Spoiler alert! This blog post is going to be me venting about the terrible things that were brought to my attention this weekend.
So, on Friday night I decided to sit up with a few of the residents on my floor until 4 a.m. just talking about life. After going to bed I felt all hope in feminist humanity was lost.
First, we started talking about boys...of course. The baseball boys live a few floors above us and have a reputation for being major douche bags. I had never heard any reasons as to why they were labeled as douche bags but a bunch of athletes aren't usually my fantasy men. Anyways, once the baseball boys were brought up a couple of the girls started laughing out loud and were saying, "oh you have no idea!" So of course I inquired, and they proceeded to tell me that a couple weeks ago they got onto the elevator and it was filled with baseball players. They were the only girls on the elevator. Then, they told me that the guys started grabbing their asses! They don't know the guys either, not that it makes a difference but I thought I should throw that out there. The look on my face when they told me had to be a mix of disgust and pure rage. But what made it worse was that the girls were LAUGHING when they told me this! I told them that is NOT okay and asked them if they said/did anything in return and they said it wasn't a big deal. I plan to have a long discussion with my supervisor on Monday about that incident, and as a fellow feminist, I am sure he will not take it lightly. I am also contemplating getting ahold of the baseball coach to inform him of the situation.
If you thought that was bad...just wait!
Next topic was sororities. Eight girls on my floor are in sororities, so it's a pretty frequent topic. A few of the girls were talking about how they were nervous/excited for their first event. Then out of nowhere one of the girls says, "OH GOD I HOPE WE DON'T HAVE TO DO THE CHEERS!" The others shared her horrified look. So obviously I had to ask, "what are your cheers?" They all got red in the face and started laughing. It took me a solid 5 minutes of pure begging to get them to sing them for me. I was expecting them to be corny or dorky because of their responses, but boy was I wrong... (sorry if you are in this sorority, but I'm about to put you on blast)
First cheer: "From city to city (sorority name)s are really pretty. From bed to bed (sorority name)s give really good head. From truck to truck (sorority name)s know how to fuck."
Second cheer: "Freshmen: we get the best men. Sophomores: we are the best whores. (I can't remember junior or senior) Alumni: we make the cum fly.
These cheers are sang at all of their events, including the ones with frat guys there. So, I'm sure the frat guys think really highly of them. So, basically I'm appalled and had to share this with fellow feminists who will be as disgusted as I am. Because the girls on my floor said, "it's just in good fun.."
Thank you for this post Kirsten! You touched on multiple things I have had problems with around these environments.
ReplyDeleteWhat bothers me about the second part of your post is that these women seem to place entirely too much of their worth on their sexuality and attractiveness. Like, isn't the point of sororities to foster communities of sisterhood, support and empowerment? You are totally welcome to discuss and be open about your sexuality- but I have a problem when these women make their sexuality part of their worth- which is what your post seems to indicate.
Look, I think I'm pretty open-minded about sex. I have a friend who will gladly tout the quality of her blowjob, but who is still a strong, independent, empowered young woman. I don't think any less of her for this, and I would take issue with anyone who did. Her esteem is not contingent upon this fact, but as her sexuality is part of her being, this is something that she takes pride in (though, note, not something that she bases her pride on). I bring this up because I would like to draw a line in this murky territory- I don't think that we should be judging women based on their kinks or because "from bed to bed, they give really good head." We should, however, take issue with such environments that tell women that that's what they are good for. As Kirsten pointed out, it's not just "in good fun" when belittling and objectifying messages are being flown about.