A most interesting event occurred around January 21, 2008, in front of the Yale Women's Center at 1 AM. A group of men pledging the Zeta Psi fraternity (a mostly athlete frat) posed in front of the women's center with a sign saying, "We Love Yale Sluts". They then uploaded the picture to Facebook.
Here's the photo that caused the imbroglio at Yale. Actually, I think this picture is pretty humorous. I'm fully sympathetic with the female students who are pissed off about this though - it's important to recognize that women are extremely offended and enraged by things we guys blow off. They see it as misogyny, and I guess they've got a point. It's surely in poor taste all right.Thing is, I used to look at tons of Internet porn. I must say that your average Internet porn site is much more misogynistic than this stuff. I don't know what point I'm making here, but this seems like small potatoes to me. On the other hand, I'm a male, so this stuff doesn't really hit home for me. I guess I don't get it. If you're trying to succeed with women, why be a sexist asshole?
It turned into a great big brouhaha. The Women's Center promptly threatened to sue for sexual harassment and mischaracterized the initiation rite. They said that the group stood in front of the Women's Center and chanted "Dick, dick, dick, dick!" and blocked the door as woman after woman, mostly rape victims apparently, tried to come in for counseling.
The facts:
The incident occurred at 1 AM and the center was closed. There were no women coming to the center that got their way blocked, and there were certainly no rape victims. Rape victims hardly ever go there anyway, and there are few of them on campus anyway. They weren't chanting, ""Dick, dick, dick, dick!"; instead they were chanting "Deek, deek, deek, deek!" That's the name of a rival frat.
Nothing has happened since the Women's Center threatened to sue. They never attempted to contact the frat in any way, and the frat attempted to contact the WC many times. The leaders of the frat issued at least one formal apology.
Apparently the lawsuit never came, and on April 30 Yale found the frat not guilty of intimidation and harassment charges relating to the incident. The guy who held the "We Love Yale Sluts" sign in the pic is a football player whose Myspace page is here.
His name is Gio Chistodoulou and he claims he deeply respects women and had no idea what was on the sign he was holding. He says he thought it said, "We Love the Yale Women's Center and All the Services It Provides".
So. Do you think he's lying?
A female, Jessica Svendson, claimed that she tried to enter the center but was blocked by the group of men shouting "Dick, dick, dick, dick!" She was so terrified by the word "dick" (I guess because she's never experienced one) that she had to enter through the back door. Except that the center was closed, so how could she have gotten in anyway? She tried to appeal the university's decision but was refused.
In an earlier incident, a group of male fraternity pledges stood in front of the same Women's Center and chanted, "No means yes, maybe means yes, yes means anal!" over and over. Lot of women didn't think that was too funny either.
The comments after these Feministing posts are interesting and encouraging. I sympathize with the anger and disgust towards these guys that these women are experiencing. They are calling these guys all sorts of names that they seem to deserve. That's ok. I agree this was a pretty fuckwad thing to do. On the other hand, I think a lawsuit sounds pretty ridiculous.
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