I was among the thousands of disturbed students when the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee tag unceremoniously trended on Facebook. While I had hoped it was for academic achievement, or perhaps the origin of the next Ice Bucket Challenge, the headline was equally horrifying and sadly familiar.
Tau Kappa Epsilon, a fraternity at UW-Milwaukee, is under investigation for using a pre-meditated system to drug female students at a party they hosted in early September. Fraternity members allegedly marked the largely under-age drinkers with either a red or black “X” on their hands when they arrived. Three female attendees with red “X’s” were admitted to the hospital after having consumed a drink containing Rohypnol, commonly known as a “roofie.” Roofies are most often used as a date rape drug, meant to sedate a victim and therefore make them an easier target for rape or sexual assault.
Horror stories involving sexual assault and the use of roofies, particularly at college fraternity houses, are not only relatively common but close to home. Five years ago, the Badger Herald revealed the story of a University of Wisconsin female student who had been violently raped on campus. She had blacked out and awoken on the floor of the Sigma Chi fraternity, with no recollection of what had happened. A trip to Meriter hospital revealed that she had been raped and “most likely by more than one person.”
Though I have not experienced the effects of Rohypnol or rape, I am a victim of sexual assault on this campus. What surprised me most about the aftermath of this experience was not necessarily the violation and disgust I felt, but the mixture of self-loathing and guilt. It is a response transcending rationality, so much so that I joined hundreds upon thousands of silent voices who have not officially reported their experience.
This deafening silence I share with other sexual assault victims largely stems from rampant victim-blaming, a term adopted for accusing women of eliciting their sexual attack. This ingrained construct has emerged from centuries of regulating female sexuality and establishing their “inferior place” in the social hierarchy. This system forces women to not only be blamed for men’s poor treatment of them, but also leads to women expecting said treatment.
I found myself going through this cycle first-hand my freshman year, in the ratchet basement of a UW fraternity house. The first unwelcomed advance I teasingly shrugged off with a figurative slap on the wrist and coy smile. The next move was more forceful but still denied. On the third attempt, I gave up. I could blame the alcohol, the dimmed lights, the basement seemingly disconnected from the outside world, even myself for entering the party in the first place, but in the end, it was no fault but the person who had commenced and continued the advances.
Sexual assault does not only occur in fraternity houses, and before the angry comments and hashtags emerge, not all fraternity members are guilty of conducting or enabling these acts. I would be very surprised if one or two UW-Milwaukee Tau Kappa Epsilon members had not questioned the atrocity they were concocting.
But the fact remains that in a setting consisting of, and controlled by, all men, women are repeatedly violated. Given the current climate of gender relations I have already touched upon, fraternities are an “all-male” living and social situation capable of perpetuating the misogynistic tendencies that can lead to sexual crimes against women. It is the responsibility of these establishments to reverse this pattern, acknowledge and repent for past wrongs and forge a future with more respect for women and their persons.
A $5 cup purchased at the door does not give you the right to a woman’s body.
Audrey Piehl ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in history.
