Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 12:34:03 -0400
From: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor)
Subject: Crude jokes cause gender war at Dartmouth
To: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor)


http://www.shethinks.org/articles/an00032.cfm


"Never in my life did I think that crude jokes could ignite a 
firestorm on the normally peaceful Dartmouth campus."

Kathleen Reeder is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College where she is studying American Government and Public Policy.

Challenging the Myths: Frats and Feminists
By Kathleen Reeder



I am a feminist. In the terminology of Christina Hoff-Sommers I am an 
equity feminist: A young college woman who supports equal rights for 
all women while also acknowledging the natural differences between 
the sexes. Now that my support of the true feminist cause is clear, 
let me begin with a few admissions: College-aged males can be pigs. 
As a female student at Dartmouth, I have my share of male friends who 
support pure feminist ideals. They are intelligent and supportive. 
They are also purveyors of filthy jokes. Another admission: 
Frequently, I laugh at these filthy jokes. A final admission: I know 
that my laughter is completely sophomoric and in poor taste.

Never in my life did I think that crude jokes could ignite a 
firestorm on the normally peaceful Dartmouth campus. It has become 
known as the Zete Sex Scandal, and it may spell the end of 
Dartmouth's social scene, as students currently know it.

Like many college campuses, Dartmouth has its share of mild 
controversy surrounding gender relations. The college promotes the 
standard university fare of ineffectual discussion panels on the 
topic. Although I have never attended one of these panels, friends 
have told me that they generally consist of a few angry females 
spitting fire and a few passive males raiding the snack table. 
Apparently, at these functions the feminists argue that Dartmouth 
fosters a hostile environment towards "womynkind" and that drastic 
measures must be taken to change the tone of gender relations on 
campus. The phrase "women's safe space" is tossed about, they have 
hosted an "expert" discussing her favorite topic "C**t: A Declaration 
of Independence," and the Women's Resource Center has a series called 
"The Mechanics of Pleasure." But these panels and outrageous 
programming events do not predominate, and overall gender relations 
at Dartmouth seem quite tame.

However, things are not ideal. There isn't much dating, and there is 
a bit too much of a "hook-up" culture. But most students agree that 
women and men at Dartmouth, for the most part, get along. A few 
lessons in dating etiquette and a little less beer swilling couldn't 
hurt but Dartmouth students seem to live peacefully and do not think 
that all female students are victims of an oppressive, misogynist 
male culture.

This was the scene until one week in March when a few female students 
decided to dig through the bottom of a fraternity basement trashan. 
They pieced together the shredded remains of a single-page, 
intra-fraternity newsletter called the "Zetemouth."

Zeta Psi is a fraternity on the Dartmouth campus, a small house 
inhabited by mild-mannered brothers known more for their affiliation 
with the a Cappella group than with burly sports teams. Zetes are 
known to be some of the most harmless brothers on campus. Many of 
them are in long-term romantic relationships, and most of them would 
consider themselves to be sympathetic to the women's movement. Given 
Zete's public image, it came as a shock on campus to read in the 
daily Dartmouth newspaper the sensational headline, "Zete's Graphic 
'Sex Papers' Exposed: Fraternity newsletters describe salacious sex 
acts; derecognition possible as JC [judicial council] investigation 
begins."

Several female students-women who had frequented Zeta Psi to 
socialize and were well known to the brotherhood-had cleaned vomit 
and beer from shreds of paper to reconstruct an intra-fraternity 
newsletter published by brothers, for brothers. What they found was 
shocking. "The Zetemouth" was an occasionally published paper 
detailing and poking fun at the sex lives of the brothers. It was 
graphic, crude and offensive. One picture featured an anonymous, 
topless female in Cancun-the caption joking about who it could be 
among Zete girlfriends and friends based on breast size. Another 
story detailed "[Woman X] strikes again: [Brother B] latest victim." 
All names were included.

The paper also jested about brothers competing for the title 
"Manwhore of the Year" and included a fallacious headline about one 
brother's penchant for "felching with lab rats." Another section, the 
"Sigma Report," detailed the fictitious exploits of a Zete brother 
with a female student. The language was crude and the contents 
immature. Although I was disgusted by the content, the intention was 
clear. The paper was nothing more than a dirty and sophomoric joke.

Some members of the Dartmouth community responded rationally to the 
situation. One male student wrote: "The 'Sex Papers'... were a lot of 
things. They were inappropriate, they were disgusting, they were 
immature, they were politically incorrect and they were impolite. But 
they didn't threaten, and they didn't detail any illegal acts."

However, with the subsequent events on campus and the uproar caused 
by the "Zetemouth," context was forgotten along with logic and 
reason. Emotions ran high and violence even erupted. The loudest 
rallying cries came from a group of angry, inlammatory, and extreme 
feminists. Every Zeta brother and, to an extent every brother at 
Dartmouth's thirteen fraternities, became immediately "guilty" of 
extreme sexism and misogyny.

What were these destructive, counterproductive, and illogical responses?

They included a rally in front of the Zeta house in which one well 
known (and much-feared) angry, gender feminist physically kicked in 
the door of the house while screaming hate-filled obscenities. 
Hundreds of students rallied around her in support. Other students 
took turns inciting the highly emotional crowd while a high-level 
school administrator stood in the back of the crowd. It's worth 
noting that this door-kicking feminist regularly opines about female 
genitalia and casts slurs at males in public. Yet, she expects her 
speech to be protected while the contents of this private newsletter 
should be censored.

However, the most insane response came in the form of an e-mail sent 
to the entire Zeta Psi house by one angry woman. It read: "Thank you 
for altruistically reminding us that we are nothing but mere c**ts, 
dirty holes, tits of varying cup-sizes for you to suck, to stick your 
purifying d**ks into. That we are rancid snatches who have no right 
to say NO. Who when we do, should immediately repent, bend over and 
present (our dirty holes) and docilely submit ..."

It is actions and reactions such as these that lend a bad name to 
feminists on campuses across America. Such hate-filled responses are 
ineffective and counterproductive. These women claim to want a more 
civilized environment, yet they fill the pages of the campus paper 
with hate, chalk sidewalks with messages stereotyping all males, and 
use filthy language to convey their own rage. They claim that the 
brothers of fraternities have no right to speak their own opinions in 
private, yet they trumpet their opinions and hateful words quite 
loudly. They decry stereotyping while they themselves are the 
greatest perpetrators of stereotypes.

As young people we should be true equity feminists raised to value 
equality among the genders, not to bash males and perpetuate myths of 
victimhood and misogyny.


Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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