Sexual Climate Forum: Recap

Last Monday, October 27, students poured into the chapel for SGA’s first Sexual Climate Forum. The e-mail advertised a night that ‘aims to educate the student body on consent and the current sexual climate on campus, hopefully generating an extended dialogue about ways to improve the student experience,’ or, for people like me who didn’t read beyond the Campus Distributions headline, a 

night of candid discussion on the current state of sexuality on this campus. Maybe I should have read the whole e-mail, but the forum was completely belied my expectations. I’ll admit that I had no idea the talk was going to be led by someone outside of Colgate. But I put my faith in Liz Canner, the guest speaker for the evening, to facilitate productive, sensitive discussion. Canner began by asking the audience where they felt safe and unsafe on campus. Safe spaces included Women’s Studies, the Counseling Center, and ALANA, among others. Unsafe spaces ranged from downtown to ‘anywhere at night,’ to in a voice on the far left that called out, ‘basements.’ “Fraternity basements?” Canner asked.

There was a muffled response that neither I, nor my friends, nor Canner (I imagine) was able to hear. Yet “Fraternity Basements” became the buzzword of the evening.

         Statistics and clips from Canner’s films followed, almost all of which revolved around the relationship between greek life and sexual assault. Exaggerated claims based on hearsay came from both sides. One woman claimed that a male campus safety officer tackling a female student outside a fraternity was sexist. Greek-affiliated students scoffed at harrowing stories of sexual harassment, refusing to own up to their part of the blame. Was I misinformed? Was it in the e-mail? I had assumed that the forum was a campus-wide event. Tailoring the dialogue specifically toward fraternities seemed exclusive and misguided. I was nervous that if I put a question on the anonymous forum, it wouldn’t get read, so I decided to raise my hand. Not a little nervous, I started to stand up and decided instead to just lean forward, asking whether or not she thought Greek life had to be abolished, or whether she thought it could be rehabilitated? “Well,” she smirked, “I hate to break it to you, but,” She pulled up a statistic: Fraternity men are three times more likely to rape than other men on campus. “There’s your answer. So yea, I do think it has to be abolished.”But it wasn’t an answer. It was a statistic. There was no mention of reform, of rehabilitation, of faith. Rather, I received an antagonistic piece of dogma that left me shrinking back in my seat. A series of leading questions and oversimplified theories followed like dance steps, including the “Economic Exchange” where fraternity men expect women to have sex with them because they provided the alcohol, or a kind of sublimation, where hazing primes pledges to rape to deny feelings of homosexuality. A rare male hand rose from the crowd. “I have to say,” he began, “I’m a little disappointed with the direction this discussion has taken. I thought we were going to talk about the sexual climate as a whole, and I feel like we’re only talking about fraternities. If most assault on campus is committed by serial rapists, and let’s say all the fraternities and sororities on campus disappeared tomorrow, isn’t it clear that these people will still find ways to rape women? I thought this was about helping everyone feel safe on this campus, and not about—-”

         The final words of his comment were complicated by an onslaught of snaps and woops from an overwhelming portion of the crowd, then completely drowned out as Canner leaned into the mic with a “yea, yea, yea, well, I don’t want to get finger-pointing and all that.” But her blasé response wasn’t enough to quell the audience. Anonymous submissions to the forum from women who had been assaulted by unaffiliated men poured in, admonishing Canner for having sidestepped their concerns. The previous silence of the audience had given way to a noticeable muffle, as we turned to one another in waves of sudden opinion. “That’s good to know, good to know” Canner conceded, then continued on to another slide about fraternities and sexual assault on campus. Maybe it’s my attention span, maybe I have a problem with following through, but it was then that I got up and left.

          I don’t want to argue that sexual assault isn’t one of, if not the most visceral problem on this campus, and I know that much of it is found in Greek houses, but there has to be a better way to deal with it. A way that doesn’t end in fear-mongering and pitting 

genders against one another, rather than helping them come together. If anything, the climate was helpful in that it illuminated the exaggerated fallacies inherent in Canner’s approach to students on both sides of the issue. It made us realize that change isn’t going to come from statistics and ‘finger-pointing.’ It has to come from within. It demands a huge shift in the cultural mindset of this campus. It requires sensitivity on both the part of the speaker and the listener, and a genuine desire to help. I won’t say that the forum wasn’t useful, or that it failed in any sense of the word. But a night of education on a topic so swept under the rug demands open discussion, without hidden aims. Maybe when discussing a problem so centered on hate, it takes a common enemy to illuminate the truth.