LB Klein, USA, Former SSH Blog Correspondent

Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) at University of California San Diego is blowing up my RSS feed right now for requiring pledges to solicit photos of women’s breasts with “Rush SAE” written on them. These SAE brothers didn’t invent this. Google “rush boobs” (or don’t, seriously don’t) and there are myriad search results. Total Frat Move refers to using women’s breasts as promotional objects as a “timeless tradition.” This story broke when UCSD student Rachel Friedman posted a chat conversation in which her SAE new member friend senior Spenser Cornett asked her to share topless photos of Ms. Friedman and her friends.

Rachel Friedman and the message she received. Image via Cosmo

More and more fraternity chapters are receiving sexual violence prevention education. A common strategy for engaging men in preventing sexual violence is to appeal to their relationships with women. We call upon men to think of their “mothers, sisters, and girlfriends” and to consider they wouldn’t want the important women in their lives to be harmed. However Mr. Cornett’s request, and I imagine others like it, is a friendly one. It is flanked by “lol funny story” and a laughing emoji. Sexism is often embedded within men’s relationships with women. Ms. Friedman and Mr. Cornett’s friendship illustrates a need to ask more of men in these relationships.

I genuinely believe that virtually all fraternity men don’t want their mothers, girlfriends, sisters, and women friends to be raped. That just isn’t enough anymore. Many of these young men would proudly pin on a white ribbon pledging they are against rape or host a 5K to benefit a local rape crisis center. That just isn’t enough anymore. We have raised enough awareness, and we need real action. In our educational efforts, we are indeed calling men to action. We ask young men to “stand up” and “fight back” with the same hypermasculine ideals that perpetuate violence. Because men are considered leaders, we ask them to lead, to make public displays about how intolerant of violence they are. That just isn’t enough anymore. Moving toward culture change will require these young men to question tradition and advocate for structural change. It will require them to listen to women. It will require them to do something revolutionary for men to do: follow. This change will mandate that they feel a little more uncomfortable to make women a little more comfortable.

I imagine that the SAE brothers who collected topless photos of their women friends were insulted when some folks tied their behavior to sexual violence. “This is harmless,” they might say. “Boys will be boys,” others might say. “She overreacted,” several have posted in the comments (Friendly reminder: don’t read the comments). Young men are faced with choices between working toward a gender equitable futures and holding tight to tradition that has favored them. Making the day-to-day choices to resist patriarchal tradition is hard, and we need to intentionally work with men to do it. We need to help them take these risks.

Otherwise, we are asking too little of men. If we are going to say that men should care about ending sexual violence because of their relationships, we need to demand they do better in these relationships. It isn’t enough to congratulate men for not committing sexual violence or to applaud them for saying they’re against rape. That is too easy. It does not foster the critical thinking and empathy needed to shut down “rush boobs” from the inside, as opposed to relying on women to call this behavior out when they are made to feel unsafe (though brava, Rachel Friedman). We need to balance ensuring our educational programs meet men where they are, while also nudging them forward.

Sexual violence is about power and control. To truly achieve culture change, we need to ask men to give up some power: not just rapists, all men. We can’t end violence while propping up the exact oppressive traditions and systems that perpetuate it. We can’t decry rape and laugh off objectification. I am willing to believe that institutions founded as boys’ clubs (like fraternities or indeed institutions of higher education) can evolve their traditions as we approach a more gender equitable futures. However, I do think that we need to call on these traditionally patriarchal institutions to prove it. We need to raise our standards for men as they become engaged in ending sexual violence. As fraternity men become more visible in the movement to end sexual violence, we need to hold them accountable. Men shouldn’t be able to have their feminist cookies, and eat their misogyny cake too.

I am indeed somebody’s daughter and wife. I am proud of the many men in my life I count as friends, and I take those relationships seriously. Because I love these men, I hold them to a higher standard than just not raping women. My bodily autonomy, my right to be subject and not object needs to be more important than my male friends’ egos. They need to treat me like a whole person of equal worth to them. They need to not only not participate in my objectification but to prevent others from doing so, to make that behavior so abhorrent that there is a social cost to those who engage in it. They need to give up some of their social power, as they are gaining it at my expense.

The hypothetical young man or men in SAE who could have spoken out against asking their friends for “rush boobs” would have taken a risk. While sexual violence is certainly far too common, sexism is far more ubiquitous. We need young men to make small changes in the spaces in which they are currently the most comfortable. Indeed, we will incrementally achieve culture change as men give up some of their space in the boardroom, the subway, and the university campus. We need to create a culture in which young men consider challenging their bros as less problematic than reducing their women friends to topless photos (“no face necessary, lol”).

Engaging men in their roles as “fathers, sons, husbands, and friends” can be a powerful way to initially activate men to create change, but we can’t stop there. That is just not enough anymore. To achieve culture change, we need men to be inconvenienced in the exact spaces they once felt the most secure, the ones in which they benefit the most from tradition.

LB is an Atlanta-based advocate and educator dedicated to ending gender-based violence, supporting survivors, and advancing social justice.  You can follow her on twitter @LB_Klein.