Six Scary Facts About Frat Boys

EastCoastMale
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 10:49 am: [report]

So glad I didnt happen to wear my hat backwards in college…frats are great for those who need them I suppose.

Muttface
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:00 am: [report]

@J. Wakeman-Where did Syrett get this data from? I am interested mainly because questionares and conjecture are not synonamous with sound facts. Generally speaking, the frats at my university are as harmless as the DNC. And most of the cavemanesque behavior comes from the whole mob mentality of males.

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:07 am: [report]

@Muttface: Yeah mine* were as well. (The Engineering school)

I don’t like how this article decries “Facts” and then doesn’t seem to have any. Didn’t you know that 70% of all statistics were made up?

writergirl
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:18 am: [report]

You can’t argue with the numbers, but the reasons aren’t being stated clearly.

The reason why date rapes/gang rapes occur most in fraternity houses is because alcohol is more prevelent and easily accesable than if you’re not in a frat.  EVERY single fraternity on my campus had a keg that was kept tapped 24/7.  And I can think of about five off the top of my head that kept well-stocked bars (for the brother’s only). Never mind the beer/alcohol in the brother’s rooms as well.  These guys, or so it seemed at my school, never, ever stopped drinking.

When alcohol is present, date rapes/rapes are more likely to occur.

And there are no reprocussions for their actions.

When a girl is date raped, especially if she is in a sorority, it is not uncommon for her sisters to talk her into remaining quiet.  Why?  Because the ability to survive in the Greek system depends on how popular you are.  Your popularity is determined by which fraternities you “mix” with.  If you accuse a guy from one of the most popular fraternities on campus of rape, your sorority will be automatically discounted from parties and mixers with ALL of the fraternities and your own survival is now in question.  Girls don’t join sororities so they can sit home and watch tv.

So, they don’t press charges.  They don’t mention it.

Why girls out of sororities don’t speak of it, I don’t know.  In my sorority there was only one date rape (I know we told her to report it, but she never did.  I never knew the exact reason, if someone pressured her NOT to or if since she couldn’t recall EXACTLY what happened due to drinking, if she wanted to go through that).  I never heard of it occuring with other girls of other sororities on campus, but that isn’t something that would be discussed, either, for obvious reasons.

So while yes, date rape is higher in fraternities—I don’t doubt that—the Greek system as a whole fosters the culture.  Until the Sorotities start sticking up for themselves, the culture won’t change.  If the fraternities realized there were consequences for their actions, they might change their ways.  But it is rare that there is reprocussions, so these occurances continue.

Having said all that, I know more “good” guys in a fraternity than bad ones and most of the “good” guys wouldn’t think of taking advantage of a woman.  I can’t tell you how many of these guys would walk me home late at night, and watch over me while in their house.  There are more good ones than bad ones, but unfortunately, like everything, the bad ones get the coverage.

Riley
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:20 am: [report]

@ECM, that looks like bitterness to me. 

I did a brief stint in a fraternity, not for me.  Made some good friends.  Greek/Academic fraternities/sororities are a good way to get involved in college and make connections for later in life.  I hate the stereotypes attached to those in frats/sororities and vice versa.

I’d also like to see the stats, “have been more likely” and “some studies guess” don’t hold much water for me.

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:27 am: [report]

May I also point out that a “Frat” and a Fraternity are 2 different things. I don’t call your country a c*nt, so don’t call my fraternity a frat.

writergirl
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:28 am: [report]

@the guys here—

Yeah, I’m skeptical on the numbers in the study as well.  However, it is the norm for sorority sisters to have a “buddy” system—one of your sisters knows where you are at all times—when you go to a Frat house.  So the threat of rape is real.  It was a standard safety precaution NOT to go off on your own, unless you told someone where you were going to be.  And all the sororities on my campus had the same policies.  It didn’t prevent everything, but it did help a lot.

writergirl
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:29 am: [report]

@Cheese—That’s the saying I was thinking of.  I couldn’t remember the entire thing.  For obvious reasons, I blocked it.

jojo32
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:30 am: [report]

Frat guy = Instant Turnoff.  But that’s just my opinion.

EastCoastMale
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:32 am: [report]

Riley, trust me, I am anything but bitter. I was saying if someone wants to join a frat and needs that type of bonding thats great and they can serve that purpose. However I am glad i never belonged to one.

Jessica Wakeman
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:34 am: [report]

Syrett’s essay (the author) is not footnoted, but since he is a gender studies professor and the author of a non-fiction book about white fraternities, The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities, I am inclined to trust his statistics & research are accurate.

His essay:

http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/article/bros_hos_college_fraternities_and_sexual_exploitation

His book:

http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780807832530

Jessica Wakeman
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:35 am: [report]

More accurately, Syrett describes himself in his bio as a “assistant professor of history at the University of Northern Colorado where he teaches classes on women, gender, and sexuality in U.S. history.” So, gender studies & history prof.

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:38 am: [report]

And it’s a history of “White college fraternities”, wonderful. This will be my Sotomayor cartoon of today.

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:43 am: [report]

OMFG: Look at this doof’s picture….with that earing…if he only had a pink polo with the collar popped…srsly. http://www.unco.edu/history/ns.html

Muttface
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:46 am: [report]

J.Wakeman- “I am inclined to trust his statistics & research are accurate.” Wow, um, have you been to college? Claims with no footnotes is hardly data at all. Many college professors publish facts and books mainly for praise and to suit their own ends as opposed to true deductive reasoning. The whole process of collecting data for, “Gender Studies” is much more subjective to the whims of the researcher themselves. If one doesn’t see standard deviations, chi-square, and p and z score lines, it is hardlhy research but rather a “fun” article that belongs in the pages of cosmo instead of in a scientific journal.

Goldfinch86
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:47 am: [report]

While I may not agree with all the statistics, sometimes those sterotypes are true. Boys in Frats where i went were mostly harmless, we also had no football team which blocked out some of the more macho male. I did like those boys and they obviously didn’t like me, some were actually quite nice when you got to know them. Others thought my major and passion was a stupid waste of time and campus money and could have been put to a Football team. In the end I may not think they are great or nice but not all men in frats are bad. When they are together in a group they can be jerks but one their own with out the influence of jerks they can be really nice guys.

SamSedaei
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:50 am: [report]

There are some things about the American culture whose points I will never understand. Boy Scouts and Frats are two of those things.

shannac02
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 11:58 am: [report]

I know some perfectly respectful frat guys, however, these guys belonged to a “dorky” frat and weren’t really the “cool” frat guys. I do have a friend that wound up in the hospital when she was a Vet Med student… She wound up in the ER after a night of partying at a frat, some Romeo put a concoction of different sleeping medicines in her drink to try to get her to pass out… Awesome. I tell that story to EVERY girl I know that wants to date a “really cute” frat guy.

crustee
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 12:00 pm: [report]

@CheeeeEEEEse

If I shouldn’t call a fraternity a “frat,” shouldn’t you not be calling a country a “count” (not c*nt)?

Riley
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 12:00 pm: [report]

@Muttface.  Completely true.  If you cannot cite, specifically, where the numbers come from then there is no case to argue. 

85% of the time, anyone that argues with me is wrong, the other 15% of the time I am arguing with myself.

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 12:02 pm: [report]

@crustee: There is a bag on your head. ‘ernity’ must at least equal ‘ory’

writergirl
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 12:02 pm: [report]

We need an edit mode.  The first sentence of my dissertation should read “can” not “can’t”.  Duh.

writergirl
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 12:04 pm: [report]

@Shanna—That’s not fair.  I MARRIED the “cute frat guy” everybody wanted to date and putting a molotov cocktail of sleeping pills in a girl’s drink is the very last thing he would ever do or have done in college.  It wasn’t even on his radar.

You can’t take the actions of one and damn the rest.

shannac02
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 12:08 pm: [report]

Terribly sorry. My story is meant to be more of a cautionary tale than to damn every cute frat boy who is an angel and goes to church every Sunday. Its more to say: “watch your drink!”

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 12:10 pm: [report]

@shannac02: Now what are you saying about going to church? Because I don’t go I’m dammed or something? Jeez this day gets better and better.

shannac02
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 12:12 pm: [report]

Um Wow. Calm the freak down.

EarthGoddess
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 05:38 pm: [report]

I am happily married to a “cool frat/party guy” who was also a Beer Pong champ when in college. He was high-profile around campus and attracted a lot of female attention back then. He is definitely fun and the life of the party, but he’s also a very warm and loving husband who would never hurt a woman in a million years. The stereotype of Hot Fun Frat Dude = Rapist is sickening!

Oh, and my cousin was International Man of the Year in his frat when he was in college ... he went all around the country giving speeches to his brothers on how to be decent men and role models for the younger guys. He’s now a successful lawyer and a damn nice guy!

marv3mania
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 07:51 pm: [report]

At one point in college, I thought “maybe I should have joined a frat.” These stats, though, reminded me of why I was originally opposed to the idea.

probablydreaming
wrote on June 5 2009 @ 08:27 pm: [report]

Alright, I’m becoming agitated with the rampant inductive reasoning here. The essay is not trying to prove that ALL members of frats are going to sexually assault women; it provides evidence of a general trend and an increased chance that a member of a frat would commit acts of sexual assault. Being a member of a frat simply exposes males to an environment is perhaps more accepting of the devaluation of women.

That being said, saying “I married a frat boy, and he’s clearly not at all like that” proves nothing. Of course there are frat boys that are perfectly nice guys, who would never think of raping a woman. That doesn’t discount any of the evidence in the essay.

becktasm
wrote on June 6 2009 @ 10:14 am: [report]

I 100% agree that the environment produced by a fraternity can be very negative. I’ve dated my fair share of frat boys, and had more 7 AM walks of shame down Greek street than I care to admit, and the pure, unabashed misogyny that is fostered so well in a frat house is unparalleled. Never have I seen such simultaneous loathing and hyper-sexualization of women. From the vulgar and creepy discussion about the hottest freshman to the complete contempt I’ve seen when these boys have to help girls stumble out of their house after a night of drinking alcohol that the fraternity provided. I’m not saying that this sort of caveman-like misogyny and obectification is innate in men-folk, or that all fraternities are like this, but when you take a group of young men, eager to prove their manhood, and throw them in a house together for a year, objectification and abuse (both mental and physical) of women is going to be a problem. It’s how boys have been proving their manhood for years- why stop now?

Bad Breakup
wrote on June 6 2009 @ 12:15 pm: [report]

I really don’t see the problem, these fellas are just following in Greek tradition by engaging in debauchery and rape. Really the only thing missing is the rampant homosexuality, which honestly probably happens more than your average fratboy would ever admit.

/sarcasm off

nicefrenchgurl
wrote on June 7 2009 @ 11:46 am: [report]

I used to TA in a Canadian university, and there was a Sigma Chi chapter on campus, next to which I even moved to at some point. Most brothers belonged to the varsity soccer team. There was a sense of mystery for the French girl I am lol. To be honest, most of these guys were the cutest, sweetest, most popular guys on campus. Keg parties, toga parties, you name them. I even went on dates. Never heard of a single problem.

Pas Quotidienne
wrote on June 10 2009 @ 08:22 am: [report]

When it comes down to it, there’s no way of generalizing the actions of the Greek community on either side—nor should there be. I’m in a sorority, and I learned very quickly that there were some fraternities on campus that were less…savory…than others. What ends up happening (at least, in my experience) is that a guy will gravitate toward a fraternity whose brothers share a similar mind-set, for better or worse. Of course, there are always exceptions and every house is different on every campus.

The article = interesting read, but questionable. I like facts to go with my conjecture.

nsyrett
wrote on June 10 2009 @ 04:20 pm: [report]

OK, I’m not sure how kosher it is to comment on a post devoted to one’s own article, but I’m the guy who wrote the book and article on fraternities. 

A couple things: the website for which I wrote the article, http://www.nsrc.org, specifically asks for articles without footnotes because they want them to be more accessible to a wide audience.  Full footnotes for any quotations and statistics are in my book.  Promise.

I should also say explicitly that NEVER do I say that most fraternity members are rapists or are even likely to be rapists.  Instead what social scientists (sociologists, primarily) have found is that they are MORE LIKELY to rape than those not in fraternities.  There’s a big difference.  Most men, of course, aren’t likely to rape anyone at all, but studies of rape on campus HAVE found that men in fraternities have been involved out of proportion to their numbers on campus generally.  The article (and part of the book) was meant to explore why that might be.  To be even more specific, one sociologist found that 70-90% of gang rapes on the campuses she studied were related to fraternities.  This does NOT mean, however, that 70-90% of men in fraternities were involved, nor that most fraternities were involved, but that of those gang rapes that did occur, fraternities were involved 70-90% of the time.  That is certainly significant and worthy of exploration in its own right but it doesn’t mean that anyone is claiming that all fraternity men are rapists. 

But if fraternities—not all, but some—create an environment where men are more likely to rape (even if just by encouraging those who would have done so otherwise), this is worth exploring. 

I also wanted to respond to CheeeEEEEse: I would NEVER pop my collar, I swear, and the earring is left over from college.  Maybe it’s time to be rid of it…

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 10 2009 @ 04:26 pm: [report]

@nsyrett: Yes and all that jazz comes from social pressures. I know of this. I was a fraternity brother whom never had sex in college because it was plain weird. I would like to know if you were greek otherwise I still find your writing not credible because of not experiencing greek life for yourself (Co-ed social fraternities don’t count, I can attest for my brother’s sake).

nsyrett
wrote on June 10 2009 @ 05:00 pm: [report]

I don’t actually think we’re in disagreement here.  Did you read the article itself?  I think that a whole lot of it comes from social pressure, pressure that would NOT exist in a coed social fraternity (as you point out) and that’s precisely my point: this is about men proving themselves to each other.  And the consequences for women when they do so.

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 10 2009 @ 06:39 pm: [report]

@nsyrett: Yeah I was under tons of social pressure and I didn’t gang rape anyone, much less have drunken sex with someone I had met at a party no matter how utterly irresistible I am.

sam04
wrote on June 10 2009 @ 07:59 pm: [report]

@CheeeeEEEEse:  And modest.

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 11 2009 @ 07:03 am: [report]

@Sam04: What chu’ talkin’ bout? I’m practically dashing!

Jessica Wakeman
wrote on June 11 2009 @ 11:30 am: [report]

@nsyrett Thanks for clearing up why your article didn’t have footnotes. Nevertheless, I thought your research seemed pretty clear to begin with.