A fair question that’s been lobbied at me by various individuals who have read my column has been whether we even need to worry about feminism, especially on a campus as progressive as Middlebury. This is often followed by the assertion that women are perfectly fine in today’s society, so feminism isn’t relevant anymore. Well, I have two responses: The first is that I don’t think Middlebury is a particularly progressive campus, and I think many points in last year’s op-eds by Rhiya Trivedi prove that. I wouldn’t attempt to say we have an especially or extraordinarily hostile campus towards women, but we certainly aren’t the most progressive when it comes to feminism on this campus. Feminism is certainly not a goal of the College.
Which brings me to the second part of my answer — that increasing feminist action and awareness should be a major goal of the campus. Why? Because this campus has some issues, people. Engaged feminism has rarely been more pertinent to me, and to this campus, than this past week. In light of the recent alcohol survey results — none of which were particularly surprising — I think it’s time for a little introspection. Obviously I’m going to take the feminist lens on this.
Full disclosure: it would be naive of me to say that anything highlighted by these stats is at all shocking. It would also be blithe of me to ignore the largely race and class-based differentials that were spotlighted by these surveys — not to mention the fact that these statistics are only representative of those who actually chose to respond.
The fact that male athletes are the most likely group to have unprotected sex, and that first-years are most likely to have unwanted sexual experiences is genuinely troubling. We have had some excellent programming that highlights the issue of consent, such as last week’s Sex Signals and the student-run event “It Happens Here” last year. But I have to wonder if that’s enough. How do we go about changing the culture so that there isn’t a category of people who are more likely to engage in questionable behavior in which women are often those that are most compromised. While some may argue that Middlebury is better than our peer institutions, I don’t think that’s good enough. We shouldn’t be satisfied with the fact that our campus may be better than other schools when it comes to the possibility of unsafe sex or unwanted sexual encounters. Instead, our goal should be to have a sex culture that promotes positive and safe encounters for those who express both consent and desire. Only when this positive culture is realized will these statistics become unnecessary.
Feminism can play a major role in creating a more positive and safe campus culture. The numbers show that we still have a long way to go in female empowerment on this campus, particularly for first-years. This is not a judgment on hook-up culture; in fact, I don’t think female empowerment and our hook-up culture have to be mutually exclusive. Nor is it necessarily a judgment meant to single out or stigmatize our athletes, as that would be both unfair and malicious.
Alcohol clearly comes into this conversation, as it impairs judgment, but I think it would be a cop-out to solely focus on that aspect of this problem — that would be the easy answer. Drinking is not an excuse for behavior, nor is it a legal or moral exoneration. In addition, I don’t see our drinking culture drastically reducing or changing anytime soon.
Instead, I believe it is necessary to move the conversation from sporadic events to a larger campus-wide venue. Truthfully, I’m not sure how we should go about doing this. But I do know that if there are pockets of the community that are more likely to engage in “risky” or potentially harmful behaviors, they must be part of this conversation. I think a big part of it is removing the stigma of female empowerment and making sure that we understand that feminism can have a positive impact on more than 50 percent of our campus.
It affects our campus’s culture of sex, our social culture and the general health of our college. Why wouldn’t we want our campus to be a safe environment where newer students are able to feel completely comfortable? I think that sounds like a more fun Friday night out, don’t you?
Listen to Sam Kaufman discuss her column with the Campus' Will Henriques.
