Recently I received a small green card in my Hinman Box advertising something called "White Ribbon Day" slated for this Saturday, Nov. 17. "Oh," I thought, "apparently some cause I haven't heard about yet." I read on to discover that "Men are invited to receive a White Ribbon, a symbol of a pledge never to commit, condone, or remain silent about violence against women."
Well! This is a first, indeed. I've heard of "Help find a Cure for AIDS" ribbons, "Support our soldiers in the Persian Gulf" ribbons, "Hunger and homeless awareness" ribbons -- but I can't say that I've ever heard of an "I am Not a Rapist" ribbon before. Has society really come to a point where we need to wear a disclaimer, where we need to declare that we are not, in fact, horrible people? Will we see "I am Not a Murderer" ribbons next month? How about "I am Not an Arsonist?" Ooh, maybe "I am Not a Graverobber?"
Of course we won't see these other ribbons, because people aren't assumed on sight to be murderers, arsonists, or graverobbers. Rapists, however, are a different story. It is the current fashion in some circles to automatically brand all male members of the human species as potential abusers of women. Thus we're confronted with things like " a pledge never to commit violence against women," which apparently men need to recite or else they will instinctively be tempted to assault someone.
It's not that I can't understand how this mode of thinking came about, particularly here at Dartmouth. We're dominated by a male-centric Greek system that by its very nature perpetuates aggression against women. There are plenty of debased individuals and groups with this system, as a typical weekend night in the bowels of a frat house would demonstrate. But even taking the Greek system into account, it should be obvious to anyone that the majority of males are not sexual abusers, both on this campus and in society at large. I would even dare to say that the majority of men do not believe that violence against women is something that should be committed or condoned.
Now, there are indeed men out there who are prone to sexual assault or who think that it's a permissible activity. These predators do exist among us. But they will not be convinced away from their wrongdoing by a white ribbon, or by a "Raffle: Enter to Win an EBA's Gift Certificate," as the little green card for White Ribbon Day promises. This is absurd. Do the organizers of the event think that the man who assaulted female students last weekend would have somehow been dissuaded from his actions if he'd possessed a white ribbon and taken the "pledge?" Hey, maybe the EBA's gift certificate raffle would have won him over.
I would like to say that the words of the White Ribbon pledge are meaningless, but they are not. They carry a propagandistic power quite opposite from the one intended: instead of preventing the demeaning of women, they are perpetuating the demeaning of men. Males are being told that they have a type of original sin that they must cleanse themselves of, or else they will be seen as an enemy of women. Rather than promoting greater understanding between genders, White Ribbon Day divides them, specifically into the oppressors and the oppressed. The male identity is reduced to that of "aggressor."
Thus I urge my fellow non-abusive men on this campus not to attend the events of White Ribbon Day on Saturday. There are more constructive ways to go about preventing sexual abuse. You, as a male, should not be forced to submit to the false identity of "aggressor" that has been created for you by those who would like to reduce gender struggles on campus to simply attackers and victims, aggressors and subjects of aggression. The majority of men already know that violence against women is deplorable. This is a basic part of who they are; they don't need to recite a pledge to be reminded of their morality. They have already made that pledge long ago, because they are devoted to the safety of their female loved ones, because they know that women are to be treated with respect.
Yes, there are men who do not hold these tenets sacred. Yes, there are men who attack and rape and abuse and generally hold no regard for human dignity. But they will not be convinced otherwise by a pledge and ribbon. People who believe in such a simple solution are taking a painfully nave and reductive approach to the problem of sexual assault, and they are insulting the male gender in the process.
I have half a mind to wear a black ribbon. Its meaning would be very simple: "I'm Proud to be a Man." There are those of my gender who are monsters, just as there are terrible individuals to be found in every race and religion. But, just as with race and religion, stereotypes of gender should not ever be made. On the whole, those belonging to my gender are good people. They should not be ashamed of who they are. I'm proud to be a man, and if you're part of that majority of males who neither commits nor condones violence against women, you should be too.
