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Why University Greek Life Is Structurally Pick-Me w/ Jana Mathews
32 Plays3 years ago
Author and Associate Professor Jana Mathews (Rollins) joins the queens to discuss her new book which dissects the sexual politics of fraternities and sororities on college campuses. The queens uncover the structural issues contributing to pick-me dynamics and what young women can do to take back their power.
You can check out her book here:
The Benefits of Friends: Inside the Complicated World of Today's Sororities and Fraternities
Contact: https://www.janamathews.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:06
Speaker
What's up, Queens?
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to the Female Dating Strategy podcast, the meanest people-only podcast on the internet.
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm Ro.
00:00:13
Speaker
And I'm Savannah.
00:00:14
Speaker
And we'll let this out again this week, but we have a guest here, Professor Jenna Matthews from Rollins College, author of the book, The Benefits of Friends Inside the Complicated World of Today's Sororities and
Gender Ratios and Social Dynamics at Fraternity Parties
00:00:28
Speaker
Fraternities.
00:00:28
Speaker
And I have to say, how I found you was I found, I was reading a Slate article about the unequal gender ratios of parties at fraternities.
00:00:37
Speaker
And as a person who wasn't in a sorority, but went to a lot of fraternity parties, like I never, it never clicked together that that's what was happening.
00:00:44
Speaker
So like when I read that, I was like, oh, that's why there was always like a bunch of women there and like no men.
00:00:49
Speaker
And there was a discussion in this article about the changing demographics of campus, because as we've said here, a lot of men are just not going to school, their needs, they're not in education, employment or training.
00:01:00
Speaker
So the gender ratios of campuses started to get really, really skewed.
00:01:03
Speaker
So like just kind of researching you and like, and actually looking through your book, I was like, oh, this is actually research on what's happening on campus with sororities and fraternities and how that's changing the gender dynamics.
00:01:14
Speaker
And it was really, really fascinating because there's a lot of like dynamics that if you're not inside of that world, you may not know about because like clearly they very closely guard a lot of the information.
00:01:23
Speaker
But also because like dating on campus, even if you're not, if you're in a sorority or not is like hard mode.
00:01:29
Speaker
So I was really interested in anybody who...
00:01:31
Speaker
we talk about this, like it is the one place where men clearly have the advantage in most colleges because of the fact that the gender ratios are so skewed.
00:01:39
Speaker
Now, the only consolation I like to say is that, okay, well, there's the military where it's the opposite.
00:01:43
Speaker
So like with our friend Elle from our other political podcast, which she was talking about, there's so few women in the military that like, then the gender dynamics are often in women's favor as
Fraternities' Strategic Control of Social Scenes
00:01:52
Speaker
far as like dating.
00:01:52
Speaker
So I'm like, okay, so maybe there's no
00:01:54
Speaker
in the world.
00:01:55
Speaker
But what was really interesting about this book and why I really wanted to bring in the podcast, because I'm like, first of all, not having, I had myself not having been part of a sorority, but also like not completely understanding what to do about the campus dynamics.
00:02:06
Speaker
Like this was a really, really good breakdown and fascinating breakdown of what goes on and then like what we can do about it.
00:02:12
Speaker
So welcome to the podcast.
00:02:14
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:02:15
Speaker
I'm just delighted to be here and thrilled to have this conversation.
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:20
Speaker
So I kind of wanted to start, I want to talk about some of the more lurid stories of this book that are really fascinating about what happens like with the dynamics of first of all, getting recruited in a sorority and then like how the sororities end up reinforcing a lot of the toxic behavior of the fraternities.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:39
Speaker
I mean, so I can definitely start there.
00:02:41
Speaker
I think to back up a little bit, I mean, as you said, there's women outnumber men on campus about a ratio of 60 to 40.
00:02:48
Speaker
And that's not across the boards.
00:02:50
Speaker
I think at technical colleges, for example, the ratio will be flipped.
00:02:53
Speaker
But sort of just your average campus, there's about 50% more women than men.
00:02:58
Speaker
And as you talked about, anytime within a heterosexual dating community, then minority gender controls that dating script.
00:03:04
Speaker
And so heterosexual men have a competitive edge over women just in general.
00:03:08
Speaker
And it's not just college.
00:03:09
Speaker
So you think about the vibe of what it's like at a sports bar and where there's always more men than women.
00:03:15
Speaker
And women are going to, in those kind of scenarios, are going to get a lot more attention and basically have her pick of who she brings home at night.
00:03:21
Speaker
And so
00:03:22
Speaker
Fraternities on the other hand, or college campuses are kind of in that reverse role where they're the gender minority.
00:03:28
Speaker
And so therefore they have the ability to call the shots.
00:03:31
Speaker
Want me to talk a little bit about how fraternities engineer the social scene?
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, let's start there then.
00:03:36
Speaker
Okay, yeah, sure.
00:03:38
Speaker
So fraternities engineer the social scene so they can have even more power, even though they already have a ton of power in that situation.
00:03:45
Speaker
And they do that through what I could have called a fraternity party population control.
00:03:49
Speaker
So one fraternity chapter will often mix with multiple sorority chapters at one time.
00:03:54
Speaker
So you'll go to a party and there'll be just the fraternity members in that particular group.
00:03:58
Speaker
And then there'll be just women from all over the
Sororities' Strategies and Challenges in Social Dynamics
00:04:00
Speaker
place.
00:04:00
Speaker
And it's sometimes just even opened up to sort of all women on campus are invited to those places.
00:04:05
Speaker
So that's one way.
00:04:06
Speaker
And then the other way is that if fraternities want to narrow and want to make that gender divide even greater, they will often take the men in their own chapter, the younger men in particular, so the freshmen and sometimes the sophomores,
00:04:18
Speaker
And they will basically take them out of commission by making them work during the event.
00:04:22
Speaker
So they're the designated drivers.
00:04:24
Speaker
They're picking up, dropping off.
00:04:25
Speaker
They're serving alcohol.
00:04:27
Speaker
They're not really in a mode by which they can interact with the other women.
00:04:30
Speaker
And so as a result, that's exactly why it feels like there are so few men and so many women at these parties because there are.
00:04:37
Speaker
And they do that to increase the odds that they're going to find somebody who will be willing to hook up with them.
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't realize to the extent that they were actively socially engineering that.
00:04:46
Speaker
In hindsight, it just seems so obvious, right?
00:04:48
Speaker
But I just, for whatever reason, because I wasn't plugged into the fraternity sorority system, like I would just kind of go to the parties when I would hear them advertise.
00:04:55
Speaker
It didn't occur to me that they were deliberately trying to skew that ratio.
00:04:59
Speaker
So like hearing that as like a concrete thing now makes sense to me.
00:05:03
Speaker
Like, oh, okay.
00:05:04
Speaker
It was always set up for them to have the strategic advantage.
00:05:07
Speaker
And as ourselves being a strategy focused podcast, I love that that's being highlighted in like your book, because for people who don't know who are somewhat outsiders like myself,
00:05:18
Speaker
Know that when you're going to the fraternity that they are deliberately trying to engineer the ratios that you are, that the women are in the majority enough to guarantee that their frat bros will be able to hook up with somebody.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:05:30
Speaker
It's 100% strategic.
00:05:31
Speaker
And even the research that I did, and I had the opportunity, I served as a fraternity advisor on my campus.
00:05:37
Speaker
So I worked with a high, we call it a high tier chapter.
00:05:40
Speaker
So one of the most desirable chapters on campus.
00:05:43
Speaker
And so I worked with them for several years and went to all of their events and kind of observed them.
00:05:48
Speaker
But then I also visited dozens of campuses around the country and also talked with people from over 50 different universities to try to make sure that like what I was seeing on my campus wasn't just unique to the
00:05:58
Speaker
culture of my college, but was reflective and heard multiple, multiple times and saw in many, many, many instances that it was absolutely strategic to the point where they will say, you know, we need to get more women here.
00:06:11
Speaker
You know, the ratio isn't great enough.
00:06:14
Speaker
And so then they would
Fraternity Disaffiliation and its Implications
00:06:15
Speaker
send out texts or they would have the women who are in attendance say, you know, you need to get your friends here.
00:06:19
Speaker
And so leave and don't come back until you bring X number of other friends with you.
00:06:24
Speaker
So besides just the ratio, how else are fraternities engineering the sexual scene to guarantee their hookups?
00:06:32
Speaker
Like I have, there's a few points in the book that I'll point out, but I'll allow you to take the floor first.
00:06:37
Speaker
Sure.
00:06:38
Speaker
I think the other way that they do it is just structurally.
00:06:41
Speaker
So yeah,
00:06:42
Speaker
On any campus, you will have, there will always be more fraternity chapters in relationship to sorority chapters.
00:06:49
Speaker
So they're on a given campus.
00:06:51
Speaker
There's one that I will say the name, but there are seven sorority chapters, and then there's like 18 or 19 fraternity chapters.
00:06:59
Speaker
And so each sorority chapter, the way that sororities work is that they try to spread out the number of members fairly evenly.
00:07:07
Speaker
So each sorority chapter will have roughly the same number of women.
00:07:10
Speaker
And then the fraternity chapters, on the other hand, there is no rule or regulation.
00:07:14
Speaker
So you could have a fraternity chapter that has five or six members, then you could have one that has 100.
00:07:18
Speaker
And so what that really means is, again, if you have a fraternity chapter that is mixing with a sorority or multiple sororities, you're always going to have more women than men just by virtue of how that system is set up.
00:07:29
Speaker
So that's one kind of big way that they do that.
00:07:31
Speaker
The other way that it's sort of structurally engineered to increase hookup culture is that
00:07:35
Speaker
Fraternities, they're allowed to serve alcohol at their fraternity houses.
00:07:39
Speaker
They can have parties there and sororities are not allowed to.
00:07:41
Speaker
And that's across the board.
00:07:43
Speaker
And so, and the reason it has to do with liability.
00:07:45
Speaker
So sorority houses are beautiful and gorgeous.
00:07:47
Speaker
And, you know, you can just sort of look on any town and country or Pinterest board and you can see these pictures of these mansions that are stunning.
00:07:53
Speaker
And obviously the organizations that run them and own those houses do not want them trashed.
00:07:58
Speaker
So they have really, really strict rules about who can enter into that space and what events can be housed there.
00:08:04
Speaker
And almost no social events can be housed there.
00:08:06
Speaker
And then they even have extra rules to
00:08:08
Speaker
preventing or governing sororities off-campus parties.
00:08:11
Speaker
But off-campus parties, if you have to rent a space, it's expensive.
00:08:14
Speaker
It requires a lot of planning.
00:08:15
Speaker
There's money involved.
00:08:16
Speaker
And so it's just, it's not really a viable option.
00:08:19
Speaker
Fraternity houses are usually a lot grosser.
00:08:21
Speaker
And the reason is because they can have parties there, right?
00:08:23
Speaker
And they don't care.
00:08:24
Speaker
Right.
00:08:27
Speaker
And so they have all like, and fraternities have this massive liability insurance clause in there that allows them to take those kinds of
00:08:34
Speaker
risks and invite people into their space.
00:08:37
Speaker
And so as a result, like women are really partying and the social scene on college campuses take place in fraternity houses almost exclusively or the local campus bars that are attached to fraternity row.
00:08:46
Speaker
And so men control how much alcohol is consumed, who consumes it, where, you know, when you're having a party essentially down the hall from someone's bedroom, you know, the odds are that the party is going to migrate into one of those spaces becomes pretty high.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:02
Speaker
And I don't know to the extent that this is true, but I know there was like rumors in a lot of different campuses that part of the reason why there weren't as many sorority houses was because of like old school brothel laws.
00:09:12
Speaker
But I didn't know if that was true or if that was an urban myth.
00:09:15
Speaker
No, it's not an urban myth in some senses.
00:09:17
Speaker
And that was...
00:09:18
Speaker
That law like originated particularly in the South.
00:09:20
Speaker
They kind of rose up at the same time as women were coming to colleges in general and that people like women lived in boarding houses.
00:09:26
Speaker
And so because there wasn't any space for them to live on campus, they were borrowed from living on campus.
00:09:30
Speaker
And so it was sort of basically a anti-feminist, anti-women enactment to try to get women away from college campuses.
00:09:38
Speaker
Most of those rules are sort of highly outdated.
00:09:41
Speaker
Women, like sororities do have houses and that's
00:09:44
Speaker
That's not an active kind of rule or law.
00:09:47
Speaker
In fact, there are almost an equal number of sorority houses and fraternity houses, at least in the sense that if there's a chapter that a sorority might have it, we'll have a house.
00:09:55
Speaker
But there just are more fraternity houses.
00:09:57
Speaker
And because there are more fraternity chapters than sorority chapters in anywhere.
00:10:01
Speaker
One of the things I found fascinating too was like the date engineering that also goes on from fraternities.
00:10:06
Speaker
Like I didn't know that there was like specifically them trying to coerce like individual relationships.
00:10:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:14
Speaker
So that's a strategy that I think that sororities use actually, I think, to fight back against this gender ratio disparity.
00:10:22
Speaker
So if you are a sorority member, you might, a heterosexual sorority member, you might think, oh my gosh, there's really no chance for me because I'm playing the odds.
00:10:31
Speaker
And it's like playing powerball every time you walk into a fraternity party.
00:10:34
Speaker
And so what sororities have doing is that they form sorority teams and
00:10:39
Speaker
And I kind of call them like Peloton.
00:10:41
Speaker
So in the Tour de France, which is a professional bike race, you've got riders, they ride in packs and one will lead for a little bit and then they'll drop back to the back and then the next person will take his place.
00:10:51
Speaker
And the reason why they do it is because it's a way of distributing the workload.
00:10:54
Speaker
So the front rider takes the headwind, but only for a short period of time.
00:10:58
Speaker
And so each person kind of gets their chance to rest and recover and then also lead the team.
00:11:03
Speaker
And so if you are a sorority group or a sorority chapter,
00:11:08
Speaker
the odds are not really great that you're going to kind of fight your way to the top or to the finish line on your own.
00:11:12
Speaker
And so you need help and assistance.
00:11:14
Speaker
And so what they do is they need a Peloton and for in French Peloton means platoon.
00:11:20
Speaker
And I really liked that kind of militaristic metaphor because that kind of is what they're doing is going to battle.
00:11:24
Speaker
And so,
00:11:25
Speaker
What they do is a sorority member will claim a man and they have to have some sort of evidence to prove that that it's not just a far fetch or they have to be DMing, they have to be hooking up or they have to have some kind of tangential connection.
00:11:36
Speaker
And then all the women mobilize to help assist that sorority woman.
00:11:40
Speaker
make a connection with that man more permanent, whether it's, you know, hooking up with his friends or sort of greasing the wheels, trying to put them in places where they can be together.
00:11:49
Speaker
And the goal is, is that if they can get that woman with a fraternity man at sort of a semi-permanent hookup partner in an ideal world, like a boyfriend-girlfriend scenario, then that benefits them because then they have access to that particular fraternity chapter.
00:12:02
Speaker
And so that's really how, so sororities are sort of sorority teams are competing, not with each other members of their own group, but they're competing with
00:12:10
Speaker
sorority teams from other chapters.
00:12:12
Speaker
So it's like they're all engaged in this competition to see who can get their most members like accepted by the fraternity.
00:12:21
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:12:21
Speaker
And that's particularly true with the high tier chapter.
00:12:24
Speaker
So you as a sorority want to be paired with a high tier male chapter.
00:12:27
Speaker
And there might be two or three other sorority chapters who are kind of in contention, maybe have the same status as you, have equally beautiful women, you know, everyone's sort of like hot and wonderful.
00:12:37
Speaker
And you want to kind of get your in with this one chapter.
00:12:40
Speaker
And so the best way to do that is to have as many of your members pair up or be hooking up with as many of that fraternity chapters as possible and then doing so blackball the other ones.
00:12:52
Speaker
Is there any like formality to the fraternities that have relationships with sororities?
00:12:57
Speaker
Because I know at least among like black fraternities, there's somewhat of a formality between a few of them.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:04
Speaker
Black fraternities and sororities are kind of, they're all in the sort of same family, but I would put them in a different category because they,
00:13:10
Speaker
were started for completely different reasons.
00:13:13
Speaker
And a lot of them, the bonds that they have are structurally in place from the time of their origin, when they were formed.
00:13:18
Speaker
White fraternities and sororities don't have that kind of like sister sorority kind of meat, right?
00:13:22
Speaker
It's not like you've got kiosks who are constantly paired with five adults at any point.
00:13:26
Speaker
You know, on a national level, it really happens on a local level.
00:13:29
Speaker
And those bonding, those relationships will rotate in a like ebb and flow depending upon who is hooking up with who.
00:13:36
Speaker
And so it is one of the reasons why like in Greek life, why there's so much tension between sororities where.
00:13:45
Speaker
fraternities don't really care about each other.
00:13:47
Speaker
They're not like going, you know, they might get into little skirmishes, but there's not sort of this animosity towards other chapters usually in the way that sororities do.
00:13:56
Speaker
And that's because they're kind of competing with each other for access to men.
00:14:00
Speaker
That's so interesting.
00:14:01
Speaker
So it's like structurally pick me.
00:14:03
Speaker
Oh, it's totally like, I think that's fascinating, right?
00:14:05
Speaker
So they're all pick me shows, you know, just like in that level.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:09
Speaker
Well, like I said, it's different from like, at least for like a lot of black fraternities, like they do kind of have like paired up fraternity, sister, ority houses.
00:14:18
Speaker
And then also like there is tension between this, this fraternity houses.
00:14:21
Speaker
Like it's more like a gang.
00:14:23
Speaker
These guys like have their colors and there's a little bit more of like a tension there, which I think balances the gender dynamics a little bit more than what it seems like is happening on these other fraternities.
00:14:32
Speaker
So that's fascinating.
00:14:33
Speaker
Like that's a completely different structural aspect.
00:14:36
Speaker
Like from the top down, like it already puts women at a disadvantage if like the connections between the fraternity sorority houses aren't already innate.
00:14:44
Speaker
And then it's completely dependent on like how acceptable the women of that particular house are in relation to the fraternity.
00:14:49
Speaker
And they can't even throw their own parties to subvert the power of the fraternities on campus if they wanted to.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:57
Speaker
I mean, I think that that's, I could change one thing.
00:14:59
Speaker
It would really be that because I think that the whole culture of fraternity, white fraternities and shorties would profoundly change if women could throw their own parties.
00:15:06
Speaker
And that sounds really simple and I'm not the first to say it, but you know, we are not, we don't live in an era where anymore, where we need to be invited to go on dates or invited to socialize or sort of be put at the whim of men.
00:15:17
Speaker
But that system is really putting us in an antiquated position where
00:15:21
Speaker
We have to kind of sit around and like the only thing we can do to have a social life is to make yourself attractive to men so that you'll get invited to their parties.
00:15:29
Speaker
And that's just like a screwed up way of kind of raising this generation of women to think that like they have to be passive in their own sort of social and like romantic desire.
00:15:40
Speaker
This puts like a podcast, like call her daddy and a lot better perspective.
00:15:45
Speaker
Cause I was like, so confused by it.
00:15:47
Speaker
Honestly, I was like, why would anybody do this?
00:15:49
Speaker
Like, why would you fuck these guys just to go to their fraternity party?
00:15:52
Speaker
Cause like, I'm like, couldn't you just do it?
00:15:54
Speaker
And like, cause as a person who got invited to different fraternity parties, because they were trying to skew that gender ratio.
00:15:58
Speaker
I was like, I think I pretty much went to all the same parties I went to.
00:16:01
Speaker
And it wasn't that big of a deal, but it's, it's about like building the reputation of the house itself.
00:16:06
Speaker
And then like forging those bonds.
00:16:07
Speaker
So that dynamic, I think was, I was totally missing that dynamic that like this book really helped fill in for me.
00:16:13
Speaker
Thank you.
00:16:14
Speaker
I think, and I'm an outsider as well.
00:16:16
Speaker
So I went to an institution where they didn't have fraternities and sororities.
00:16:20
Speaker
It wasn't part of my culture.
00:16:21
Speaker
And then when I became a professor, my college at the time, when I started here, it was 50% of the student body was Greek.
00:16:31
Speaker
I mean, other than kind of Elle Woods, I had no idea really what was going on.
00:16:35
Speaker
And so I had to do a crash course and figuring out what these people were talking about and what was happening.
00:16:41
Speaker
And so, yeah, I like the benefit of kind of being an inside outsider, you know, to this whole population, but it's totally riveting.
00:16:48
Speaker
It's like a cat show kind of, you know, you just kind of stand back and say, what is this?
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:55
Speaker
I would say I never got involved in sorority because I remember like asking someone like, oh, so what's great about being a sorority?
00:17:00
Speaker
Like what happens?
00:17:01
Speaker
And the woman that I asked was like, well, if you don't already know, then it's not for you.
00:17:05
Speaker
And I was like, okay, bitch.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:09
Speaker
care that much about it.
00:17:10
Speaker
Like, and that was pretty much the beginning and end of my sorority aspirations.
00:17:14
Speaker
Cause I couldn't get a straight answer about like why I wanted to be a part of it.
00:17:18
Speaker
And I guess, and I guess I would be described as a goddamn independent, like the GDI.
00:17:22
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:17:23
Speaker
Basically.
00:17:25
Speaker
Cause I didn't know anything about it and I was just asking in earnest.
00:17:28
Speaker
Right.
00:17:28
Speaker
And then like, it was sort of like, well, if you don't already know, then you're not one of us.
00:17:31
Speaker
I'm like, okay, sure.
00:17:34
Speaker
I think it's really interesting is, is that like fraternities and sororities, it
00:17:38
Speaker
at the organizational level, that like from national level are really, really aware of recruitment and that that's really their lure into these organizations.
00:17:46
Speaker
And as freshmen, you know, the organizations like all recruit what they call values-based recruitment.
00:17:52
Speaker
So they're recruiting for brotherhood and sisterhood and compassion, you know, like all these kinds of nebulous values that we all adhere to.
00:17:57
Speaker
We all want in a friend group, but you know, 18 year olds are not motivated by that.
00:18:02
Speaker
Some of them just want people to hang out.
00:18:05
Speaker
They want friends and that's altruistic.
00:18:07
Speaker
But if you ask the majority of them, you're saying, like, what is drawing you to this specific thing, this specific organization or something else?
00:18:13
Speaker
They just say, well, we want to have a social life.
00:18:16
Speaker
And I think that's another bigger kind of structural problem is that colleges and universities have really relegated the social life of their institutions to fraternities and sororities.
00:18:26
Speaker
They hate them, but they need them because they're not willing or able to compete or entertain their own students.
00:18:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:33
Speaker
So kind of a side note.
00:18:34
Speaker
So USC recently was trying to get the fraternities to pledge to take sexual assault that was happening in their frat houses and their quote unquote rape culture more seriously.
00:18:44
Speaker
And the fraternities opted to completely disassociate with USC.
00:18:48
Speaker
What do you think about that?
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's happening more and more.
00:18:51
Speaker
And it's fascinating.
00:18:52
Speaker
There's a difference between like the chapter, which is kind of like the local branch and then the headquarters, which are
00:18:59
Speaker
run by adults and it's a business.
00:19:02
Speaker
So these are for-profit institutions.
00:19:04
Speaker
And so the headquarters are really upset with them.
00:19:08
Speaker
They don't want them to disaffiliate because it looks bad for them because they become rogue.
00:19:12
Speaker
And a lot of these guys will still wear their letters and act as if and kind of run themselves as if they're a fraternity chapter, but just don't have any regulation or oversight.
00:19:20
Speaker
So there's a brand issue.
00:19:21
Speaker
It's the same kind of thing of like a luxury brand.
00:19:23
Speaker
And then you've got counterfeiters.
00:19:25
Speaker
And so counterfeiters, like give the real brand like a bad name.
00:19:28
Speaker
So and then the institution, of course, hates them, hates that idea because they like to have some level of pretend control over these organizations.
00:19:35
Speaker
But from the men themselves, you know, they understand the market value of what they're offering and they have a specific.
00:19:42
Speaker
talent or skill or gift and, or like, you know, and the ability to throw parties and to sort of become, become a social hub.
00:19:48
Speaker
And so they see all the rules being imposed upon them as being extraneous and sort of, you know, they don't need association.
00:19:53
Speaker
They don't need affiliation in order to run.
00:19:56
Speaker
And so that's why they're doing it.
00:19:57
Speaker
And I think it's sort of like, I think that the backstory behind that particular case is not that they're just refusing to support measures to control sexual assault and violence.
00:20:08
Speaker
Like that makes them sound horrible.
00:20:10
Speaker
they're pressing back on like the sort of the whole body of rules and regulations, which involves having designated drivers or like recording your event and having it registered in advance.
00:20:20
Speaker
Like they're just like, it's really, really complicated and actually like technical to run a fraternity and sorority on a campus.
00:20:26
Speaker
And so they just feel like it's a bunch of red tape.
00:20:28
Speaker
So that might be like the one kind of the sticking point, but the reality is, is that it's just, they're just irritated in general with having to follow rules.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:35
Speaker
I wonder if other campuses do crack down.
00:20:37
Speaker
Like, does it actually affect the prestige of the school?
00:20:41
Speaker
Because I'm wondering if like, who's at the advantage there?
00:20:43
Speaker
Is the fraternity at the advantage or is the school at the advantage?
00:20:46
Speaker
So both of them really run liability issues.
00:20:48
Speaker
We have had that happen many times at Rollins, too, where there's a sorority that happened to be advising was had their
00:20:55
Speaker
charter terminated by the national organization.
00:20:58
Speaker
At the time I was advising them, so that was fun.
00:21:00
Speaker
But then the existing members went on and kind of ran an underground organization for several years.
00:21:05
Speaker
And so it's, you know, there's like lots of risk management issues because I think the idea is that if an institution knows that a chapter is running and they don't do anything about it,
00:21:16
Speaker
And something happens at that chapter, like someone's injured or dies or whatever, that they're ultimately responsible for it.
00:21:22
Speaker
So there's that issue.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's on some levels.
00:21:26
Speaker
So I completely understand from an institutional standpoint.
00:21:29
Speaker
The case of USC, I think that the point that they happen to make an issue on is a really bad one.
00:21:35
Speaker
But in general, I do understand why chapters want to sort of say, what am I paying dues for?
00:21:42
Speaker
If I can do all of these things without any oversight, then that seems like if you're 18 or 19 years old.
00:21:48
Speaker
like something that would be really enticing to you.
00:21:51
Speaker
I guess I'm sort of on the university side because it's like, why take the additional liability on?
00:21:55
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:21:56
Speaker
No, I'm absolutely too.
00:21:57
Speaker
But I think if you put yourself in the shoes of fraternity members, it's entrepreneurial of them to want to branch out, right?
00:22:04
Speaker
Like that's what I would tell you.
00:22:05
Speaker
You learn how to do something from an organization.
00:22:07
Speaker
You learn how to run a party.
00:22:08
Speaker
You learn how to run an organization effectively.
00:22:11
Speaker
And then you take that idea and you just do your own.
00:22:14
Speaker
And that's kind of how they're thinking about it.
00:22:17
Speaker
So the thing that might backfire on them is that now if it's outside of the jurisdiction of the university, then people, women, if they are being assaulted, will just go directly to the police or they should anyways.
00:22:28
Speaker
Like if I would imagine it's not now covered by Title IX.
00:22:31
Speaker
No, it actually is.
00:22:32
Speaker
So I think it's, yeah.
00:22:34
Speaker
So if you are a student, no matter where it happens, any student is subject to Title IX regulations.
00:22:41
Speaker
So I guess if like a fraternity member, if an unregulated, regardless of where he is, commits sexual assault against a non-university student, then he could be subject, I mean, he could be called in, but they can't really do a whole lot or they couldn't manage that.
00:22:54
Speaker
But if it is a student, if it's a female student who is assaulted by a male student, regardless if that happens at a bar or if that happens, you know, wherever it does in whatever context, then it is fully subject to Title
Sexual Assault Dynamics and Sororities' Responses
00:23:06
Speaker
IX.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:23:07
Speaker
So speaking of sexual assault, so there's a lot of space dedicated to dynamics of sexual assault, how they've been happening within the context of the fraternity and sorority relationship, and then the fallout.
00:23:17
Speaker
The fallout was really, really depressing and somewhat surprising to me from some of the women who did come forward with things that are very, very clearly rape and very, very clearly sexual assault, things that aren't like
00:23:28
Speaker
I don't think any reasonable person would hear the details and think this was actually a gray area in any way, shape or form.
00:23:33
Speaker
But there's a couple of cases in here that you highlighted and also things like revenge porn or like women being filmed without their consent, having those types of things shared among other fraternity members.
00:23:43
Speaker
So do you want to maybe start with a few of the stories that you touched on in the book about sexual assault and then what happened?
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:49
Speaker
So I think one of the ones that was most harrowing for me to listen to and have to engage with was a sorority member who
00:23:57
Speaker
you know, this is a really kind of metaphor for how these things like all happen, right?
00:24:02
Speaker
It was out drinking with her friends as all sort, I mean, as most, but as, as you're wont to do.
00:24:07
Speaker
And then she went back to her apartment with a small group.
00:24:10
Speaker
And so she went with one of her female friends, another sorority sister and her sorority sister's boyfriend,
00:24:15
Speaker
There's another guy with her kind of rounding out the foursome.
00:24:18
Speaker
They were hanging out, watching the movie, had some drinks, and she just got too drunk.
00:24:22
Speaker
And so she went in her room and she just kind of said, I'm going to bed, guys.
00:24:25
Speaker
And then she woke up the next morning and realized that she had been very clearly raped.
00:24:31
Speaker
And she
00:24:32
Speaker
kind of had to make, she reached out to me and kind of like walked her through that process of her options and tried to get her to go to Title IX, which is a sort of campus office that's helped to, you know, kind of walk her through some sort of like both legal options and options at the school, was really reluctant to do that.
00:24:49
Speaker
And I did, as a mandatory reporter, have to report her to Title IX, but she just chose not to follow up with that, which is also her prerogative and her right.
00:24:57
Speaker
But
00:24:58
Speaker
What she ended up doing is something that I saw across the board that became this just sort of standard operating procedure is that instead of going to Title IX or to the police or to the school in any other capacity, she just turned on her friend and kind of blamed her friend for that particular incident.
00:25:14
Speaker
I mean, she was upset with the rapist.
00:25:16
Speaker
And of course, like he should never have done that.
00:25:18
Speaker
But as she's deciding and weighing the options of who she should be most mad at and like, you know, and dedicate or sort of direct her ire,
00:25:25
Speaker
It landed on her female friend or sorority sister.
00:25:27
Speaker
And it was things that she was saying were, you shouldn't have left me alone.
00:25:31
Speaker
You knew how drunk I was.
00:25:33
Speaker
How could you let him come in?
00:25:35
Speaker
Why didn't you stop this?
00:25:36
Speaker
You know, all those kinds of things, which are perfectly normal reactions.
00:25:39
Speaker
And, you know, as that played out and as I never included, again, another story in here that I had not heard dozens of times to make sure that it wasn't sort of a one off.
00:25:48
Speaker
But in that particular case, it played out like all the others where it was weighing the options of what outcome you want or what you need in that moment.
00:25:56
Speaker
Title IX and the police and any other sort of formalized reporting system is
00:26:01
Speaker
inaccurate and unpredictable at best.
00:26:04
Speaker
So you're putting yourself in a position to have to give you this reporting where it becomes largely like a he said, she said kind of thing.
00:26:11
Speaker
They're both drinking.
00:26:12
Speaker
There's tons and tons of reporting.
00:26:14
Speaker
Like the women who go through Title IX have, the number of times that they have to retell their story in like sort of increasingly public venues is traumatizing and is really hard.
00:26:24
Speaker
And then the outcome on the other end is almost never satisfactory, which means like very, very, very few
00:26:30
Speaker
sexual assault cases get what they want and they need, which is an apology from the perpetrator, a legal resolution that makes them provide any level of justice.
00:26:39
Speaker
But their friends, on the other hand, provide exactly what they need, which is allowing themselves to be blamed, emotional, crying, upset, apologetic.
00:26:50
Speaker
So I somewhat perceived it differently when I was reading it.
00:26:52
Speaker
So like that seemed actually that that aspect of it seemed to have evolved because some of the earlier stories were about how these sorority sisters often just like immediately sided with the frat member.
00:27:03
Speaker
And that insofar as like there's been evolution on the conversation of sexual assault among sororities, it's been what you said that like suddenly the sorority sort of issues an apology to that happened and then saying that we failed each other as sisters to protect you.
00:27:15
Speaker
But it also seemed to me like that the sororities are then running interference.
00:27:19
Speaker
Like it actually bothered me, even though I think that's a great thing for them to do.
00:27:23
Speaker
I also think that there's a liability aspect of it where they're like, they're almost running interference from the fraternities being held accountable under Title IX or criminally.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah, I can give it a good example of that.
00:27:35
Speaker
So I mentioned many, several of my book, I had what happened to me just a few months ago, where a sorority sister, a woman came in and reported a sexual assault, again, sent her to Title IX.
00:27:47
Speaker
She was, she actually wanted to work with Title IX, but in the process of it was, you know, kind of consulting with her sorority sisters.
00:27:55
Speaker
And the sorority sisters were, you know, like, oh, we'll take care of it, we'll take care of it.
00:28:00
Speaker
And so they were kind of
00:28:01
Speaker
conversing and engaging with the fraternity and the fraternity leadership.
00:28:06
Speaker
The discussion there was they came back and they said, well, the fraternity doesn't want you to report.
00:28:10
Speaker
They said that they'll take care of it internally.
00:28:12
Speaker
And so like, here's why you should consider that option.
00:28:14
Speaker
Like if you recognize that if you report that we will lose that relationship with them, they won't invite us to formal.
00:28:20
Speaker
We'll be seen as sort of like tattletales.
00:28:22
Speaker
Like, you know, the school will never, will never do a good job.
00:28:25
Speaker
This will be bad for all the fraternities and sororities in general.
00:28:27
Speaker
Like, you know, it's like you're kind of ruining everyone's social life if you report this.
00:28:31
Speaker
And so the resolution on that one is that that one had like a semi-reported
00:28:35
Speaker
Not a semi-positive, but like the fraternity chapter did suspend, not expel that fraternity member.
00:28:42
Speaker
And so, you know, right now he's sort of sitting on informal probation, like sort of secret probation.
00:28:46
Speaker
And, you know, I'm sure he'll reemerge in the group.
00:28:48
Speaker
But, you know, in the meantime, I have this woman who's coming to my office all the time.
00:28:53
Speaker
He just is sort of emotionally devastated because she's really caught between a rock and a hard place.
00:28:58
Speaker
She'll lose her friends.
00:29:00
Speaker
and her social life and his connection to this fraternity because, you know, some dude decided to push her in the bathroom and like grope her and, you know, do some other things to her against her consent.
00:29:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's wild to me that like the language has changed to be a little bit more of a softer touch than like the flat out like, oh, this person's a slut and we're denying that it happened to like, oh, we're going to like comfort you while coercing you to still behave in the way that we want you to, which is to like not report and not jeopardize the relationship with the fraternity.
00:29:26
Speaker
So that like, I just found that kind of like, I don't know, like kind of disappointing.
00:29:30
Speaker
It's like they're better at PR now, but they haven't like structurally changed the problem.
00:29:35
Speaker
Yeah, I would say that.
00:29:36
Speaker
So yeah, they're better at PR.
00:29:38
Speaker
And then but there still is sort of slut shaming that's going on.
00:29:41
Speaker
And maybe I think if we've acknowledged the fact that I'm seeing less of people sort of saying like, well, you're a whore, you're a slut, because you like, you know, had sex, we've had sex with multiple partners.
00:29:50
Speaker
It's more just the denying of the seriousness of it, because hookup culture is really casual.
00:29:54
Speaker
And so it's like, what's the big deal?
00:29:56
Speaker
it's much more like, are you sure that that, you know, aren't you reading too much into this?
00:30:00
Speaker
And like, it's that kind of stuff.
00:30:02
Speaker
It's like, you know, it didn't really mean anything.
00:30:04
Speaker
And so because hookup culture is casual, you shouldn't assign more meaning to it than it was.
00:30:08
Speaker
And so if you didn't want to do it, then like we respect that.
00:30:11
Speaker
But also like, you know, there's a lot of things we don't want to do that we didn't do it.
00:30:15
Speaker
And we get regret.
00:30:16
Speaker
And, you know, it's just, it's just, it's just really convoluted and almost more damaging narrative than, than just calling someone a slider whore.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, that reminds me of the tits of the hour story from your book.
00:30:27
Speaker
That's basically the dynamic that they set up to explain like some of the, I don't want to call it smaller to minimize it, but like the things that are sexually coercive and clearly violations of boundaries, but may or may not be, have enough evidence that they're criminally prosecuted.
Fraternity Culture and Impact on Women
00:30:42
Speaker
Although like now there's revenge porn laws, but if you want to explain the tits of the hour story.
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:48
Speaker
So fraternities, and this is not just fraternity.
00:30:50
Speaker
I think you can definitely apply it to sort of
00:30:53
Speaker
male friend groups and even like female friend groups, right?
00:30:55
Speaker
We were on text chains and they were almost all, they always had check chains or group knees within fraternity chapters and Snapchat, right?
00:31:02
Speaker
And Snapchat.
00:31:03
Speaker
And Snapchat, before we get into the rest of the story.
00:31:06
Speaker
So I didn't know about it, about even Evan Spiegel, sorry, the CEO of Snapchat that was also accused of like, there's some like some text messages that were revealed of him like peeing on some girl like in his sleep or something like that.
00:31:19
Speaker
And the fact that like,
00:31:21
Speaker
the actual CEO of Snapchat was caught up in a lot of these activities where he was sharing, let's say, sensitive information about the women and just kind of proves our point, which you've made like multiple times that nobody but skirts has Snapchat.
00:31:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:36
Speaker
So Evan Spiegel was a fraternity member at Stanford when he invented Snapchat.
00:31:40
Speaker
And he kind of really clearly outlines the idea about why he wants to do it.
00:31:44
Speaker
And a huge portion of each part of the motivating factor was the ability to
00:31:48
Speaker
like circulate and share like unsavory and really offensive messages that would, that would never be able to be traced.
00:31:55
Speaker
And he did that through group talks, you know, with his, with his fraternity brothers.
00:31:59
Speaker
And so if we think about Snapchat is kind of originating from a fraternity house, then it explains exactly what I'm going to,
00:32:07
Speaker
tell, right?
00:32:08
Speaker
Which is that Snapchat and that group texts or group memes sort of exist within fraternity chapters for sort of like sharing of explicit materials.
00:32:16
Speaker
And so oftentimes they're exchanging porn that they get from the internet or sort of, you know, just all sorts of kind of, we've kind of put it into this category of like frat boy humor.
00:32:26
Speaker
And then along with that are images of, and sort of text messages and other kinds of things from personal sort of sexual exploits that they might've had.
00:32:34
Speaker
So these are exchanging photos of
00:32:36
Speaker
of women that they've, while the women are sleeping, that they've just had sex with and all sorts of other things.
00:32:41
Speaker
And one of the, I think, kind of most memorable stories that I heard from someone was she, it was a woman who was sort of like a regular hookup.
00:32:52
Speaker
And like after that relationship ended, she was sent these images or this is this video of her giving a blowjob to
00:32:59
Speaker
her old hookup partner, and that video had been circulated or was circulating in a group chat in that, you know, in that fraternity chapter.
00:33:07
Speaker
And so she was really upset about it and went to the fraternity and just said, I, you know, sent this video anonymously.
00:33:14
Speaker
I know that you guys are circulating that and they admitted that they had it and that they were circulating it.
00:33:18
Speaker
And they just said, it's not a big deal, right?
00:33:20
Speaker
Like,
00:33:20
Speaker
you don't understand the amount of content that kind of goes through this group chat.
00:33:24
Speaker
And so they described it as being kind of, you know, this is sort of the tits of the hour kind of thing where you were one of dozens of women or sort of videos like in that vein that we saw that day.
00:33:34
Speaker
And nobody really, you know, put any weight or value on it.
00:33:37
Speaker
And that was sort of the explanation.
00:33:39
Speaker
Which, okay, was that supposed to make her feel better?
00:33:42
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:33:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:45
Speaker
Like your tits are mid-cis, so we didn't look at it that much.
00:33:48
Speaker
Like, what?
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah, there was another one and I actually didn't see it, so I can't verify it, but I've heard about it from like many, many of my fraternity men.
00:33:57
Speaker
There was, this is slightly different, but there was a guy who had, it had like a painting of him having sex with two other sorority women, like very specifically detailed, like had hung it up over his bed and, you know, had that like hanging in his room for two years and,
00:34:15
Speaker
And again, I think you can sort of say like bad humor, like horribly offensive, but also just think about what that does to both the women who are featured in that painting, but also anybody who happens to see that painting.
00:34:28
Speaker
I mean, it's changes and impacts them and the whole sorority community, frankly, forever.
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:35
Speaker
I mean, it's disappointing because it does feel like the way that they're constantly able to subvert what should happen when you're allegedly in a sisterhood, which is like banding together to assert power in that situation, is like if they have blackmail material, then they can also...
00:34:50
Speaker
you know, sort of so discord where like women are more scared to speak out because they don't want that kind of stuff shared.
00:34:55
Speaker
So it's like they're constantly creating an environment where they either can skew the ratio in their favor, blame the women if anything untoward happens, and then get blackmail material.
00:35:05
Speaker
So even if they get a little bold, then they can threaten them in some way.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:09
Speaker
And I think when you have the existence of those kinds of group chats, there's this pressure that in order to fit in as a fraternity member, then everyone has to be an equal contributor to that.
00:35:18
Speaker
So you can't just be sort of the passive, like, well, I'm going to receive all of these images, but I'm not going to contribute anything to this golden pot.
00:35:25
Speaker
And so what it does, I think, is it turns people who would normally find this behavior offensive and irreprohensile.
00:35:32
Speaker
I would say that most men have probably had a conversation with their parents, at least I would hope, where they
00:35:37
Speaker
The parents say, like, you know, don't do this.
00:35:39
Speaker
This is wrong.
00:35:41
Speaker
But you get in an environment of group think when everyone else is doing it.
00:35:45
Speaker
And suddenly some of these things feel like good ideas or don't feel as harmful as they might have or would have because it's sort of within this insular environment.
00:35:53
Speaker
You think it's never going to get out.
00:35:55
Speaker
It's not that big of a deal.
00:35:56
Speaker
Everyone else is doing it.
00:35:57
Speaker
And I think it's sort of the failure to think reflectively about sort of the larger implications of what they're participating in and how they're impacting other people and themselves, frankly, is sort of frustrating and disappointing, to say at least.
00:36:11
Speaker
Have you heard, I mean, at this point, there's pretty strict revenge porn laws, both state by state and on the federal level.
00:36:18
Speaker
So have you heard of this being cracked down upon?
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah, in the state of Florida, there's actually a case that's going through right now
00:36:27
Speaker
And there was also one that was settled recently.
00:36:30
Speaker
And it was a similar sorority woman who was dating a fraternity man.
00:36:34
Speaker
And she actually had, you know, they had, she had sent him some nudes while they were dating.
00:36:39
Speaker
And then like when they broke up, he circulated them in the fraternity group chat.
00:36:43
Speaker
She found out about it and that case settled.
00:36:45
Speaker
And I reached out to her for a comment and she was not able to talk because of sort of the legal terms of that settlement.
00:36:52
Speaker
But so I was able to kind of report on what I was able to get access to.
00:36:55
Speaker
through public record laws and through other kinds of things.
00:36:58
Speaker
But yeah, you know, again, you think about, we might have laws against revenge porn, but you know, how many people have the luxury of actually pursuing a case?
Challenges of Reporting Sexual Assault
00:37:07
Speaker
And we were talking about tens of thousands of dollars.
00:37:10
Speaker
And so that really, and not only that, it's just, it's multiple years and a lot of emotional stress.
00:37:16
Speaker
And so that's essentially what all of these cases really are sort of depending upon is that, you know, you, sure it's wrong.
00:37:23
Speaker
You it's criminal.
00:37:24
Speaker
But the odds of somebody actually pursuing it, a case against you are very small.
00:37:29
Speaker
The risk is very low because it's just that the legal system is not set up in a way to reward swift justice.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah, I copied this passage from your book about the top reasons women gave for not reporting their assault.
00:37:41
Speaker
And respondents in this survey were allowed to select more than one response.
00:37:45
Speaker
One was the decision to handle it themselves, 48%.
00:37:47
Speaker
The belief that the incident wasn't serious enough to report, 47%.
00:37:52
Speaker
The individual felt embarrassed, ashamed, or that it would be too emotionally difficult to report, 41%.
00:37:57
Speaker
And the individual didn't believe that the support resources could help them, 21%.
00:38:00
Speaker
And that they didn't want to get the perpetrator in trouble, 24%.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think the last one is actually really important and probably underexplored too, is that, and be careful about making blanket statements here, but when you're accusing someone of something, whether it is just anyone, but particularly if you're part of a friend group and your status within that friend group is contingent upon good relations with somebody else, you feel really reluctant.
00:38:27
Speaker
You want to say something and you want to complain and you want relief, but you also don't
00:38:33
Speaker
don't because you feel bad like you don't want the person to get into trouble and so if I had like a dollar for every time somebody came into my office that said you know I had been sexually assaulted but I'm really worried about reporting because I don't want this person to I don't want my assailant to get kicked out of college he's a senior and he's worked really hard or I don't want him to get you know removed from like whatever whatever sort of privilege that he might have and I like will always let it pause and I turn to them and I say why
00:38:57
Speaker
right?
00:38:58
Speaker
Like, like why, right?
00:38:59
Speaker
Why don't you want this?
00:39:00
Speaker
And it's like, well, I mean, and I said, you were, so I said, so it's okay for you to have emotion, to be in a state of like sort of permanent emotional distress and to have to go to counseling for years and to be leery of men and sort of
00:39:14
Speaker
not, you know, not have it sort of a dysfunctional social life or, or it was sort of emotional health for a little, you know, some sort of period of time, but you don't want to cause an inconvenience to him because of a choice that he made.
00:39:24
Speaker
And so it's like, when you, like when you put it that way, right.
00:39:26
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, but it oftentimes it's still, there's so much pressure.
00:39:30
Speaker
It's so much easier just to sort of let it go and actually do something about it.
00:39:35
Speaker
And I, I am deeply sad that that's the case, but I also,
00:39:39
Speaker
having seen it enough and worked with it enough to also understand and not judge women for not doing that.
00:39:45
Speaker
Like it is so delicate and so, so, so hard.
00:39:49
Speaker
We've listened to countless women who have done it by the book and just the police force in general has not been female friendly.
00:39:56
Speaker
So even if you do...
00:39:57
Speaker
everything by the book and you think this person should be prosecuted, the chances of that person facing significant consequence are low and they'll gaslight you and blame you every step of the way.
00:40:07
Speaker
So that is its own trauma, right?
00:40:08
Speaker
Like going against an institution that you previously believed existed to protect you and then learning that it doesn't is really, really traumatic in itself.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's like learning that when you work for a company that HR isn't working for you, it's working for the company.
00:40:25
Speaker
And, you know, and I think that sororities or women just in general have that similar experience with Title IX.
00:40:31
Speaker
And we have a fabulous Title IX office at Rollins.
00:40:35
Speaker
And so this is not a personal critique, but just the way that Title IX is set up currently, it is not helpful to women, female victims.
00:40:44
Speaker
I mean, this is kind of a side note, but what's occurred to me in recent years is that we have very little language to describe the various kinds of rape.
00:40:54
Speaker
And so what happens is sometimes it's just hard to articulate all of the factors that are going into the coercive behavior outside of like what happens to women when it's like complete forcible rape.
00:41:05
Speaker
Like we've started to build that language, things like being intoxicated and some guy taking advantage of you or intoxicated, like these other kinds of rape that are not just like forcible rape.
00:41:13
Speaker
rape.
00:41:13
Speaker
So then like, if you're going to, how do you describe to someone, like, I think this would happen in one of the stories that you had in the book, what ended up, I think, making her rape case compelling is that during the court, so during, she went on a date with this guy willingly.
00:41:25
Speaker
And then she basically, he starts to get aggressive with her sexually.
00:41:28
Speaker
So then she agrees to have sex with him.
00:41:29
Speaker
So he'll stop being aggressive, but then he just outright punches her, like completely physically assaults her and leaves enough evidence so that she can,
00:41:37
Speaker
file a criminal complaint, but any other context, if she wasn't left with marks, he could argue she consented, right?
00:41:42
Speaker
Because he could argue to her that like you consented, like, because she did consent because she was trying to get him to stop being violent towards her, right?
00:41:48
Speaker
Or like stop scaring her.
00:41:49
Speaker
So how then do you go and have the language and be like, I consented, but it was under threat and duress, or I felt threatened and duress in that situation?
00:41:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
00:41:59
Speaker
The language of sexual assault is tricky.
00:42:03
Speaker
I mean, Amy Schumer uses the term grape.
00:42:05
Speaker
And I love that term, right?
00:42:06
Speaker
It's because it really is the sort of boundary of like, you know, or this sort of blurry, blurry.
00:42:12
Speaker
sense of like, we're not when we think of rape, we think of like mass stranger pulling you into a dark alley.
00:42:17
Speaker
And, you know, we know that that is not statistically even close to like what ends up happening.
00:42:22
Speaker
And most of it is happening in these sort of nebulous spaces where and on the college campus where alcohol is involved.
00:42:27
Speaker
That may start as consensual.
00:42:29
Speaker
That's also the tricky thing.
00:42:30
Speaker
So she did go on a date on him, right?
00:42:32
Speaker
And like, that's where it also gets tricky, where it's like, okay, you consented all the way up here.
00:42:36
Speaker
And then like, now you didn't, but now you have to describe why it was revoked.
00:42:39
Speaker
And that puts the onus on you.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:42:42
Speaker
I think when the way you described it as being this sense of being like propositioned or sort of being pressured so much and being in a state of inebriation, you're probably like tired, exhausted, or you just want to like, it's just easier just to give in.
00:42:56
Speaker
then to actually sort of like push back forcibly in those instances.
00:42:59
Speaker
And then, you know, I think that those are complex situations, but you know, obviously I don't think there is any excuse.
00:43:06
Speaker
It doesn't change.
00:43:07
Speaker
The emotions are still the same.
00:43:08
Speaker
If you're not a willing partner and you say no, like no means no, and your body can say no too.
Broader Rape Culture and Solutions
00:43:14
Speaker
And that has to be respected.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah, it requires such an element of trust because, yeah, you have to like, you can consent to a guy sexually and then they can turn out to be a psychopath that punches you in the face, right?
00:43:24
Speaker
Like that's the kind of thing where like somebody could big up all her text messages prior to that encounter and be like, oh, you were totally down to have sex with this guy.
00:43:31
Speaker
What happened?
00:43:32
Speaker
And like basically deny the idea that she didn't already want it, right?
00:43:35
Speaker
Like that's so tricky because like men take advantage of that situation because of how difficult it is to prove when somebody's violating your boundaries in the moment.
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:43
Speaker
I don't have any really great answers for that.
00:43:45
Speaker
I think it's within the one thing I will say, and this is not in defensive fraternities because of it, it's sort of just to provide a nuanced perspective is that, and you know, statistics on sexual assault and on rape are really, really hard to gain, to get access to in large part, because we don't have a firm definition other than like forcible, penetrable intercourse, which is very clear.
00:44:06
Speaker
Like everything else just feels, you know, feels murky or it feels, it's tricky.
00:44:12
Speaker
But more rapes actually don't have, they don't have any fraternity houses.
00:44:15
Speaker
They happen in dorms and in residence hall, which doesn't mean that they, that the relationship or sort of the prelude to that didn't happen or didn't start at a fraternity house.
00:44:24
Speaker
But I think it speaks to the broader problem of why we're as a culture and as we, we kind of struggle to really grapple with the full big spectrum of it is that because fraternities in that narrative are,
00:44:36
Speaker
serve as a really easy scapegoat.
00:44:38
Speaker
You know, like all of the rapists are sort of concentrated here.
00:44:40
Speaker
And if we could just shut fraternities down or if we could just like, you know, turn off those parties, then like,
00:44:45
Speaker
the rape problem will be solved.
00:44:47
Speaker
And the reality is, is like, no, actually, right there, we have a broader rape culture that is evolving and moving in and around these things.
00:44:55
Speaker
And so as somebody who's a mandatory reporter, but also as in a position on campus where, you know, I just work a lot with students and I have really strong relationships with them.
00:45:03
Speaker
I will, I will say that it's about 50, 50, like when they, that comes into my office, right?
00:45:08
Speaker
So I've just as many people who are not
00:45:10
Speaker
associated with fraternities or unaffiliated who are coming in and talking about rape as I do with, you know, sorority and fraternity members.
00:45:17
Speaker
But the stakes here are particularly highly, sorority women are put in a, are much less, in my experience, much less likely to report because they're socially bound into that community where an unaffiliated person, they're just like, fuck that.
00:45:31
Speaker
Like, sorry for my language.
00:45:32
Speaker
Like, yeah.
00:45:33
Speaker
Like they don't care, right?
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:35
Speaker
They're like, I don't care.
00:45:36
Speaker
Like I have no relationship to you.
00:45:37
Speaker
So it's just like, you know, you're not like my friends are still going to like me if I report this.
00:45:42
Speaker
So I think that there's a special danger for sorority women.
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
It's sort of disappointing because I think obviously they all try really hard to present the image.
00:45:49
Speaker
Like this is a sisterhood.
00:45:51
Speaker
We've got your back.
00:45:51
Speaker
We're your friends for life.
00:45:52
Speaker
And then just reading through your book and also talking to some...
00:45:55
Speaker
It's interesting because actually in some of my friends' cases, that was very much the case.
00:45:58
Speaker
And then other friends that like, they're basically, I can't stand any of my sorority sisters.
00:46:02
Speaker
And you start to realize like how loose those and flimsy those bonds actually are.
00:46:06
Speaker
So I feel like the aspirational model of a sorority of actually being a female-based sisterhood where they exert power would be great if they actually exerted power.
00:46:16
Speaker
If they actually did that instead of like trying to spend so much time like being pick-me's to the fraternities.
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:22
Speaker
Yep.
00:46:22
Speaker
I think you're absolutely right.
00:46:24
Speaker
I think that the whole structure of the way that the fraternity and sorority system is set up, it really puts women at a disadvantage.
00:46:30
Speaker
You don't really get them a fair shot to really magnify and do what they want to do.
00:46:33
Speaker
I think if, for example, if sororities could live and could exist independently without a fraternity structure, then I think they would be great.
00:46:40
Speaker
They really wouldn't need to compete with anybody.
00:46:42
Speaker
They would, they would really be sort of generally focused on themselves and on, and on sisterhood and bonds between women.
00:46:48
Speaker
But because they,
00:46:50
Speaker
of the way that fraternities are structured.
00:46:52
Speaker
It just, it puts them in competition with other sororities, but then internally, it also creates a level of hierarchy, you know, within themselves.
00:47:00
Speaker
And so, you know, I think it's hard to be a college student and you're emotionally developing, your brain's not fully developed.
00:47:07
Speaker
And so, you know, and a lot of
00:47:09
Speaker
People that age, students like feel the need to share everything, like every emotion that comes to their mind and that doesn't usually end well.
00:47:16
Speaker
And so it's hard, like it's emotionally taxing to be between the ages of 18 and 22.
00:47:20
Speaker
So it's a chaotic moment in your life in general, but like that kind of, it's a perfect storm to kind of have it be a really negative experience.
Empowering Sororities and Social Change
00:47:27
Speaker
So your suggestion of having sorority houses have the ability to throw parties is one way to subvert the power that the fraternities hold.
00:47:35
Speaker
Like what other suggestions do you have?
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's complex.
00:47:39
Speaker
So I would say that the other suggestion that I would have would be to think about how sororities can expand their dating pool.
00:47:48
Speaker
Yes.
00:47:49
Speaker
Thank God.
00:47:49
Speaker
I was going to suggest that at one point, like the only men in existence are not the ones in your campus.
00:47:54
Speaker
And I guess it depends on the school because some of them are literally in the middle of nowhere.
00:47:58
Speaker
So I do feel bad for those people, but there's a lot of schools that are smack dab in the middle of a major city or near one and you don't need it.
00:48:06
Speaker
Like you just don't need them.
00:48:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:08
Speaker
There's a couple of cases that are really interesting and I can't sort of reveal the names, but I talked to a number of people and some schools say there's a public school that
00:48:16
Speaker
that is kind of in the middle of nowhere.
00:48:18
Speaker
And that the dating culture, sort of the hookup culture on that campus is very much a sort of a, you know, 60, 40 school.
00:48:23
Speaker
And it's really, really, you know, kind of what we've been describing as really hookup based culture.
00:48:27
Speaker
But like then what's ended up happening in that, that school mostly was sort of self-contained, but then there's a small private liberal arts college.
00:48:34
Speaker
It's just, it's a male only liberal arts college.
00:48:37
Speaker
That's about 35, 45 minutes away.
00:48:39
Speaker
And so about five years ago, the women at this public institution discovered this, you know, this male school.
00:48:46
Speaker
right?
00:48:47
Speaker
It's all male school.
00:48:48
Speaker
And so they have decided like, they've actually have some structured ways in which they can get over to that campus.
00:48:54
Speaker
And so, right.
00:48:55
Speaker
And exactly right.
00:48:57
Speaker
And so like, they like bought a van and you know, they, they have designated drivers that like go over.
00:49:01
Speaker
And so they've kind of taken over that campus.
00:49:03
Speaker
And so like they've, they've reduced the sort of surplus that they have.
00:49:06
Speaker
And I also think like social media and online dating sites are
00:49:10
Speaker
also offer a wider picture or expand the dating market.
00:49:14
Speaker
I think some of my women will say that the dating market is expanded to undesirables.
00:49:19
Speaker
And so that's not really helpful.
00:49:21
Speaker
And so I think in theory, it sounds great, but in practicality, it becomes a little bit more tricky.
00:49:26
Speaker
And then also part of it is just
00:49:29
Speaker
You know what I always tell my sorority women is just to not to be a pygnesia.
00:49:34
Speaker
And I think it's just like grow into yourself that sometimes it sounds awful, but it can be really, really hard to not chase after and feel to kind of do what everyone else is doing.
00:49:43
Speaker
But if you're like really grow and develop yourself, like and think about like the
00:49:47
Speaker
College doesn't have to be the best four years of your life.
00:49:49
Speaker
It doesn't have to be the moment where you are the most sexually attractive and desirable and have the best kind of social life for many of the most successful and amazing women that I know college is kind of shitty and awful.
00:50:01
Speaker
You know, it was they were they struggled socially and they didn't have because they didn't have the desire or the ability to kind of chase that.
00:50:08
Speaker
And then as they've grown into their 20s and early 30s, it's just like they control the world and all of the people who and men in particular who might not have given them a glance in college or kind of clamoring over them.
00:50:20
Speaker
And I will point out to them, I do not.
00:50:22
Speaker
Be careful about paying attention to those guys because they didn't, they blew up my first shot.
00:50:26
Speaker
But I see that time and time again.
00:50:27
Speaker
And I think that that's also sort of a sad referendum on our culture too.
00:50:31
Speaker
So it's not meant to be encouraging as messages.
00:50:33
Speaker
Also kind of sad that women have to just sort of aren't able to really live in the moment in their, in their twenties that they have to wait for that delayed sense of being desirable.
00:50:44
Speaker
Well, I would love to as a sexual strategy, and I think this is something that FDS will try to tackle is like, because realistically, if you're free of your parents the first time, like you just you want to experiment.
00:50:53
Speaker
So I feel like it's hard to tell them, like, don't do any of this, kids.
00:50:57
Speaker
It's going to be better later, you know, because they said that in high school.
00:51:00
Speaker
And, you know.
00:51:01
Speaker
So you're just, by the time you get to college, you're somewhat jaded of that message that like, oh, wait till you're older.
00:51:05
Speaker
But find a way to allow them the space to party and sexually experiment.
00:51:11
Speaker
If they choose to sexually experiment in an environment that's not going to absolutely brutalize them for it.
00:51:16
Speaker
But the fraternity sorority environment brutalizes them for that, right?
00:51:20
Speaker
So it is like, they're not verbally slut shaming them, but they're creating entire structure by which they're either being tolerated
00:51:27
Speaker
totally exploited or like I already said, brutalized because of their, I think, very natural inclination to want to sexually experiment.
00:51:33
Speaker
You raised a really good point there.
00:51:35
Speaker
I think that it's really interesting.
00:51:37
Speaker
So most institutions that have fraternities and sororities have housing for them.
00:51:41
Speaker
There is a growing number and actually that kind of depends on where you are regionally, where they don't have the institution or for whatever reason, do not allow fraternity and sorority houses.
00:51:50
Speaker
And so
00:51:51
Speaker
Sometimes they'll give fraternities and sororities wings of existing Jordan's abilities.
00:51:55
Speaker
That doesn't solve the problem because you're still kind of clustering them together.
00:51:58
Speaker
But I went to an institution in Georgia
00:52:01
Speaker
that doesn't have fraternity and sorority houses.
00:52:04
Speaker
And it's so, I mean, there's no opportunity for people to live together.
00:52:07
Speaker
They all have to kind of like, they can live in the dorms, but then most of them, when they become upperclassmen, move off campus and live in just conventional houses or apartment complexes with, you know, a small group of friends.
00:52:16
Speaker
And that's really a sort of place where you see empowerment happen because, you know, you are a group of sorority women who are living together because you happen to be friends, maybe in a rented house.
00:52:27
Speaker
And you can throw parties there and you can control the shots and write and sort of determine and decide which men you want to involve or enter into that space or not.
00:52:37
Speaker
And like I am all for hookup culture.
00:52:39
Speaker
I think it doesn't have to be bad.
00:52:41
Speaker
I don't think it is rape and sexual assault don't have to swim in the same water as hookup culture, but it does, unfortunately.
00:52:47
Speaker
And so I am not making an argument for abstinence.
00:52:50
Speaker
But what I am saying is that there are ways in which
00:52:55
Speaker
It is possible at some institutions to kind of carve an alternate space.
00:53:00
Speaker
It's complicated at many institutions, especially residential campuses where the school will force you to live on campus for all four years.
00:53:09
Speaker
And so it's the movie theater model or a restaurant model where the restaurant doesn't make its money off of the main course, it's drinks and desserts.
00:53:16
Speaker
And so colleges and universities don't make their money from tuition.
00:53:19
Speaker
They make it from room and board.
00:53:21
Speaker
So that's why they do it.
00:53:22
Speaker
So again, the institution's complicit in this 100%.
00:53:25
Speaker
I love that idea.
00:53:26
Speaker
I mean, I think sororities making movements to be more independent and then creating an environment in which they can pick and choose the men who are involved would absolutely change everything, right?
00:53:36
Speaker
Because like at the end of the day, that's honestly how it should be anyways, because the fraternities are only as powerful as the amount of women they can invite.
00:53:45
Speaker
So if the sororities like band together, decide not to come or create their own alternative parties, we're rich there.
00:53:51
Speaker
They basically have bouncers to decide which men can get in and out.
00:53:55
Speaker
And this is how it functions in the real world, by the way, like both bars, like they let women in and then they pick and choose which men are allowed in because they don't want the creeps in there.
00:54:03
Speaker
you know, like, and the broke guys in there not buying drinks and also like creeping out the women so they don't come.
00:54:09
Speaker
So I feel like if they went to like the club model and then gave women a lot more power in that environment, or like if they're, I guess, especially if you're unaffiliated with the sorority, but even then like some way to like, uh, diversify the pool of men that so that you're not like just desperate to like get these fraternities to accept you.
00:54:25
Speaker
Like, why can't you like so discord between the fraternities?
00:54:27
Speaker
Like, I don't know.
00:54:28
Speaker
strategic, my mind is like, let's start shit between the two fraternities.
00:54:32
Speaker
Like there's so many ways to take back the power that I hope they explore.
00:54:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:37
Speaker
I also think it's really fascinating because like fraternities and sororities, they have a big presence on campus, a big cultural presence, and they have a big social presence.
00:54:45
Speaker
And so, but the numeric presence on campus is usually really small.
00:54:49
Speaker
So my college is an anomaly.
00:54:50
Speaker
We have a disproportionate number of fraternity and sorority members relatively to the other population.
00:54:56
Speaker
But on most campuses,
00:54:58
Speaker
It usually tops out at around 10 to 12% of the student body, which is nothing, right?
00:55:02
Speaker
Nothing.
00:55:03
Speaker
And so again, like they're flashy, they're out there, they wear the same, you know, they're matching outfits.
00:55:08
Speaker
And so you see them.
00:55:09
Speaker
But when you really kind of pull back and say, this is really only like 10% of the people on campus.
00:55:14
Speaker
And so there's like 90% of other people who are unaffiliated and that I could party with.
00:55:18
Speaker
I think that there needs to be a better way to get other people together that are not affiliated.
00:55:24
Speaker
What fraternities and stories do provide a structure, a place to go, right?
00:55:27
Speaker
A group of people that are
00:55:28
Speaker
pooling money to throw a party.
00:55:30
Speaker
And so it is the sort of desire for more of a club-based model that's accessible to everybody.
00:55:36
Speaker
Because if you don't have a fake ID, you can't get into a club, but you can't get into a fraternity party.
00:55:41
Speaker
And so that's the limit, right?
00:55:43
Speaker
Is it excludes most of the undergraduate population and they don't have access to that till the middle of their senior year.
00:55:50
Speaker
Not formally, but yeah.
00:55:52
Speaker
Well, not formally, but right.
00:55:54
Speaker
But also, I think, like, as I will say, right, sure, there's most students have that I know of have fake IDs of varying degrees of quality, and some of them have sort of a stash of them.
00:56:05
Speaker
But, you know, it's unreliable.
00:56:07
Speaker
Like, when you go to a club and you're underage, and you're coming with a group of friends, the odds that all of you are going to get in that all of your IDs are going to work are very low.
00:56:15
Speaker
And then you have to make a decision.
00:56:17
Speaker
It's unpredictable.
00:56:17
Speaker
So you're going to go out, you can't really guarantee that all of you are going to get into every place you go to.
00:56:21
Speaker
So it's a
00:56:22
Speaker
you know, why would you risk that?
00:56:24
Speaker
I worked as a bottle girl.
00:56:25
Speaker
And like, I was actually shocked to the extent that the bouncers at the clubs have different clubs that work.
00:56:29
Speaker
A lot of them like are practically like forensic scientists.
00:56:32
Speaker
They don't even look.
00:56:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:34
Speaker
Like they see so many IDs that they can spot
Conclusion and Guest Social Media
00:56:37
Speaker
it pretty well.
00:56:37
Speaker
It's interesting.
00:56:38
Speaker
It's a game that you're playing with, you know, China essentially about the bouncers in China, like who can produce the best fake ID and, you know,
00:56:46
Speaker
to be undetected.
00:56:47
Speaker
So I get it.
00:56:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:49
Speaker
All right.
00:56:49
Speaker
So this was a fascinating conversation.
00:56:51
Speaker
Thanks so much for coming.
00:56:53
Speaker
Thank you for having me.
00:56:54
Speaker
It was delightful and I love your podcast.
00:56:57
Speaker
And I'm glad I got to use my favorite word, pick Misha, at least once during this, right.
00:57:02
Speaker
Didn't get to use AFC, but I will, well, you can add that in later.
00:57:07
Speaker
So this is a great book.
00:57:08
Speaker
So the book is The Benefits of Friends Inside the Complicated World of Today's Stardews and Fraternities.
00:57:12
Speaker
A really, really great read.
00:57:14
Speaker
Really, really fascinating, insightful.
00:57:16
Speaker
And I hope anybody who's in college who's listening to this, take something away that they don't have to be powerless in that environment because it can really feel like you're powerless in that environment.
00:57:24
Speaker
And now that I think Jenna really beautifully explains the dynamics that are working against you, you can strategize how to take back your power in those environments.
00:57:32
Speaker
So I think that's our show, right?
00:57:33
Speaker
So yeah.
00:57:34
Speaker
That's our show.
00:57:35
Speaker
Check us out on our website if I want to discuss this episode, thefemaledatingstrategy.com forward slash forum.
00:57:40
Speaker
Also, follow us on Twitter at fem.strat.
00:57:42
Speaker
Actually, I should have asked you, can I follow you anywhere, Jana?
00:57:45
Speaker
Yeah, you can follow me on my Instagram.
00:57:48
Speaker
Yeah, LinkedIn, they can look on my website and definitely shoot me an email.
00:57:52
Speaker
The email is jmatthews, J-M-A-T, one T, H-E-W-S at Rollins.edu.
00:57:59
Speaker
You can find the book on Amazon, but I would love to hear from you.
00:58:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:58:03
Speaker
And you can also follow us on Instagram at underscore the female dating strategy and follow us on Patreon, patreon.com forward slash the female dating strategy for weekly bonus content.
00:58:12
Speaker
Thanks for listening, Queens.