Men
Should Accept Responsibility of Sexist Privilege
To
the Editors:
At
the end of last semester, President Dye sent a letter to the entire
campus addressing sexual violence on campus over the preceding months
but published her letter in the final Oberlin Review of the semester,
leaving no room for public response. The issues Dye discussed in
her letter remain critical, and her letter necessitates public discussion.
In that, I find Dyes letter both misleading about the realities
of sexual offense in Oberlin, and abstracting in its theoretical
approach to violence.
First, the letter unhesitatingly asserts that the Oberlin
administration has taken issues of sexual offense very seriously.
To the contrary, throughout my four years at Oberlin I have witnessed
first hand and heard numerous stories of incredible incompetence,
apathy, arrogance and sexism on behalf of the administration as
a whole and the sexual offense policy administrator in responding
to incidents of sexual violence and its existence as a problem in
general. This is not to say that there are not administrators who
have and continue to provide great care and support to survivors
of sexual violence as well as those working to end it, but it is
to refute the assertion that the administration as a whole can claim
with any integrity to take such incidents seriously. I know of at
least seven women and one man raped during my time here at Oberlin.
I have heard of countless more (not reflected in published College
statistics). In none of the eight cases I know of was a perpetrator
expelled, and in only one case were the perpetrators moved out of
a location near to the survivor. In the two cases Dye discussed
in her letter, so far no disciplinary action has been taken, yet
one of the survivors/accusers has dropped out of school. I will
not discuss the two recent cases specifically, but only to say that
I too have seen the majority of the hearings in the first case and
hear a bit about the second, and Dyes description cannot be
seen as the authoritative truth, despite being presented as such
in her letter.
As Dye states, under Oberlins own standards the rights of
accuser and accused must be balanced, and Individuals are
presumed innocent in an adjudication process until proven guilty
by a preponderance of the evidence presented in a formal hearing.
Unfortunately it is never this easy, and this process has the effect
of valuing the rights of individuals to a fair adjudication
process over the rights of survivors... 80 percent of those who
are raped know the person attacking them, and most cases of sexual
offense and violence have no witnesses. The Colleges system,
then, leaves the entirety of the burden of proof in such cases on
the survivor, rather than a consent-based policy in which there
is also a partial burden placed upon the accused to delineate in
their defense exactly how consent was reached. As it stands now,
in most cases of sexual offense all the accused must do is call
the survivor/accuser a liar.
Of most consequence, Dyes letter completely abstracts systemic
issues of violence at play in sexual assault. While I do not see
it as intentional or reflective of President Dyes
political beliefs, per se, it is incredibly worrisome that in a
space of higher learning and occasionally progressive
thought no systemic analysis of violence would be used in trying
to understand why people may not feel safe in Oberlin. Simply put,
the word sexism didnt make it into the 1000+ words of Dyes
letter. On the contrary, Dye states that every case needs to be
examined individually. Although this may appear logical
at first, it has the effect of preventing us from seeing any systemic
sexual violence (among other violences), and gives the impression
that violence is committed by the pathological and crazed few who
somehow got violence into their blood. In that, Dye writes that
Although the College works diligently to keep the campus safe,
no amount of effort by the College alone can do the job. Personal
safety also involves taking care of ourselves and others. Every
student can take steps to reduce the possibility of being raped
or of raping someone else. Dye then suggests that refraining
from alcohol abuse will help to prevent sexual violence. While these
statements are true in a very literal sense, to only point out alcohol
as a complicating factor in cases of sexual violence is at best
abstracting of the systemic social realities that promote and allow
sexual violence to exist in the first place. People (women in particular)
who do not feel safe because of the blatant systemic violences all
around them are being told by Oberlin College oh dont
be silly, its just a few crazy guys, and they need to stop
drinking.
It is not just a few, and Oberlin deserves much more from the colleges
administrative response to the violences affecting our various communities.
It is not a coincidence that the vast majority of sexual assaults
are perpetrated by men upon women, nor is this argument at all new.
As men we are each socialized differently, but there are structural
similarities in the ways in which the majority of men understand
sexuality and consent that can have violent consequences. As a man,
I was born into this world armed to the teeth with weapons of sexist
privilege... rape is one of them. My capacity for violence, sexual
assault and rape as a man is something I have the responsibility
to engage and address along with other men. Alcohol alone is not
what would lead me to sexual violence although this would be a reasonable
conclusion after reading Dyes letter. Further, to argue that
people should not drink alcohol as a method of sexual assault prevention
(although in a literal sense it may be valid), has a similar political
effect in the victim-blaming it insinuates to an argument that women
should refrain from wearing tight clothing so as to not look like
they are asking for it.
I fully support redoubling our efforts to improve Oberlins
programs for sex and alcohol education, and strongly support President
Dye for planning campus-wide discussions on issues of sexual
violence. At the same time, though, we must also address systemic
social issues that harbor violence. Campus-wide education on sexism
and sexual violence and structural racism (among many other forms
of social violence) can hopefully prove equally as valuable in recognizing,
addressing and ending the many violences that exist in our communities.
In particular, people of social privilege (men, white people, etc.)
must get together to engage our capacity for violence as groups
and individuals, and begin to challenge the systems that provide
us with such privilege (sexism, racism, etc.). Every time we hear
a racist joke and say nothing, every time we listen to someone blame
a victim of rape and do nothing, and every time we pretend that
racism and rape are not our problems, we support the continuation
of oppression. We must speak up... It may not be easy, but it is
essential. As one small step, the first meeting of Men Can Stop
Rape will be at 8 p.m. this Tuesday, Feb. 12 in Wilder (sign will
be up). Anyone at all interested in the issues this article brings
up please come.
Rather than focusing on the pathological and crazed,
let us have the courage to look at one another. People (women in
particular) are likely to feel scared when there is a rapist
on the loose... but there are potential rapists on the loose
every day, and I am one of them. As a man this is a reality I must
grapple with. For men as a group, we must own up to the higher responsibility
of working to transform the reality itself.
Benjamin
Joffe-Walt
College senior
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