Being a college student myself currently, I have definitely noticed college men would degrade women in this way. I have actually heard of my guy friends say that since they have had sexual relations with a female they would write them on a list and degrade them when they saw them on campus. Reading this article only affirmed my reactions to what my friend told me in the past. I agree that men do this so that they can seem more masculine or have a higher social status compared to women or even compared to other men in their club or fraternity. I think our society today just is so competitive and we are constantly trying to be better than our peers. This makes us want to degrade others in this whole process. We see the need to make fun of others or act superior to others in order to be “better” then the other person. I also agree that yes this issue has to do with insecurity issues with these men but it also has to do with the superiority complex.

This is why I’m a bit scared to go to a University.. finding out how it’s really like in the fraternity and sorority. I feel as that name calling women and degrading them using terms such as “sluts, bitches, whore’s, hoe’s and witches” is really low and males who degrade women are insecure. Just because you want to feel superior and like a “man” doesn’t mean you have to degrade women. College boys need to check their behavior.

Yes i would have to agree these men feel the need to prove themselves, that they are the best and who ever can get the most girls and sleep with them are praised, to me i feel they do this to earn respect from their friends or the other guys. Since this society is ranked with men above women what would happen it was the other way around? I wonder if these “boys” would act the same and keep degrading us women. I kind of have to agree when they say they have sex with a lot of girls because they feel insecure because i had a friend in high school who would sleep around with different guys and she told me it made her feel “wanted” someone wanted to spend time with her she enjoyed it every time, but little did she know it was killing her image in high school but she simply did not care and none of these guys were going to respect her.

I have a difficult time even fathoming the desire to “come of age” in this disgusting way. However, in college I have seen first hand the inability of a male at college age to read social cues, and to behave in an adult environment.
Personally, I think college is an incredibly unique time because students have this mental capacity for greatness, but a behavioral capacity to do whatever they want, or what the society expects of them at this time, without parental, or school regulation. It is the first time that young adults have apartments that they can have sex in, without sneaking, or interruption. Combine this with the societal pressure that being a virgin is not cool, and having sex, specifically with girls, is praised. The young males in this new form of societal pressure search for their peers to encourage and validate a job well done, therefore the means by which it occurs becomes unimportant. Several slang terms and high fives are exchanged after intercourse with a woman, regardless of the way it occurred. So, in this way, it is almost inevitable that a certain percentage of men are unable to separate a “No.” from their carnal desire to fit in.
Women tend to become a merit badge on a man’s shoulder in college, especially in a socially abrasive group such as a frat house. Hazing degrades the newcomers, and women become the stepping stones to earn respect in that society. So, in part, I think it is a piece of insecurity that is exploited in a fraternity environment, making it grow until there is an overwhelming urge to release that insecurity on someone deemed lesser than they. It’s equivalent to bullying, people bully one another because of a personal flaw, expecting tearing someone else down will make them superior, and better. Bullying, and rape, and the degradation of women are not the answers to any of life’s insecurities.

In a twisted way these frat boys are the ones who feel inferior because of their constant need to be “Alpha” and outrank females and their own gender as well.The way they show their insecurities, say a lot about the male mind. In an Ivy league where many already feel the pressure to be the best of the best, they could’ve been the smartest in high school or college but are now surrounded by other students who meet their level. Making them in the same level as everything else. As this sets in, their manhood is deteriorating by other “men,” surpassing their previous level and the worst part is that the “easy” targets are the women that are close quarters. Young ladies are turning into women at this stage in their life and this can be very discouraging for them. It reminds me of the movie, Neighbors 1 and the following sequel, Neighbors 2. Frats are allowed to throw parties, but sororities are not. The only way to go to a lavish party is through the frats house. These parties want women with tight clothes, pretty girls, and just as Georgia Platts mentions that Yale Delta Kappa Epsilon chanted, “No means yes! Yes means anal!,” in the movie frat boys also had posters up that said, “no means yes.” There is a drastic change where Neighbors 1 had the wolf pack mentality where everything goes and women are just sex toys, to then to Neighbors 2 where one frat graduate man stays behind and sees what really is wrong with these messages, since he no longer needs to put up a show for the other boys in the frat. Regardless, this is too late since college girls learn that their self worth is on how they dress and look because nothing says more than showing some cleavage and getting raped because she was asking for it since no means yes.

I agree. These sorts of actions are definitely root in insecurities. At my school last year there was going to be¬ a party put on by a fraternity titled “Colonial Bros and Nava-Hoes.” Thankfully the school heard about it before it happened and it was canceled. It still made me ashamed to attend the same school as those guys. They felt so insecure about themselves that they felt the need to tell women that they are worth less than them. The worst part about it is that I bet that 50 girls just as insecure would have shown up to that party in skimpy little Indian outfits and then would have proceeded to talk crap on the other girls there that “don’t look as hot as them.” I think that an important thing to take note of is that this behavior is not limited to men ranking higher than women. Women use similar tactics to try to calm their insecurities by establishing their dominance over other women. The main difference between men and women is that they have different methods. Women can be just as vicious and catty as men. So yes, I ask men and women alike, why degrade women? Insecurity.

There’s no doubt about it that men are completely wrong in degrading women and their actions should be reprimanded. However, before we start pointing fingers at males and egos, we need to take into account the underlying issue of what drives them to feel the need to make derogatory remarks. To me, society and they way men are expected to behave is the cause behind the insults. Since birth, parents teach males to reinforce their dominance in several aspects, such as the colors they wear and the toys they play with. We teach our boys to not show emotion and tell them that crying is bad. By not allowing them to express their emotions the way a female is allowed to, the double standards create a vicious cycle that males are now caught in. We need to show them that vulnerability and showing of emotions is not weakness, but a strength of its own. Maybe then frats will begin to respect women universally and end their comments.

Hmm…interesting post. I’ve never seen specific statistics on the perpetrators of campus assaults, it’s almost always been presented, in the media mostly, as simply athletes or top students with little or maybe a passing mention of their affiliation with a fraternity. Thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense to downplay their fraternity affiliation as one could never emphasize with a frat boy and his blatant immaturity and willful buffoonery. Nevertheless, I don’t know how much of degrading young women has to do with just insecurity. Yes, males and masculinity are consistently prized ,revered and pronounced as “the best thing ever that women will never have” especially in a fraternity where “bros before hoes” is the mantra, so why the need to consistently and repeatedly degrade and put women in their place? Why not just focus exclusively on other “lesser men”. I think it’s a feeling of anxiety, especially when you factor in being at an ivy college mixed with institutional/ingrained sexism and latent misogyny. As boys mature into young men, feelings of anxiousness occur, “will I be as good as my father?” which necessitates the need to do something to reassure themselves that they will not only be as good but better. Combine this with the belief that women are not only inferior but almost unworthy of any sort of humanity, it becomes easy to target them as tools to use for reassurance and the propagation of their burgeoning manhood. Boys have been taught that women hold the key to their manhood i.e you’re not a man till you’ve been with a woman. Thus, they need to degrade them to take away not only the potential power that comes with holding this key but the anxiety that they won’t achieve it. Anxiety breeds, in the end, a sexual power struggle that is solely perpetrated by young men anxious over the status of their masculinity both internally and externally with women ,unfortunately being the casualties of that anxiety.

Also, I would hesitate to say that these men probably have an extremely high sense of self-esteem as high self-esteem can lead one to feel superior to others and “be prone to self-satisfied boasting” , sounds like a frat boy to me.