adrian_turtle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrian_turtle) wrote2011-08-16 08:59 am
adrian_turtle) wrote2011-08-16 08:59 am
Entry tags:
social progress
Last week, I saw somebody wearing a yellow t-shirt with the text "every kiss begins with consent." I saw it in passing, and didn't have time to parse the graphic, but there was one. Cambridge usually has a pretty high density of idealistic t-shirts (from "world peace" to "you can't tell me what to do"), but this seemed new. I like it.
After the young woman wearing it got off the bus, I thought it was an impressive bit of social progress for her to wear it. Some women my age have daughters within a few years of 20. I recall being close to that age and knowing women who organized Take Back The Night rallies and were very emphatic about no meaning no...but I don't think any of us would have worn a shirt like that in public. It would have been a joke.
Then I thought it would indicate even more social progress if I'd seen the t-shirt on a young man, alongside the emblem of a fraternity or sponsor suggesting lots of guys were wearing them. Probably not. Fraternities have such a horrible reputation for advocating rape culture that I'd suspect some kind of nasty joke ("every kiss begins with consent" on the front, and something like "don't stop 'til I get enough," on the back.) Or even simple hypocrisy, the way such organizations officially oppose alcohol abuse.
After the young woman wearing it got off the bus, I thought it was an impressive bit of social progress for her to wear it. Some women my age have daughters within a few years of 20. I recall being close to that age and knowing women who organized Take Back The Night rallies and were very emphatic about no meaning no...but I don't think any of us would have worn a shirt like that in public. It would have been a joke.
Then I thought it would indicate even more social progress if I'd seen the t-shirt on a young man, alongside the emblem of a fraternity or sponsor suggesting lots of guys were wearing them. Probably not. Fraternities have such a horrible reputation for advocating rape culture that I'd suspect some kind of nasty joke ("every kiss begins with consent" on the front, and something like "don't stop 'til I get enough," on the back.) Or even simple hypocrisy, the way such organizations officially oppose alcohol abuse.
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Though-- Sheeyun having been in a fraternity as an undergradiate-- I thought he was joking when he told me-- I like his fraternity friends tremendously, and generally think well of them, the latter being necessary to the former. Not all his fraternity brothers were like that, though.
(You know the repellent jewelry store ads with the slogan "Every kiss begins with Kay," right?)
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I'd somehow managed to miss that. Ewwww.
I also joined a fraternity when I was an undergraduate. Some of my brothers were decent people, even admirable ones. (I can't think clearly about how the group may have denatured individuals.)
There was one memorable incident, at a party in the fraternity house when I was a grad student. A woman who had belonged to the fraternity for years was living in the house as a post-doc, and her ex-lover came to the party to attempt a reconciliation. When reconciliation didn't work, the ex-lover tried rape, on the theory that D. would be too embarrassed to yell for help, and that a fraternity would not care about stopping f/f date rape. It didn't, exactly...but it cared about "don't you dare hurt our Deb" enough to escort the attempted rapist out and make her emphatically unwelcome until she left town.
It's a memorable incident, but part of why it's so memorable is that everybody was behaving so unexpectedly. I don't understand it, but there it is.
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