‘Fraternity’ used to be a perfectly good word–remember Liberté, égalité, fraternité? Used to be, when you saw that word in print, you thought of revolutionaries, the brotherhood of man, the formation of political and social bonds that spanned class and caste and creed. But then it was taken over by a bunch of drunken rapists-in-training, mysteriously granted leasing rights to large mansion-like houses in some of this nation’s finest institutions of academic learning.
The ‘brothers’ of these fraternities have some distinctive features: they consume vast amounts of alcohol (most of which, I believe, they regurgitate in foul streams of vomit, thus suggesting that a good nickname for a fraternity brothers’ band would be The Bulimic Bros); they do not like ‘sisters’–you know, members of the opposite sex, regarding them as mere sexual objects and playthings, only useful as comatose sexual prey unable to offer consent to sexual activity, and for the much-desired ‘notch on the belt’; but they do like to maintain the pretension that they engage in socially meaningful acts of charity and public services work.
The Sigma Nu fraternity at Old Dominion University made its signal contribution to the burgeoning presence of university fraternities in our contemporary rape culture with some welcome banners for incoming women students for the new academic year. They read: “Rowdy and fun/Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time,” “Freshman daughter drop off,” and “Go ahead and drop off mom too.”
Such behavior is not an outlier for fraternities:
This isn’t the first time, of course, that frat boys have shown their asses in such a fashion. In 2010, DKE pledges at Yale walked around campus chanting, “No means yes/ Yes means anal,” which Anna North described at this website as a “transparent plea for attention.” Texas Tech frat boys put up a similar sign last year. Over the summer, a Sigma Nu member at the University of Central Florida was caught on video chanting “Let’s rape some sluts,” only months after being accused of sexual assault by a fellow UCF student.
I have been remiss, of course, in my summation of fraternity brothers’ characteristics above. For besides the abuse of alcohol (which plays a notable role in the hazing and initiation of new brothers and sometimes leads to their death by alcohol poisoning; bizarrely enough, making someone swallow a liter of whisky is dangerous business) and their misogyny, fraternities are also notoriously racist. Sometimes they dress up in blackface, sometimes they indulge in chants filled with the n-word, the list goes on.
Fraternities are a campus curse. They offer a sexist, misogynist, racist haven for those men who like to drink to excess; they offer a four-year extension of adolescence and a four-year postponement of adulthood; their houses are a safe haven from ‘political correctness’. And best of all, you get to do all of this with your ‘brothers’–comrades in arms at the keg.
Solidarity in the most manly of ways: booze and broads, what’s not to like?
Samir Chopra 