A sobering reminder of how much still needs to change on campus

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Wal-mart decision, I found this a sad reminder of how far young women still must travel for true respect:

The recent “She Roars” conference at Princeton celebrated 42 years of coeducation and featured such powerhouse alumnae as Justice Sonia Sotomayor, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, and Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp. When I entered Princeton in 1973, the university had been coed for four years. Now, it was hosting a celebration of women’s empowerment, unveiling a landmark study on undergraduate women’s leadership.

On the conference’s opening night, a female a cappella group, the Princeton Tigerlilies, gave a concert. The girls sang prettily, dressed in short black frocks and high pumps.

Then the group’s all male a cappella counterpart, the Nassoons, performed. For the song “ShamaLama,” they serenaded one of the Tigerlilies onstage, with choreography: In rhythm, they pantomimed unzipping their flies, and bluntly thrust their pelvises forward at the lone young woman on stage. Sixteen guys, one girl. The guys smirked, the girl smiled meekly.

I am an ex-director of a collegiate a cappella group. As are my husband and both of our sons. We’re steeped in the traditions and humor. But this was worse than tacky. Women around me were agape with disbelief.

Should we have been surprised, with Yale being sued for its frat boys chanting “No means yes,” and headlines on alleged sexually predatory behavior dominating the news (think Dominique Strauss-Kahn)? Despite decades of women’s “empowerment,” male sexual prerogative is alive and well in our society, and among these Princeton undergrads.

My She Roars schedule showed no events addressing this kind of hostile environment or date rape – and only a glancing reference to sexual assault in the “Undergraduate Women and Leadership” report.

I began feeling angry. Because of the way my own life had changed at Princeton during freshman year. On a rainy night, whose events I’d suppressed for years until hearing a report about date rape on NPR brought it back.

Following a big exam, my resident advisor (RA) treated his rugby friends and me to a beer at a neighborhood roadhouse. After we returned to the dorm and said our goodnights, there was a knock at my door. The rugby team captain asked if he could sleep on my roommate’s vacant bed, since it would be such a rainy walk up campus.

I still don’t know why I let him in. I was not drunk; I remember every minute of the next hour. I said no, he said yes. I struggled; he was the rugby player. When he had finished raping me, he went back to his dorm in the rain. I remember him calling the next day to “see how I was.” I remember hearing people laughing in the background.

He was the friend of my RA, someone I respected. It didn’t make sense. I told no one. I stayed in my nightgown the whole next day.

For years I thought that by letting the guy in, I was somehow complicit in the crime.

I wonder about the climate for Princeton women now, where girls smile prettily while sixteen men pantomime what is essentially gang rape in front of an audience of middle-aged women, many of them moms.

Sexual conquest for a nineteen-year-old man is one step on the ladder to success. Not so for the nineteen-year-old girl who did not consent.

Read the whole thing.

We live in a culture that celebrates "winning" and taking advantage of others to further our own wants, that glorifies a definition of individualism that includes no concept of civic virtue, respect for others, or community-mindedness. When anyone is taught that they should be able to do whatever they want to others, exploitation develops.

We still have a long way to go.