t reminds me of the people news magazines and talk shows love to interview. Did you know your next-door neighbor was a serial killer? "Oh no. But he was such a nice young man. Who would’ve thought?"
And really: who would’ve thought? Who would have thought that our neighbors and classmates at Zeta Psi fraternity would include in their weekly sex newsletter pieces about women, referred to by name, with "loose cunts"; pictures of women published without their consent and with accompanying commentary about their "tits;" and the promise, as Mark Bubriski reported for the first time in The Dartmouth, to print "Next week: [Brother X]’s patented date rape techniques!"
What is disturbing for many of us, especially women, is that we know Zete brothers and they do not seem like the disgusting human beings that these newsletters seem to reveal them to be. Zete is not, according to conventional wisdom, an especially misogynistic house, unlike some other Greek organizations on our campus. Yet if these frat brothers seem so respectful in everyday interactions and they can still write or condone the writing of such denigrating words – what does this mean? What could they possibly be thinking?
Possibly, they do not know it’s wrong. Possibly, part of them knows these comments are base and offensive, but believe it is funny, so consider it excusable. Or perhaps, they realize their harms, they don’t think it’s funny – but they didn’t do anything to stop it.
On the first point, the reasoning may look something like this: we are frat brothers and frat brothers are men. Real men fuck a lot of women; a lot of women want to fuck real men. And if a woman fucks a lot of men, then it’s her own damn fault if we say she has a loose cunt. It’s her own fault she’s a whore.
What this points to is that Zete culture, and very likely fraternity culture in general, has institutionalized the denigration of women as a method of male bonding. It’s cool to be a man who is so independent of women (because he can get them whenever he wants) that he can speak about them as objects – be they girlfriend, casual hook-up or sister. It’s cool to be a pimp and have bitches and hoes. The Dartmouth reported that a caption accompanying a picture of a topless woman reads, "No it’s not [Brother X]’s girlfriend ([Female student]’s tits are too small), [Brother Y]’s sister (too round) or even [Brother Z]’s Cancun hookup (not old enough to have tits). Yup, it’s just another Cancun chick faced with the easy choice of either flashing hundreds of strangers or spending the night with [Brother A]."
Or perhaps, the second possibility is more likely. How can you not laugh at comments about date rape, underage sex, and your sister’s breasts?
But for some, perhaps the problem isn’t recognition of the problem or a truly warped sense of humor, but that they are too weak to stand up to their brothers. "Who wants to be a party pooper? Let them have their fun. They don’t mean any harm by it."
Somehow part of me is a little dubious about how harmful and offensive many of these brothers realize their newsletters to be. After all, these same conversations are very likely carried out behind closed-doors every Wednesday night in most if not all fraternities. But Zete got caught. Zete wrote it down on paper and instead of fucking women this time, they got fucked by a woman. Like Psi Upsilon, Zete was just unlucky – not wrong.
Those who believe this: I believe that you are able to think and see. Do you know how many women are date-raped and subjected to other acts of sexual violence every day? Do you know how painful, harmful and degrading this is for women and also men who are subjected to the same? Do you know that by speaking the language of violence and misogyny you are perpetrating these crimes?
Who would’ve thought? Maybe we all should have.
