With the recent demise of Spare Rib, the sometimes controversial women's issues publication, one might fear that Spare Ribbings are gone forever. As Spare Ribbings were consistently my favorite part of that publication I am not ready to see them disappear. So they will live on, at least this week, in my column.
You remember Spare Ribbings -- a collection of sexist quotes overheard on campus. For some people it was a reminder of just how far we still have to go; for others it was a source of pride and a rare opportunity for losers to be quoted in print.
The following statement was made with a tone of disgust in a conversation between two members of the Greek system:
"You mean he hooked up with that fat blonde girl?"
The conversation was between two '96s; listening was your typical large jock type, speaking was an attractive (physically) member of a sorority.
When a Dartmouth woman makes a sexist comment it forces one to reconsider the problem of social life on this campus. Fraternities draw an enormous amount of fire in this discussion, but comments like the above lead us to realize that this is not a matter of black and white, but rather, shades of gray.
For most of my Dartmouth career I have worked under the belief that something is seriously wrong with the way many men on this campus behave. My readers know that I have focused attention on everything from fraternity brothers wielding bb guns and baseball bats to the very structure of a system where men control the majority of social "turf."
It is quite natural that an initial analysis of social problems would focus on men. My father recently revealed to me that he knew something was wrong before I even came to Dartmouth.
When I toured the school as a high school junior we asked a '91 who had gone to my high school to give us a tour of his fraternity house. As we walked through, my father was silent except for one question, "John, can you ever imagine yourself living like this?" At the time I brushed aside my father's question, as I was in the process of falling in love.
Only recently did my father reveal the depths of his misgivings. While at the University of Kansas my father was president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. After graduation he remained involved in the national organization and has visited all sorts of fraternity houses all across the country.
"John," he said over winter break, "that was the most disgusting fraternity house I have ever seen. I knew when I saw that that there was something going seriously wrong at Dartmouth."
Independent of my father's opinion, I have come to similar conclusions. But now I realize we have to look deeper than the disgusting houses, the truth lies somewhere past the mung.
Just as there are obvious problems with the way men operate on this campus there are equally important, although not as obvious, problems with the women. One might argue that the above comment is simply the result of a woman who is forced by male peers to conform to a sexist social system.
Such an analysis might assuage the fears of feminists for a while, but it leads to difficult conclusions. Are women really powerless actors in this tragic play? Or are intelligent, educated women knowingly taking part in what is going on? When a man calls a woman a "fat blonde girl" we notice the ways in which he is lowering her status. When the words come out of the mouth of a woman is she doing anything different?
The true feminist gives women credit where such credit is due. Perhaps it is high time we give women some credit for the social system they inhabit.
