Appalling Attitude Toward Rape

To the Editors of the Crimson:

Half-asleep, on my way to breakfast this morning, I was confronted with a large photo of three bathing-suited beauties with the word "Budweiser" written across their torsos and the phrase "label conscious" above their heads (this photo was an ad on the back page of the magazine "U." which was door-dropped Wednesday morning). A minor tremor of indignation went through me, but I tried to shrug off the image of those women. If you let yourself be upset by such things as that, you will spend a great deal of time being angry.

I began reading your article entitled "Anti-Rape Counseling Planned" (February 10). If I wasn't lingering over my Salada tea I might not have bothered to read it at all. After all, rape? For me, the word connotes something so barbaric and underwordly that I have trouble connecting it with my own priviliged, sheltered experience at this university. This is despite the fact that I am acutely aware of the pervasiveness of sexism on campus which manifests itself in classes, in work situations, and in personal realtionships. So you see, I was reading through the article rather lazily.

Suddenly, one of the sentences leaped out from the page and struck me right across my complacent face. "In a survey at Harvard five years ago 93 percent of male students said that if 'they had the chance and were sure they would not get caught, they would consider forcing a woman to have sex without her consent,'" it said. I thought, no, it's not possible. That figure must be a typo! Probably the real percentage is only 73, or 43, or 13 percent. Then I thought, well, surveys are always questionable. Probably a lot of those guys were joking. Besides, since it would be caught, most of these guys probably won't try to realize this grotesque fantasy anyway. So maybe I could just shrug it off, just as I shrugged off those Budweiser maidens.

The trouble is. I really can't keep shrugging these things off. Because this situation is not only annoying and saddening, but damn terrifying. And I'm not just talking about the threat of rape. Probably more Harvard men will rape someone than anyone of us would like to guess. I, for one, would like to guess that none would. But I also know this is not the case and that, in fact, some have probably already committed this crime. Let us assume, though, that "the guys we know" would never do such a thing. Somehow, this is not very comforting. Because rape is only the tip of the sexist iceberg. We all know about the paucity of women professors; that male students dominate section discussions; that many women have become anorexic and bulemic in an attempt to fit the model set by, yes, that Budweiser ad. It is easy to shrug these things off because all of us are elites of one sort or another and because, of course, "guys we know" are good people.

Please, everyone, we simply cannot sit by slipping our Salada any longer. Sex oppression mutilates us all. We've got to be angry and sad and even afraid, and from these feelings we have to get the inspiration to transform ourselves and society. The personal and the political are, indeed, one, which means that each of us has his or her own skeleton closet to unpack. Please, don't wait another day. Iris Bennett '89