The Campus Crisis?

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                       A story told me years ago came back the other day as life unfolds:  two psychiatrists, one female, one male, went together to a conference of their profession. They sat together. But something happened. During a lecture, the male psychiatrist placed his hand where he had no business placing it. The female psychiatrist was about to slap him in the face when suddenly -– after all she was a psychiatrist — she said to herself:   “Well, I guess the man has a problem.”

   I remembered this story as I read about male students at respected St. Mary’s University in Halifax, bringing discredit upon themselves and by affiliation their university  through one of the more boorish group acts of recent memory.  It’s happened on other campuses, including UBC.  So, to recall the female psychiatrist, “they” have a problem.  Indeed.  Moreover on thinking about it  I’d say our public culture has a problem. What’s behind it?

          My interest in the question takes me to the media and a recent window on its relevance to this issue. I’m referring to the news just breaking as I began this commentary about the dreadful treatment -– exploitation is  the more apt descriptive — of a late young female student,  Rehteah Parsons of Nova Scotia, whose brutalization by young males apparently drove her to suicide. The story is familiar, and she is now exploited further on the internet for commercial purposes. That opens the door on the internet itself, which as we are learning more and more can have consequences as harmful as helpful.

          In Canada the so-called Frosh Week -– or Orientation Week as some call it — with the increasingly bewildering rants at first year students,  have begun to virtually advocate rape. Yet many media outlets softened it all by using the descriptive “non-consensual sex”. The fact is that the young people shouting these ugly lyrics have been influenced by the language in the music of their culture. It often endorses rape, sometimes indirectly, sometimes forcefully. Its expressions are well beyond “sexism.” They are violent thereby calling for frank inclusion here so we know what we’re dealing with. At St. Mary’s University, with its noble Catholic past, the Halifax Chronicle Herald reported that women as well as men took part in the following chant: “Y is for your sister, O is for oh so tight, U is for underage, N is for no consent, G is for grab that ass….” That women would join the crowd simply reveals that a mindless mob mentality is still with us. (I know you don’t like the words, that’s why I call them disgraceful.)  But such dark movements are truly serious. They are becoming a large issue on campuses.

What’s behind it? Today’s music and lyrics have to take some if not all the blame. They may provoke it or simply reflect what’s already in the culture. One example out of many must do. The artists these young people listen to are not Bing Crosby or Vera Lynn. One is a performer whose rendition of some savagely vulgar lyrics (“Blurred Lines,”) was featured at a recent US awards ceremony.  We owe Globe & Mail columnist Gary Mason credit for revealing it for what it is. “Blurred Lines” he wrote recently, “has been widely interpreted as condoning sexual coercion and has been dubbed by some as ‘rape hop.’ There’s still more to concern you if you’re the parent of a teenager, male or female, caught up in its catchy beat including references to women as ‘bitches’ -– although this phenomenon is common enough in music these days to prompt mostly shrugs…”  Actually it’s been around for years in so-called Rap music, which is part sex, part gangster, always misogynist, often obscene. (US experts have documented its social harm. So hundreds if not thousands of students who yelled the ugly words at young newcomers at St. Mary’s in Halifax and UBC in Vancouver grew up listening and influenced by hate-filled and provably harmful lyrics.  Sexual aggression is thereby glorified.  (When confronted later with the ugliness, the students were actually shocked that anybody dared even criticize their words.)  So here’s a question: what’s the responsibility of the radio stations playing  it? And beyond that the listeners and advertisers who back it.

It’s not entirely dark. The university presidents and student leaders, east to west, have spoken up. At first they seemed weak and tepid, (Nova Scotia Premier Daryl Dexter was an example, calling  the St. Mary’s incident “disturbing.” Well, after all, an election is in the offing.)  But in a day or so, given the national outrage, the utterances took on a decidedly harsh edge, one the incidents fully deserved.  Many students, male and female, were up in arms from the very beginning, calling the chants “outrageous” and “misogynistic.” The seed of hope is in that student response. It was expressed in a mid 19^th century observation of Robert Louis Stevenson: “Our two natures at are war -— the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them. One must conquer. In our hands is the power to choose….”  That’s our hope. 

 

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