@Arella Mae,
Quote:It is a shame that it has to go so far as to ban alcohol from the frat houses, etc., but if that is how it has to be to help women be safe from getting raped at a party, I am all for it.
This is one of those things where it is definitely better to be safe than sorry.
It was all of the campus fraternity presidents who voted for the alcohol ban--they initiated it themselves. Three reports of sexual assaults, at 3 different fraternity parties, in a three week period, seems to have shook up everyone on the U of M campus. The school year just started, so you really don't expect that many sexual assault reports that close together.
I think this shows some recognition that these young men and women really can't control their drinking very well, and the results can be disastrous. We've had many postings in this thread about the relationship between alcohol abuse and sexual assault on college campuses. Many young men can, and do, disregard the legalities of "consent" when the woman is extremely intoxicated, both because they've had a few drinks too, and because this has been accepted as the norm in the frat houses. This leads to young women being raped, and young men having to deal with the rape charges. So, having a voluntary ban on alcohol at these parties, is a good starting point to try to deal with the problem.
A good part of the problem is that the young men view sex with very intoxicated women as acceptable, and, particularly in a frat house, they may support each other in doing this, and actively encourage it-- the idea may simply be to get as much sex as possible, regardless of the circumstances, and regardless of the emotional consequences to the women being abused for this purpose. So, the only way to begin to tackle that sort of thing, is for some men to challenge that way of thinking about sex and about women and about "consent". That seems to be what the fraternity presidents are trying to do. If you remove the alcohol from the party, you are creating a situation where people have to interact in a much more sober state. That means the emphasis is off trying to get the women drunk just to be able to score with them. And the women don't have to get drunk just to be able to feel comfortable in that situation. Everyone can think more clearly if you take binge drinking out of the equation.
I agree, it is better to be safe than sorry. And trying to decrease the amount of alcohol abuse seems to be a good idea health-wise, given the extent of that problem at colleges.