretty good. I wasn't scared of the frat boys like university women now seem to be be terrified of trans activists.

I, and other women, could engage male university students in feminist debate and they would consider what we were saying and respond as if we were intelligent human beings.

I agree with J.K. Rowling that we have really gone backwards since then. Men now, on both the Left and the Right, seem to hate women and view our bodies as pure commodities. Which is why I won't shut up.

[–]TheOnyxGoddess 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The frat did a physical "joke" - they placed an effigy of a woman in obvious distress, in a place where almost everyone on campus would walk by, and indicated that she had been raped and her rape was funny.

If you told me this happened within the last decade or two I would have been very pissed off. At least the frat apologised for it (I can't say the same thing about all the males who sexually harrassed me and threw rape threats at me back when I was a teen, I will be holding that against them amongst other crimes because they don't deserve forgiveness through amnesia especially when they know what is derogatory behaviour at that age). It reminds me of the early 2000s joke:

"How do you teach a girl math?"

Punchline: take away her clothes and makeup and have sex with her.

There's no logical twist, no pun, nothing, it's pretty much what a male bimbo would come up with and laugh and his straight ball sucking friends would laugh along with him because they're so stupid when they come together as a pack. I'm the type of person who laughs at jokes which are black comedy and controversial (e.g. sexist, racist) in nature and I can tell you, that is a type of joke that does not work because the entire context does not gradiate to the punchline (sex is not related to any sort of intellectual pursuit, there's zero relation between the two). The entire thing was just pure stupid sexism. If I reverse the entire thing onto a male, I still wouldn't be laughing and I really would like some misandristic jokes to read.

[–]BEB 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I do think that my generation of women hit a sweet spot, but we also know what our mothers and grandmothers went through, and also went through shit that would be unthinkable now too. I think that's why so many of us will fight like hell to save women's rights once we wake up.

[–]TheOnyxGoddess 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I see it as a disgusting joke even if none of the women in my family has gone through the same thing. I see it as downright disturbing and I'd be complaining to the university about it promoting rape culture. I don't care if the effigy is a man being raped, still disturbing.