op-ed Is not being a misogynist enough?

Author: Felipe PrunedaSenties

I would like to use this space to respond to a piece published in these same pages a week ago, which argued that feminists on campus have of late resorted to offensive tactics, like distributing fliers that indiscriminately point fingers at heterosexual men and catalogue them as walking sexual threats, ("Is responsibility for rape social or individual?" May 1). As a heterosexual man, I must begin by confessing that I do not believe that flier and many like it signal out every single man as a rapist or rapist-in-the-making. And I know so because I did not feel alluded to in what really was the outline of a case where the very occurrence of a rape was put into question because of the presence of alcohol. It seems to me sexual crimes are superficially ambiguous but fundamentally unambiguous, so we must be careful not to fall into the perception that the only form of sexual violence is of the "gang-rape-in-alleyway" variety. The cases that appear most difficult and uncertain, like alcohol-drenched assaults, are the ones where our shared responsibility becomes most apparent.

The question, "Is responsibility for rape personal or social?" is absolutely pertinent here. If I had to answer it, I would say it is both. It is personal as far as the perpetrators are concerned, and social when it comes to how we prevent it before it becomes the staggeringly persistent problem that the numbers indicate it is, and how we respond to it when it happens. The flier dealt more with dubious, opaque policies that fail to properly address the issue, and thus it focused on the aspects of rape that concerns the Middlebury College community at large. The crime in itself is one thing, but the environment in which it becomes an epidemic (and many would argue Middlebury can be such a place) is, without a doubt, everybody's business.

So yes, the flier did involve men, but not accusatorily. Instead, it implicitly asks what men can do about sexual violence. Statistics as alarming as "90 percent of all rapists are male" do not suggest that all men are, always have been and always will be potential, dangerous sexual predators. Instead, they hint at the fact that other males could play an important part in preventing a considerable number of those rapes by virtue of our common sex. Sure, we cannot take responsibility for every single one of them, but that cases due to psychosis or extreme cruelty can often be out of our hands does not mean we cannot act against more casual forms of sexual violence - most of which are symptomatic of unjust gender politics that pervade every day life.

For instance, I can decide to discourage behavior that could lead to a situation like the one described in the flier - sex and drinking do not mix very well.

I can remind myself that once I have made the conscious decision to drink alcohol past a certain point, then I have decided to give up an amount of control over my actions, and that therefore I am responsible for tampering with my capability to think and act clearly. Hence, this more unstable condition is of my own doing.

I can object every time someone implies that a rape victim is asking for it - even if a victim has made misguided choices, like drinking too much, he/she is never asking for it, and these choices should not obliterate the perpetrators' accountability.

I can check carefully the definitions of terms like sexual assault, sexual harassment, rape, and under what circumstances they happen, and see if I can find a balance between being safe and having a good time.

I can speak to my fellow men about our approaches to sex, and in sharing perhaps reevaluate my own practices.

I can decide not to fuel the insecurities of others, like threatening someone else's masculinity if they do not get laid on a particular night or if they do not drink hard enough.

I can speak up if I happen to witness what seems to be any form of violence, gender-related or otherwise. It might turn out to be an embarrassing mistake, but that is better than doing nothing if my instinct tells me something's wrong.

And, of course, I can do all of the above in the company of my male friends. I like to think that openness is a condition of friendship, and that whatever inhibitions one might have will be meaningless. I know the goal is to eliminate gender distinctions. Well, I want to make a distinction here, which says that men are the best people to speak to other men about gender violence.

In short, we can watch after one another.

And this is crucial - if one out of every five women on any given college campus will be victims of sexual abuse, then chances are I know many who have experienced it. A group of men once said that openly militant activism does not work for them. Well, what about the knowledge that, of four women you are close to, there is a good chance that one just has not told you that she is a survivor? When it hits that close to home, it is virtually impossible not to want to participate. We do not always get to see these the field from the other side. It is important to express how we feel about these stories when the protagonists decide to share them - but that won't happen, however, if we act as if we didn't want to know. It is up to everybody to act responsibly, but as men, we can certainly endeavor to create a friendlier, safer atmosphere.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that we do not need to be a direct part of the problem to be an active part of the solution. It is not possible that only rape victims decide to oppose it. Not only should we not endorse gender violence, we should fight it. As men, we could be guilty by inaction, which is the easiest way to be part of to injustice.

Felipe PrunedaSenties '07 is a Media Services Intern.