Boy are you going to be shocked when reality smacks
you in the face. First and foremost, your daughter
will not be completely safe no matter where you send
her. Even if its an all girls school. The reality of
the matter is that she can experience that horrible
thing called rape, sexual harrassment, etc anywhere.
Just because a school has a low or no incidents of
rape does not mean that it can't happen. The chances
might be slimmer, but life is full of risks, you can
either teach your children to handle those risks or
shelter them from the real world as much as you can so
that when they finally confront reality (and they
will), they can get screwed completely and totally
because they have no knowledge or experience of what
they are facing.
In the event you mis-interpreted what I said above,
NO, I don't feel that they should experience rape in
order to be adjusted to it. However, schools that
have had such incidents take larger measures to avoid
incidents like that in the future, up to and including
holding classes, informational meetings, restricting
parties, beefing up security at parties, etc.
Schools with no such incidents don't put as much
emphasis on such knowledge, because they feel they
don't have to. So the woman is less prepared and more
vunerable.
Also, how wrong is it to live your childs life for
them. Sure you love them and you want only the best
for them, but limiting their choice of schools because
of your own prejudices is just dictatorship. Nothing
makes a child rebel more than strict rules, and
nothing hurts a parent more than a rebeling child.
On another note, I am in a FRATERNITY. There are many
different kinds, including engineering, co-ed,
community, latino, black, etc. All of which have
different goals and behaviours. To label all frats
vermin to be abolished based on your studies of a few
frats is just retarded and not the scientific way.
If you are going to conduct thorough studies, don't
generalize.
I am in a latino frat. We work towards the upliftment
of underprivileged latino youngsters as well as
adults. In the 20 years that my frat has been in
existance (our Alpha chapter being in Cornell), we
have never had an incident where we were accused of
raping a girl. All of our prospects must have a 3.0
or higher to even be considered and they must maintain
a 2.7 per year in order to remain active in the frat.
And NO, we don't keep an archive of tests or papers,
basically because we have no way of storing or
managing them, so we don't cheat.
What did my frat add to my abilities? Leadership from
all the events that we sponsored, held or assisted
with. I learned organizational skills from organizing
fundraisers, informationals, managing frat meetings,
our treasury and pledges. I learned about unity and
what it means not only on a fraternal basis, but also
on how it relates to bringing different organizations
together to work effectively on a similar goal.
Finally, I learned how not to judge anything without
understanding fully everything I possibly can about
both sides of the coin. Something that you (Penguina)
apparently lack.
Judgemental people, and those with prejudices, are the
reason that racism still exists, why religions
continue to battle each other and why children go into
the real world so unprepared.
When I got mugged by a black person, I didn't label
all blacks as criminals. When I was side-swiped by an
asian, I didn't feel that all asians should be taken
off the road. And I don't follow any latino around
where I work to make sure they don't steal anything.
And I certainly don't judge an individual because they
came from the same school where some frat somewhere
raped a girl. I wouldn't even judge the individual if
he was in that frat.
The bottomline is that rape, gang rape and drug rape
are all very serious criminal offences. I do not
condone nor have any respect for anyone that takes
advantage of anyone that is in a vunerable state.
Notice that I said anyone, because this is not only a
girl thing. However, I feel that the individual that
committed the crime should be liable and responsible
for his/her own actions. The organization should be
held accountable if no measures are taken to prevent
criminal acts such as those mentioned above in the
future. And the school should be held accountable if
they fail to assure that the organization take action
to rememdy such problems.
Everyone is entitled to thier prejudices, as long as
they don't adversely affect anyone else.
BadBoyBravo
On 30 May 2001, Kristin M. Fitzsimmons wrote:
> On Thu, 31 May 2001 07:47:09 +1200 (NZST) Penguina
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > The other problem with frats we saw at Cornell
was date
> > rape, gang rape and drug rape (since that's what
getting
> > a girl so drunk that she can't defend herself IS).
> > Schools at which the greek system HAS been
abolished,
> > e.g. Princeton and Harvard, have far higher
academic
> > performance out of both students and faculty...and
a far
> > lower incidence of rape committed on campus.
> > I would like numbers supporting that Princeton and
Harvard
> have higher academic performance and lower date rape
> incidences than Dartmouth, if you're going to attack
my
> college. And faculty? Excuse me? I would certainly
like to
> see proof of that!
Ever hear the phrase, "Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and
*perhaps*
Cornell"? Dartmouth doesn't even figure into it. And
sorry,
you were saying that the faculty should be responsible
for
keeping track of when frat parties were, so they could
hold
pop quizzes the next day. That's not academics,
that's
babysitting.
And sorry, I've been a postdoc or grad student,
visiting faculty or
faculty mentor at several of the schools mentioned,
and it
was pretty clear from reading the on-campus rag, going
to womens'
groups meetings, talking to the administration,
faculty and students
that there is a very clear connection between the
Greek system and
date rape/gang rape/drug rape -- particularly the
latter. It's far
worse at Big-10 schools, as is sexual harassment in
general.
I would never send any daughter of *mine* to UIUC or
Cornell
or Dartmouth. If not Radcliffe (Bunting Institute
Fellow '93)
then The University of Chicago (MSc '83, Ph.D. 90).
I'm
certainly an alumna of enough schools to pick one
where she'll be
safe, and my undergraduate alma mater is not one of
those.
If she wants to go to a big coed jock school and get a
lethal
dose of PTSS, she can pay for it herself.
> And on the subject of academic performance, I will
have you
> know that a recent Dartmouth report pegged the
average
> Greek-affiliated student's GPA as significantly
_higher_
> than the campus average.
Do you actually KNOW any frat guys? Don't you know
that they
keep old exams and homeworks on file at Frats? Of
course their
GPA is higher--that's because they CHEAT. I've seen
them DO it.
> > And I'd sooner hire a Princeton, Harvard or
Radcliffe
> > grad than a Cornell or Dartmouth grad as a result,
even
> > though Cornell is my alma mater.
> That would be your loss. If I were an employer, I
think I
> would examine candidate's abilities before I looked
at where
> they went to school.
Yah, and the only thing the Greek system adds to a
candidates
abilities is an insensitivity to rape victims, extreme
misogyny
and (ahem) a proclivity to surf for porn rather than
doing their
job. This is all based on personal observation.
But you know what? I'm entitled to my prejudices on
that point.
If it were race, gender, religion, no. But what Frat
or Sorority
they were in, yeah, I'm entitled to my prejudices.
Dekes: no, Fiji: definitely not,
Telluride: yes, Acacia: yes.
DU: you gotta be kidding.
Not as a primary criterion, but if I were faced with
two candidates
with virtually indistinguishable capabilities, I'd go
for the
Princeton grad before the Cornell grad, and I'd go for
the Telluride
geek before having anything to do with a Deke. At
least I'd know that
their grades meant something.
Look, they'd do the same for you, and probably
have--more than once.
Penguina
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