OPINION & EDITORIAL
Drinking culture tolerates abuse
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by Letters to the Editor
Friday, February 23, 2007
I was surprised and angered to read in the "Alleged Rape at UW Frat" about how the University is handling the latest sexual assault allegations. University officials are attempting to pin the blame on alcohol, fraternities and the Greek System in general rather than the underlying problem. While alcohol lowers the need for force in sexual assaults, the larger societal issue is Wisconsin's drinking culture that tolerates abuse.
The Greek system on campus is working to address these issues through requiring all new pledges to complete a PAVE violence prevention workshop and developing the Fraternity Action Coalition, a one-credit independent study to examine the intersections of masculinity and violence against women. The University needs more programming in place to address sexual assault; this is not just a women's issue and it is certainly not simply the Greek Community's problem, it's our campus' problem.
Though sexual assault cannot simply be eradicated through an hour-long PAVE workshop or watching a movie at a SOAR program, these are great starting points. Sexual assault is the type of issue that needs extended periods of time and in-depth, open dialogue to actually get to the root of the problem. Though we are making progress we clearly have a long way to go—for the entire campus. UW needs to become more proactive instead of continuing to react to the instances of sexual assault.
Alexandra Cruickshank PAVE Peer Facilitator UW Junior Social Welfare Major Cruickshank@wisc.edu
Anonymous (February 23, 2007 @ 10:43am):
Abolish the Greek system. Drugs and alcohol are an integral part of the fraternity party scene. There's no need for further debate. Kick the frats off campus. Never mind their screams and their pleas, just kick 'em out!
Anonymous (February 23, 2007 @ 11:19am):
"the larger societal issue is Wisconsin's drinking culture that tolerates abuse"
Way to make something dramatic then never revisit it again. Care to elaborate on how the Wisconsin drinking culture tolerates abuse or was that simply a leader into your belief that the university needs to do more.
Anonymous (February 23, 2007 @ 12:04pm):
Eli Judge likes PAVE and therefore, by extension, wants to eliminate all drinking! He's a prohibitionist! Get him!
Anonymous (February 23, 2007 @ 12:56pm):
I think prohibition will work this time. Who wants to be the UW Al Capone?
Anonymous (February 23, 2007 @ 5:15pm):
it doesn't sound like PAVE wants to get rid of drinking--it sounds like it wants to talk about work with large groups of students to address responsibility, alcohol use, and violence prevention. Sexual assault might be facilitated by alcohol use, but certainly isn't caused by alcohol--it's caused by the choice of the perpetrator.
Anonymous (February 23, 2007 @ 11:52pm):
Alexandra - PAVE has brainwashed you
Anonymous (February 24, 2007 @ 12:12pm):
The problem with this campus with regards to rape is that the only kind of rape that is addressed is "street rape" girls walking home getting attacked by people they don't know. This kind of rape is a mear fraction of all rapes the most common begin druged and raped or begin raped by someone you know. Also they are using the fact that alcohol was involved as a mitigating factor...it shouldn't be...alcohol does not lessen the responsiblity of the perpetator and it doesn't give the victim a greater responsiblity for what happened.
Anonymous (February 25, 2007 @ 3:04pm):
Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.
Just how old is that saying? Anybody know?
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