‘Acquaintance Rape’ and Society’s Violence
This letter is in response to Susan Ervin-Tripp’s article (Editorial Pages, Dec. 26), “Acquaintance Rape Grows Along With Society’s Violence.”
When I began college in 1966 the dormitories were clearly designated for either men or women. They were constructed as physically far apart as the campus limits allowed. Barriers of all types surrounded the women’s living quarters. Streets, water hazards of all kinds, plants, fences, walls, even guard stations had to be breached for male students to get anywhere near a co-ed’s room.
And even if you made it past the exterior obstacle course, you still had to face the Wicked Witch of the West always on duty in the lobby of the dorm. Schools prided themselves on the humorlessness of the “housemothers” they hired. Forever wearing a black dress and sensible shoes, even the football captain kept his distance. Arriving back late with your date usually involved climbing prearranged sheets tied together hanging from a third floor window in the back.
By the time I graduated in 1970, all this had changed. The witch was gone and men and women were living in the same dorms together. Most importantly, it worked. All was well. But that was the 1960s.
In the 1960s, college students were living a completely different political, social, and personal agenda than the college students of today. Notice I said living . Many students today pay lip service to the very same goals that students of the ‘60s actually pursued. But they do it scratching and clawing their way through the 1980s philosophy of materialism, rejecting spirituality, and sanctifying aggression, all antithetical to the philosophy of the college ‘60s.
Now, dog eat dog is the order of the day with the bitch and the male locked in battle for the same corporate future.
The university today is used for little more than training the business gladiators for the arena, also known as the job placement office. Thanks to the women’s movement, college males now view women as equals in the job market, and, indeed, lose coveted positions to them all the time. They must do battle with women to achieve and enhance their livelihoods. In other words, in the 1980s in the placement office as well as the corporate office women are frequently viewed as the enemy, an object of hostility, and, yes, even violence. Acquaintance rape in such an atmosphere should come as a surprise to no one.
The women’s movement has always done as much as possible to minimize the physical, emotional, and psychological differences between man and woman, almost to the point of pretending that such differences do not exist. I am very afraid one of the price tags for this avoidance may well be rape.
Why would it not be logical for an aggressive, hostile man, threatened by an equally aggressive woman to subdue her with any means open to him? Given the same physical and psychological weapons, would not an equally aggressive woman attempt the same thing? Are women asking for special treatment, because in the final analysis, they are different?
The college campus, like the corporate office, has turned into a battleground. Women have insisted on and attained the right to fight. Men expect to get hurt in battle. Women used to bring coffee and sandwiches to the front. Now they are the front, and some are going to get hurt. Frankly, I’d be just as happy making coffee and sandwiches. But then, I’m not a violent man.
GREG BOEHMER
West Hollywood
