College fraternities have been an important and ever popular element in American culture. Many male college students participate in fraternities, but the horror of fraternities is not located within the number of students participating, but within what goes on inside frat houses. Fraternities are an epicenter for negative behavior such as misogyny and rape culture. Many people are blind to the true consequences fraternities present. Misogyny and rape culture bring forth problems in and out of the frat house.
Fraternities are negatively influencing America nd are promoting misogyny and rape culture. A deep-rooted hatred for woman can sprout from anywhere; including the place people would least suspect it: a college fraternity. Fraternity members often have signals to judge a female’s “sexual suitability” such as a “thumbs – up thumbs – down” signal (Sanday, 57). Many fraternities also have a numbering system and girls below a six are unable to enter the party.
Within recent years a new college comedy website has emerged- Total Frat Move. Alyson Shontell claims these boys to be “genius frat dudes who turned bro humor into a multimillion-dollar media mpire. ” While this so-called “bro humor” may be innocent, it is sending a strong misogynistic message to the world. Total Frat Move has posted articles about how women with short hair are less attractive and that certain things girls say should be a big red flag in the relationship.
Moreover, the boys have a section of the website called “Girls,” a place where fraternity members around the country can comment on pictures of usually scantily clad girls- uncensored. Many comments are “toxic” and “sexist jokes,” claims Jaime Gordon. While some see this website as ffensive and wrong, others are cheering the boys on and celebrating their so-called achievements. Fraternities do not directly promote misogyny, seeing as fraternity members enjoy women they are pleasing them. Fraternity members are pleased with women if they are following their rules and abiding by their standards.
One of the most notoriously misogynistic fraternities in America is Pi Kappa Phi in North Carolina; members of the fraternity once left a notebook containing concerning phrase in a restaurant, one of which claiming if a girl was hot enough, her having a pulse wasn’t important. Colleges do nothing to stop this behavior, and many colleges cannot do anything. If a fraternity is private property, the college is unable to do anything. Fraternities have more power than the members-or the country- realizes.
Colleges that condone this and allow fraternities to control the campus are fueling the fire that leads boys to become misogynistic. They are allowing fraternity members to become misogynistic and to control women on the campus. Although misogyny is an alarming aspect of college fraternities, an even more alarming problem presents itself: rape and sexual assault. Misogyny and rape come hand in hand. Fraternity members begin to have misogynistic views on women and eventually begin to judge how sexually attractive they are and only care about the sexual pleasure a woman can bring them.
This evolves into subtle hand signals that go undetected by potential victims. On certain campuses, fraternities will use a marking system. Red “Xs” get the wearer special drinking privileges as opposed to those with a black “X. ” Unsurprisingly so, these special drinking privileges are accompanied by blurry drinks composed of hard liquor and the popular date rape drug Rohypnol, more commonly known as roofies. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center has done extensive research into sexual assault and has found that rape is unfortunately a very popular and ever present entity on college campuses.
One in five women and one in sixteen men will be raped in college and among the rapes that occur on college campuses, more than 90% remain unreported. Supporters of fraternities would argue that the harsh comments made about women within fraternity houses are merely “bro humor. ” Supporters do not recognize the extent of negativity they are supporting. Boys who re misogynistic typically never get over it, they continue to be misogynistic in the work place. Misogyny is the main cause of the wage gap in the United States.
Misogyny is the reason the phrase “boys will be boys” is an acceptable excuse for how inappropriately some men act. College fraternities and their so- called “bro humor” fuel the fire that makes people believe casting inappropriate behavior off normal male behavior and is the reason why misogyny is such an ever-present problem in America. Supporters of fraternities are also extremely of how alarming college rape statistics are. As mentioned in the paragraph above, twenty percent of women will be raped in college.
RAINN found that for every robbery there is at least two sexual assaults on campus. The organization also found that twelve percent of rape victims did not report the crime because they believed it was not necessary to report. For people to believe sexual assault is not important enough to report to law enforcement further shows that rape is an extreme problem on college campuses. It has become so normal to hear about and experience that they feel their problem is insignificant. College raternities have been around for centuries and will probably be around for many more.
Fraternities are most likely never going to end but there are ways we could prevent misogyny and rape on college campuses. Independent and off-campuses fraternity houses should not be allowed because they are considered private property and leave universities no way of controlling their students and what goes on inside the house. If independent and off-campus fraternity houses are not able to be stopped, the United States Congress needs to develop new laws and amendments to The Constitution to allow university fficials to intervene in and investigate crimes that occur within these off-campus houses.
Another way to prevent rape is to follow through with protocol and punishments for sexual assault on and off campuses. A prime example of the United States’ government failing to do so is the Brock Turner case. Turner was a swimmer at Stanford University. He was convicted or rape and sentenced to only six months in prison. To make matters worse, Turner was released from prison after serving only three months of his small six-month sentence.
Brock Turner was twenty-one and could have received an average entence for sex offenders, which is approximately 9. years but the United States government did not take the proper steps in convicting an investigating the crime. Terminating college fraternities will not solve all the problems of the United States. It will not end misogyny and it will most definitely not end rape and sexual violence. However, putting an end to fraternities could be the stepping stone America needs to become a better nation. By ending fraternities, we could eliminate one of the preliminary places where misogyny is planted into young men.
Men at the college age are easily influenced, so removing a location where they learn to be misogynistic would be monumental step in ending misogyny in America. The number of rape and sexual violence crimes could decrease rapidly. Students should feel safe at the university they attend, and America could provide this by slowly weeding out fraternities. The impact of ending fraternities could reach across the globe and not only better America, but the world. Lower levels of sexual violence and misogyny could push America to be the model country it once was.
