First Rant of the Fall

Earlier this week a video of a frosh event at St Mary's University in Halifax was posted on the net. The video, as shown on CBC, shows a bunch of students being lead in a chant that amongst other things suggests that sex with under age girls and non-consensual sex are not only just OK but is fact what people (males) expect. Not surprisingly - every one is horrified. The university administration, alumni, educators and politicians are all expressing their disappointment with the student leadership at SMU,  while other post secondary institutions are somewhat sanctimoniously jumping on the bandwagon by stating how much more sensitive their frosh weeks are. Fair enough. While it is hard to believe that in 2013 this issue even needs to be discussed, people who lead and participate in such activities need to be chastised in a very public way. Some of them will be forced to attend sensitivity sessions so that they can better understand why it was so wrong. I am not sure if that will do any good. One is sometimes forced to wonders if corporal punishment needs to be re-instated.

I am sure that those involved in frosh week at SMU are all quite embarrassed by this very public exposure. One hopes that their parents, their high school teachers and their university professors are also feeling embarrassed for their failure to instil in these young student leaders some basic understanding of human rights.

However this was not a new chant. According to media reports the same chant had been taught and practiced for a number of years during frosh (and one has to assume at other) events. Why didn't people get angry or upset last year? Or the year before that? Is the chant only so terribly wrong (and worthy of national news coverage) this year because it was exposed in such a public way?  Perhaps. Is St. Mary's the only university in Canada that has such antiquated rituals? I somehow don't think so.  

I suspect that the problem is far deeper than just a bunch of unaware, poorly educated students. I find it alarming that there were so many female students involved this year both as student leaders and as first year students who didn't express their outrage as the event was being planned or carried out. And with one exception last year no one complained then either - or the year before that. I don't mean that we should blame the victims or that it is only women who have a responsibility to protest where there are violations of basic human decency. However it is, as I have found out, very hard to engage young men in this dialogue when young women in my class are not prepared to support the basic argument that they are worthy of respect. As one young woman said of her frosh experience the previous year ..." I am not a feminist kind of person...so it didn't affect me personally"( National September 5, 2013. I want to yell out to her "Of course it affects you!!"

If I have any sensitivity or understanding as to the issues of equality that affect over half of the population of Canada it is because a number of caring, patient and sometimes forceful female peers took the time to share with me a different point of view; to teach me that the attitudes I had been raised with were potentially discriminatory, and to explain to me how important language was in the shaping of attitudes. I am grateful to those women. 

It saddens me that the young young men of today do not have such teachers and such friends.