Sexual Assault

Reading all of these articles is just crushing, it's absolutely disgusting. The fact that all these stupid guys get away with raping someone is just deplorable. I say this because I'm addressing the fact that women are raped mostly by heterosexual men, I will not be talking about the rape of men because while it is an issue, it's not the more prevalent issue. I think the biggest problem I have with this whole subject is that people can attack the victim. That they would call her a slut or a bitch or claim she had to have been asking for it. The fact no one tells these boys that they can't rape women, they can't hurt women, and that women are told to watch their clothing, carry pepper spray, know self defense, not get drunk etc. is HORRIBLE. Why aren't we telling boys these things? It's no one's fault but theirs. It's time to cut men down (for clarification I'm not saying make them feel bad about themselves, I'm saying not teaching men that they are better than others), there are so many problems in our society including sexual assault rooted in men feeling the right to things. It starts early when we teach children that they have to fit into a gender role, and consequently teach girls that they equate to less than what boys do. Example: a boy and girl are playing together, imagine they're playing with a doll house. The boy would most likely be stopped and told that he should do something "for boys" like...well anything but do something "for girls". However flip it around, the girl is more likely going to be told it's okay if she's doing something considered "for boys". That's a problem!! We shouldn't be telling kids they're wrong for that!! Our society puts such a high price on being manly and masculine which leads to this horrible notion that boys can do a lot more than girls. "Boys will be boys" is probably one of the worst sayings I've heard and when little boys hear it over time they feel like they're invincible. A lot of rape cases wouldn't happen if we just stopped telling boys they're invincible, that their actions are excusable because they're boys, and started teaching them they should never resort to raping women for their own enjoyment.

Hazing

Maybe it's just because Frat/Sorority life in general sounds really dumb to me, but hazing is so unnecessary. I don't understand people who defend it (like here) because I don't see how that brings people together. I would think this would make you hate them or at least resent them. I understand that sometimes going through hell with people can bring you closer, but I think hazing is the wrong way to do that. Public service, like building houses or doing some gross job needed to benefit the community, might be a much better way to grow closer. It's safer and actually has meaning in the world. The whole alcohol part to me is the worst though, alcohol is not something to joke around with. Annually there are around 50,000 people who get alcohol poisoning (many aren't reported) and 1 in 1000 die (source). The fact that frat life and hazing involves so much alcohol is terrible, and that people die from this at frats/sororities is horrible. Hazing really does need to be stopped, but to be honest I doubt we'll ever really get rid of hazing.