Old dominion university sigma nu11/4/2023 ![]() The suggestion that women should suppress their anger in deference to grown men who want to marginalize them in the name of “a little fun” is childish. And if we have indeed reached a place where some thoughtless people get called out for using the language of a culture that normalizes the objectification of and violence against women, that may be progress. What is different is that, this time, the social acceptability of “boys being boys” at the expense of the dignity of the women around them is finally changing, or at least being questioned. Signs like those at Old Dominion are, sadly, neither novel nor particularly unusual. Outrage flows freely on college campuses-sometimes indiscriminately, but also frequently quite pointedly. And the notion that foolish people doing thoughtless things isn’t newsworthy is absurd. We, as individuals and as societies, establish identities around the words used in private conversations, the ones shouted on banners, and those printed in magazines. To downplay the banners as meaningless also ignores what culture actually is and where it comes from.Ĭulture is inextricable from language. But it is more difficult to see how he reaches the conclusion that they were, therefore, “not very offensive.” It’s precisely the erasure of individuality-the targeting of baby girls, freshmen girls, and their mothers-that’s problematic, and yet it’s the same mechanism that’s being offered up as an excuse. It’s certainly true that, as Reason’s Robby Soave put it, “no specific person is being maligned, threatened, or disparaged” by the signs at Old Dominion. And it’s reasonable to conclude that taking down a couple of crass banners isn’t going to solve the real and persistent problems of sexual violence-on college campuses or anywhere else. It is understandable to feel exhausted by all the outrage, so much of which seems superficial and insincere. For some observers, they aren’t just vulgar, rude, suggestive, bawdy, ribald, derogatory, or uncouth––they’re an example of ‘rape culture.’” Conor then suggests that the anger over these banners is disproportionate to the provocation. ![]() “How did we reach a place,” Conor writes, “where Local Frat Makes Crude Joke causes staffers at the BBC, CNN, The Washington Post and USA Today to spring into action? The answer begins with one interpretation of the banners. My colleague Conor Friedersdorf makes perhaps the strongest version of this argument. And the furor also led some commentators to conclude that the outrage was largely misplaced. They drew condemnation from Old Dominion’s president, and caused the national fraternity to suspend its local chapter. I wonder what the incoming freshmen at Old Dominion University and their parents felt when they saw the banners hanging from a fraternity house over the weekend: “Rowdy and Fun, Hope Your Baby Girl Is Ready for a Good Time.” “Freshman Daughter Drop Off,” and “Go Ahead and Drop Off Mom Too.”
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