Fraternity culture doesn't have a fig leaf to hide behind these days.
I'm not making an apology for brutish, sexually violent behaviour. In recent reports from postsecondary campuses, some fraternity brothers – or "gentlebros" as they've been dubbed – sound like Neanderthals in fine wool sweaters.
At the University of Oklahoma, members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity were caught singing a racist song. At Penn State, 144 members of Kappa Delta Rho participated in private Facebook postings of "nude females that appeared to be passed out or in other sexual or embarrassing positions," according to police. One of the members, disgusted with the postings, reported them to authorities. The women were not aware that their photos were being taken. The fraternity has been suspended, and an investigation is reportedly under way.
And these stories are just the latest additions to a heaping pile of dirty frat laundry, much of it inadvertently aired by social media and surreptitious smartphone video.
But in the need to ensure there are safe places for women to be educated – which is crucial – isn't it worth asking if there can be safe places for men to gather without suspicion of being a cabal of misogynist terrorism? In the heated discussion about rape culture, the feminist voice is loudest at the moment, which makes many young men feel that their every move, every thought, is policed. Some might even suggest they're victims of misandry, if they weren't sure their complaints would fall on deaf ears.
A witch hunt, you say? Well, I won't use that loaded term, because it only serves to ratchet-up the gender wars when what we need is a little calm.
That said, some of the research about fraternity culture is not kind. A 2007 study by professors at the College of William and Mary – the place, ironically, where the first Greek-letter fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, was founded in 1776 with the motto "Philosophy is the guide to life" – found that men in fraternities were three times more likely to rape than those who weren't.
A culture of male peer support for violence against women coupled with excessive drinking practices contribute to a higher risk for sexual assault, the study found, leading some scholars to suggest fraternities should be banned. Other research has added to the alarm. Elizabeth Armstrong and other professors at Indiana University studied the social life at a large Midwestern university for five years, producing a book in 2013, Paying for the Party, How College Maintains Inequality, and a paper on sexual assault that described how fraternities contribute to the reproduction of gender inequality.
But the assumption that all fraternities are bad has led to a rush to judgment – sometimes with embarrassing results. The most noteworthy was last year's Rolling Stone article, "A Rape on Campus," about a brutal gang rape in a room at Phi Kappa Psi house on the University of Virginia campus in 2012. After significant discrepancies in the story were revealed in subsequent reports, the magazine issued apologies. Earlier this week, after a five-month investigation, police in Charlottesville, Va., announced that they found "no evidence" that the alleged rape at the fraternity happened. In a statement that sounded attuned to the fervent anti-frat mood and the possibility of victim shaming, they said they're not suggesting that something horrible didn't happen, only that they couldn't corroborate the woman's story.
Earlier this year, when I was at Dalhousie University in Halifax to look into the dentistry faculty's ordeal, in which a group of final-year male students posted sexually violent content to a private Facebook page, I came across a story about an altercation between female students and a fraternity last year. It spoke to the heightened tension between men and women in the fraught sexual culture on campus. Kappa Alpha fraternity at King's College, which is connected to Dalhousie University, was criticized by a group of female students for being exclusionary. The Halifax chapter of the fraternity, started in 2009, is a private organization that isn't accountable to the school because it doesn't comply with equity policies, which state that clubs and other student organizations should be open to all genders.
"I became aware that a lot of the first year [female students] in the first couple of weeks at school were being targeted by frat members while they're learning their limits with alcohol and being invited to frat parties," Bethany Hindmarsh, one of the students who wrote a letter to the King's Students' Union (KSU) about the fraternity, told me in an interview. While Hindmarsh and others canvassed opinions about the fraternity on campus to start a conversation about gender-equality issues, she says, one of the Kappa Alpha men reportedly threatened the KSU president, warning her not to interfere with their club. Several of the women were called "feminazis" by men and received sexually violent hate mail, Hindmarsh told me.
In an effort to unravel the he-said, she-said conflict, I also talked to a current Kappa Alpha member, Ari Flanzraich, who reported that the fraternity had meetings with King's equity board in the wake of the women's complaints. "Nothing came of it," he said of the discussion. The complaints about the fraternity "were largely theoretical and broadly social [about the idea of exclusion]." He acknowledged that the "default patriarchal white-hetero-capitalist" society prevails and that it needs to change, but he feels the "anti-frat idea" is unrepresentative of what the men in Kappa Alpha at King's uphold. "We're open to talking. There is no personal animosity. What often goes on in fraternities in the States is despicable. We have no interest in that." The King's chapter of Kappa Alpha, which consists of approximately 15 friends, was set up as a literary society, he says.
Asked how rape culture pathologizes male thought and behaviour, he was cautious about making a comment for fear of how it might be misinterpreted. "As soon as I open my mouth, I'm judged," he said. "I don't walk around thinking of myself as a sinner," he finally confessed, after some hesitation, adding that men are expected to constantly "be vigilant of their potential slippage" from politically correct actions and comments.
He's right, of course. And that's because part of the cultural discussion about fraternity culture centres around how aware men are of internalized (and normalized) misogyny. This week, one of the Kappa Delta Rho fraternity members at Penn State wrote a defence of their society, explaining (anonymously) that "it was a satirical group. It wasn't malicious. It wasn't intended to hurt anyone." Which clearly proves that they don't understand the impact of their – in this case, potentially criminal – actions.
But in the effort to bring about a harmonious culture of gender equity, how helpful is it to alienate all men, given that their collaboration is part of the solution? Sometimes, the cultural equation seems to be that in order for women to be raised up, men have to be put down, which is just as reductive as women being defined by their biological function – something early feminists found understandably demeaning and offensive.