I'll admit it. I feel vilified.
I've never learned as much about myself as I have these past two weeks. I'm a fraternity man, so evidently I tell my brothers to "either let women upstairs or not depending on [their] level of f*ckability.'" In my fraternity, no girls will get served alcohol "until all the prettier girls have gotten their beer," a very real reminder of the power structure in which I revel. Apparently I demand, "Show us your tits!" and roar with laughter as I grab another beer. These are quotations pulled from a speech by Dani Levin, the previous chair of the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault, at the Symposium on Sexual Assault describing the actions of fraternity men on this campus.
Read between the lines I'm not like this, and neither are most fraternity men on this campus. Yet according to Levin, this culture of dependency is the result of the "nature of the system." To be clear, I applaud her tremendous efforts and those of the Symposium organizers to spark conversations about sexual assault on campus. I take issue, however, with the generalizations that have been applied broadly to the fraternity system as a whole. On a Friday night, when I hear a man in a basement drunkenly proclaim, "Be real, all women are whores or sluts," I know there is hard work to be done. Opponents of "fraternity culture" aren't swinging at empty air. But while I believe reform is necessary and I welcome it, that doesn't make it any less painful when I am lumped together with the idiots spouting misogyny.
Andrew Lohse's allegations of hazing ("Telling the Truth," Jan. 25) fomented a wave of people crying, "I told you so" and, "We know what you do" at every fraternity man on campus. Last Saturday, the SPCSA painted fraternity men across campus with what I felt was an overly broad brush that left no room for positive fraternity experiences. From both incidents, I've felt forced into a defensive position, pigeonholed as a "fraternity man" complicit in all related crimes. In the discussions of sexual assault and hazing, I've seen fraternity men lumped together in a single category and given no wiggle room.
We're not all the horrific individuals that Lohse and Levin have described. As a fraternity president, I've talked at length to my fellow brothers about ensuring that we are accountable for what goes on within our walls. We've discussed how, by becoming a brother, you assume individual responsibility to take action when you see or hear misogyny, racism or anything that deviates from basic respect that would be unbecoming of the house and our individual characters. There is an incredible diversity of personal experiences on this campus and within every organization. To hear people speak in blanket terms about how fraternities operate, how they think and what attitudes and cultures they support is upsetting. I see here precisely the "othering" that Levin accuses fraternities of inculcating during pledge term. I've spent much time in such conversations, not in refuting the all-too-real and devastatingly disillusioning twin demons of hazing and sexual assault on campus, but in introducing nuance and breaking down a depiction of fraternities as a monolithic entity. Horrible things happen in fraternities at times this must be acknowledged. But those events are the worst perversion of the fraternal mission. To generalize based on the behavior of a violent minority mischaracterizes the experiences and actions of the majority.
Evils such as hazing and sexual assault exist on this campus, and we must stamp them out. However, it is highly reductive to think that razing fraternities to the ground will wholly or even mostly ameliorate campus ills. Hazing and sexual assault do not come interminably bound to the fraternity package. They exist within our structure as it stands, but it is not destined to be forever and always thus. We men can suck these poisons from beneath our skin and refocus on the foundations of our organizations.
An old fraternity advisor once told me what he saw as a fraternity's purpose: To make men better. Here seems to me to be the crux of the matter are we serving this end well? I know that there are many men across campus working to repair perversities in their midst. They know sexual violation causes immense pain and trauma. They know the wastefulness of frivolously breaking down pledges. And they act responsibly on their power as close friends to build strong character within their brothers. Furthermore, they realize that pledge term can be a transformative period for sophomores and use it to instill strong positive values. When you put men between the ages of 17 and 22 together in a single space for three years, they can produce friendships richer than most they will form at any other point in their lives.
To all those with minds prejudiced against the very fraternity system itself: Please understand the fractured nature of "fraternity culture" and the impossibility of accuracy when generalizing across 15 houses and as many dozens of men. Understand that fraternities really can be a powerful force for good. We are not evil by affiliation. We are your friends, confidantes, classmates and significant others. Do not cast us aside categorically in one grimy bag labeled "frat." One-sided anti-fraternity rhetoric does little to coax engagement and does much to create an "us vs. them" mentality without allowances for the good men in fraternities who are already working or willing to work to eradicate deep-rooted problems. Many men are listening and want to quash the deep troubles we see. Let's work together to prevent women from suffering and pledges from traumatic hazing.
I encourage men to have a critical conversation today about the realities of sexual assault and hazing. We do not sell short the value of our organizations by discussing their flaws and ways to remedy them. Fraternity men cannot turn a blind eye to the abuses of our brothers, for in doing so we undermine the responsibility we have to learn, grow and improve. After all, bettering ourselves and others is what fraternities are about in their brightest moments.
