If you know me or are friends with me on any form of social media, you know I’ve been pretty vocal about my thoughts on systemic racism, misogyny, and other forms of oppression rampant in our society today. I have been feeling pretty hypocritical with my silence these last few days and just wanted to share my thoughts.
Earlier this week, my boyfriend and I were hanging out and I noticed how upset he looked. I obviously asked him what was wrong, and he explained to me a situation that had come about in a chapter of his frat. He described how a woman had come out accusing her ex-boyfriend of filming her and another brother having sexual relations from a window during a party, and how in the brothers’ views who were present, her narrative was not accurate. As my boyfriend explained the situation and his thoughts, I got pretty heated. I explained to him that even when perspectives seem to contradict, 1) you never doubt the words of a sexual assault/abuse survivor because it takes serious risk and courage to come out, 2) processing the trauma can really mess you up, so yes even though timing wise things might seem “sus”, you really cannot make any assumptions. I also brought up my experience with sexual assault to remind him how prevalent it was, that even his current girlfriend has trauma from her experience. We both saw where each other were coming from and were able to cool off…
Flash forward a few days with my social media feed filled with rape and sexual/emotional abuse testimonies. As a woman, I felt very upset to see how often these cases occur, but also relieved to know I wasn’t alone in remembering how hard it was to process my own trauma. My boyfriend would mention to me how certain brothers in his frat were being exposed, and we both agreed that at the end of the day, justice needed to be served. I did not think much of it other than that I supported these girls and was genuinely glad they were able to get things off of their chests.
Then I saw a post about how a large cross-chapter group chat was being exposed for normalizing fat-shaming, victim-shaming, un-consensual recordings, etc. and saw my boyfriend’s name on a list of 90+ people who were members of the chat. I remember feeling scared for him, but also knowing that he muted most of his fraternity chats and rarely ever responded, I did not think too much about it.
That night my boyfriend texted me that he “fucked up” and to look at an individual’s Instagram story. The story contained a series of horrendous messages from brothers criticizing the victim from the story I mentioned earlier in this post. One message however, haunted me the most:
My heart dropped. I could not believe my eyes. Seeing my boyfriend’s profile picture and his name besides this text, just broke me. Although I knew, “he did not mean it that way” and he had sent that message prior to our conversation, I also knew how badly this screenshot painted him. I knew that if during our personal one-on-one conversation from earlier that week on this topic brought about anger within me, strangers on the internet would be even more furious. I could not sleep that night. Out of panic, I constantly refreshed all social media posts sharing this chat seeing how many likes they received, looking out for who tagged/called out his social media accounts, and just watched how quickly the post spread like wildfire. I wanted do any damage control that was possible, but eventually I learned to just let it go.
Over time, I saw how blinded I was in wanting to protect my boyfriend’s reputation (and by extension, my own reputation). After re-reading the messages in the chat over and over again, I was shocked to see people I knew talking about women and rape culture in such an atrocious manner. I am still so angry knowing that although my boyfriend did not directly fat-shame or joke about rape, he still showed, by being in this chat and responding to these messages, that this misogynistic speech/banter was okay. This experience reminded me of why I had never been fond of Greek life — how it is so often associated with racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc. and why I have been so vocally against it since my bf and I started dating, asking him to not be involved. However, I know it is also important to remember that although Greek life is an easy scapegoat in this situation, we still have the right to question each individual’s character.
I spent almost every second of everyday this past week by my boyfriend’s side seeing him cripple with anxiety, guilt, and sadness. I watched as he wrote out an apology statement to all his followers and personally to the woman from the incident spoken about in the messages above. I saw people we both know passive aggressively calling him out in their insta stories and strangers directly calling him out for being a shitty person through DM’s and comments. At first, I felt extremely bad for him, but realized over time that in a way, this was justice.
My heart truly breaks for the woman whose story was mentioned above — not only having to relive the trauma of what happened to her that night, but also seeing these messages and knowing that 90+ brothers witnessed them, but zero stood up. This must have brought about so much anger and insecurity. I am so sorry. These groupchat messages were so raw and filter-less that they really cut to the core of the toxic masculinity that runs through Greek life and our society as a whole. The sad part is that this facetious, locker room talk is not exclusive to this fraternity. I truly hope this exposure allows all men to snap out of normalizing not only misogyny, but also racism (STOP SAYING THE N-WORD WHY IS THAT SO HARD FOR YOU) and homophobia (STOP SAYING F*G AND REFERRING TO EVERYTHING AS GAY — LIKE I DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT EITHER). Better yet, do more than these basic expectations of a decent human being. How? That’s really up to you — remain accountable for your brothers, listen to (don’t doubt) rape/sexual assault survivors, protest for oppressed groups, donate to reputable organizations, volunteer your time, etc. You can also simply spend time/become friends with people who are different than you in looks, gender, sexuality, race, religion, etc. to become more resilient towards prejudice and bigotry… Just some suggestions…
To all the friends who listened to me talk, cry, and process my thoughts, I appreciate you so so so much. I even reached out to a stranger online who called out my boyfriend for bringing shame to his grandmother that she saw in his profile pic — explaining that I understood where she was coming from completely, but asking her to give his Grandmother respect and not bring her into this because she had passed away from covid earlier this season. This conversation to my surprise brought about a lot of healing within me, as she told me that it wasn’t my job to teach him about this topic and how she understood how difficult it is when someone you love is implicated. I think it also helped my boyfriend knowing that this stranger was not in any way trying to attack his grandmother, but just his own character (something that he would have to work on himself).
To my bf, you know I love you. I know you enough to know you are better than this. You also know that as a person of faith, I stand for both mercy and justice. As much as I hate seeing people belittle you and tell you that you don’t deserve to have important women in your life (rightfully so), we both know this backlash is just. I really hope leaving frat life as your first step opens doors for you to speak up for silenced voices. I also hope that we both stop being bystanders in situations/conversations and inadvertently perpetuate systems of oppressions.
My purpose in writing this was honestly to just process my personal feelings and thoughts during this experience. Feel free to reach out if you feel similarly or need someone to talk to, I am all ears.
