Listen to this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLh0RMpit1k[/youtube]
Does it send shivers up your spine? Make you feel chilled?
That’s what it did to me.
The chanting pack, the ‘No means Yes’ mantra, the threatening insistent tone, the sense of ritualised aggression.
It felt like something the Klu Klux Klan might have produced. With Blacks exchanged for Women.
What you just heard though isn’t from a despised hate group. It’s the collective chant of a mob of privileged young men. Proud members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity of Yale University.
It wasn’t just the phrase ‘No means Yes’ they chanted. Added to that was ‘Yes means anal’, for that extra sense of domination. Get her on her knees and show her whose boss, young gentleman of Yale.
And it’s not like it’s even a one-off. Imagine being a survivor of sexual assault seeking counseling and support from the Women’s Centre, when this happens.
In 2006, fraternity members marched outside the Women’s Center on campus, chanting the same words. Two years later, members of another fraternity shouted about ‘Yale sluts’, also outside the Women’s Center. Michael Kimmell, writing for the MS Blog, asks these questions:
What does it mean to chant “No Means Yes” outside the campus Women’s Center, the place that offers a safe space for women who have been assaulted or abused? What does it mean to target the one place where women might actually feel safe enough to find their own voice, feel strong enough to succeed in a world still marred by gender inequality? It’s a reminder that men still rule, that bro’s will always come before “ho’s”. Even the Women’s Center can’t protect you.
Given that this is the latest in what appears to be a pattern of behavior among a number of Yale students, given that there was 13 sexual assaults committed by Yale students on campus in 2008, and given that Yale’s chiefs would claim to be against violence against women, why does this continue?
Why doesn’t such behavior constitute instant expulsion? Why is a fraternity which spreads hate speech as one of its activities not shut down? Why should wealth and privilege protect these thugs from just consequences?
It’s not hard to picture men like that in t.shirts like this:
A woman is bound and bleeding. But she’s told to ‘Relax, it’s just sex’.
This t.shirt is being sold in Australia today. To men and schoolboys here.
I’ve written about t.shirts mocking sexual assault and inciting crimes of violence against women and girls here before, and here. ‘It’s not rape if you yell surprise’, ‘It’s not rape, it’s surprise sex’, and, more recently, brought to you by Sexpo: ‘Silence is Golden’, depicting a bound woman with a red ball stuffed in her mouth, were a couple I highlighted.
Roger David’s range of tees depicted women bound, gagged, blindbolded and semi-naked. The company has continued to ignore complaints. Zero response, don’t give a damn. Ignore them back this Christmas.
Anyway, this latest monstrosity, ‘Relax it’s just sex’, is produced by that bastion of respect for women, Hustler. The U.S-based porn empire has exported its vile product to be sold in mainstream stores here. Just doing their bit to further entrench a culture of violence and every-day threat to women.
Of course, Collective Shout members are speaking out against it. And Queensland’s Women’s Minister raised the issue in State Parliament a couple of weeks ago. See this piece on Collective Shout’s website.
No doesn’t mean yes. We don’t consent to being treated this way.
9 Responses
What’s even more frightening to me is that these young ‘men’ graduate from Yale into positions of almost unparallelled power and influence. Alumni include 5 Presidents of the United States, 4 Vice Presidents, 3 Supreme Court Justices and dozens of media barons and company heads. No wonder these little boys think nobody can tell them what to do.
Sorry that was unclear – was referring to alumni of DKE specifically, not just Yale.
Am sick to my very core!
I remember Naomi Wolf confronted Yale over a sexual harassment incident she experienced as an undergraduate. You can read her full story in the following link, and it doesn’t end on a promising note: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9932/
In the words of Wolf in that article: “I simply need to know that the institution is accountable”
this makes me sick to my core. i would be interested to know how Yale deals with such cases- do the men get expelled? are the police called? or does it all get swept under the rug? Disgusting!
Nicole…yep that is very frightening. It’s all about education isn’t it. If young children are educated to treat each other no matter what the sex with honour and respect then when they are exposed to this kind of stuff as older children/teens it has way less effect on them – often they are offended/totally grossed out and walk the other way. If parents are unable or unwilling to educate their children and also to treat their own children with honour and respect and also the people around them what hope do kids have?? The empty void is filled with whatever is in front of them.
How very sickening. I thought by now society would treat both genders with equility. I thought this whole “men rule women” thing would be over by now.
If Yale is indeed a leading place of learning then I think they should address these archaic mantras.
Where are the Leaders amongst this rabble. Where are the men who are speaking up and saying this is not good enough. We need leaders today who are not afraid to speak and who think about the actuality of their lives. Our world is in need of leaders who change what is here for the better, who are not fearful and willing to confront this pack mentality.
This is a group of sheep.
How base society is becoming in the modern world today; animalistic in its behaviour towards women and children and so litte respect for the common good. The behaviour of these so called ‘educated’ men is nothing short of thuggery! Very sad and disturbing. I can only hope that the chants were fuelled by alcohol more so than a staunch belief of the horrid words they uttered. Steve.