This is the kind of story that makes you wonder about the basic goodness of people.
A group of past and present University of Sydney students set up a ''pro-rape'' page in the sports and recreation section on Facebook, describing themselves as ''anti-consent''.The male students, mostly from the elite, all-male St Paul's College, initially ensured the ''Define Statutory'' group had an open, public profile, and proudly displayed their membership on their personal Facebook pages.
Both the commander of the NSW Police sex crimes unit and the head of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre condemned the site, describing it as ''grooming perpetrators of sexual violence''.
And people have the nerve to argue rape culture doesn't exist...
Outside of the general horribleness of this story, Hortense at Jezebel asks a really great question: Why would Facebook allow this group to exist for so long?
This is a social networking site that refuses to let women post pictures of themselves breastfeeding, mind you, but it's okay to make a "hilarious" pro-rape group in the "Sports and Recreation" category? The group was public, by the way, accessible to anyone and visible to all. Interesting, isn't it, that in the eyes of Facebook, a woman shouldn't be allowed to show her breasts while feeding her child, but it's perfectly acceptable for men to make a highly public "sport" out of rape.
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Just out of curiousity, how does Facebook go about policing the site? Does it rely 100% on users reporting offending content (whether it's pictures or groups like the one in the OP), or does it actively patrol and look for breastfeeding/nude pictures?
In the Community site, someone had a post about a similar type of FB group, and it seems like it disappeared pretty quickly once people reported it (as far as I could tell from the comments left on the post).
You know that Facebook banned pictures of breastfeeding women? Hmmmmm.....
At least there is a public record of who these stupid jerks are. Hopefully this will send off a red flag to many females (in their local area) to stay away from these douche-bags.
Reading the comments on the Jezebel article would have yielded the response to the question about Facebook letting it exist so long: Facebook gets tons and tons of requests to report groups every day, so it's not surprising it would have taken so long for them to find this one and shut it down. For a site the size of Facebook, three months is actually pretty fast.
I give the young men credit for being openly honest about their misogyny. Instead of claiming to be pro-choice then voting for something like the Stupak-Pitts Amendment.
See, the youngsters are a breath of fresh air.
Absolutely disgusting.
If in future one of these "men" is accused of rape, the prosecution will almost certainly be able to use his membership of this group as evidence (it is a lot more relevant than her sexual history after all, which inevitably comes up in court). Especially bearing in mind the kinds of girls boys at 'elite' colleges tend to meet are the daughters of the elite with powerful families to back them up. Plus there will be knock-on effects in finding decent women willing to date them and employers willing to hire them.
So I get that they are evil. But given the above, and their membership at an elite college, I am surprised they could be quite so stupid.
Especially bearing in mind the kinds of girls boys at 'elite' colleges tend to meet are the daughters of the elite with powerful families to back them up.
Or, y'know, they could follow long-standing tradition and rape women of the lower classes while treating "their" women like kept pets.
Good point. You are totally right and I should have thought of that - my bad. Perhaps they'll make subgroups, one for lesser women that it's definitely OK to rape, and one for slightly-less-lesser women that really, it's OK to rape because you are a god and all, but practically speaking, you might get in trouble.
I don't suppose anybody copied down a membership list? List the members with sufficient identifying information on an easily indexed site and it would become part of their permanent record whenever anyone attempted to Google them. That little Facebook group could haunt them the rest of their lives. No amount of anger and feminist outrage would likely have as much effect as "I'm sorry, but we've decided to go with a candidate without a history of pro-rape advocacy." Say what you will about rape culture, but I'm pretty sure that that kind of thing on your records would kill your chances with many employers. Given how hard it is to convict someone of rape, it just seems damned convenient to have them condemn themselves like that.
Agree this is disgusting and their names should be recorded for use in future prosecutions.
But I have to say I find it intellectually interesting that the very existence of this group implies the members think they occupy a subject position which could only ever be the rapIST, not a rape victim. Am I right to assume that "rape culture" as we use the term on this board has that totally gendered connotation? These men can be raped, too, but I assume that is just not part of their conciousness. This counterfactual assumption just drives home the point about rape culture and mainstream representations of rape are all about keeping women in line and enforcing gender roles. Since in reality, this is a crime that anyone can be the victim of.
But I have to say I find it intellectually interesting that the very existence of this group implies the members think they occupy a subject position which could only ever be the rapIST, not a rape victim
Oh, this sort of arrogant asshole is the type who probably thinks it only happens to "someone else" who was probably "asking for it".
Stellarose wrote:
But I have to say I find it intellectually interesting that the very existence of this group implies the members think they occupy a subject position which could only ever be the rapIST, not a rape victim. Am I right to assume that "rape culture" as we use the term on this board has that totally gendered connotation?
Rape culture includes the idea that women are supposed to be available to men, and that men are supposed to claim women. If nobody claims her, she must be a failure. If a woman makes herself unavailable, that breaks the patriarchal rules. They say she's a dyke or a prude or a bitch or whatever. (If a man claims her, making her unavailable for other men, that's completely different.) The presumption of the rape culture is that women are all trying to be attractive and sexually available, so men will try to claim them. (Am I making it clear enough that I hate these rules?)
The other nasty idea in rape culture is that men are supposed to claim women. If a man isn't trying to claim women, he's breaking the rules rape culture has set up for being a real man. The rape culture calls him gay, wimp, pussy, girly-man. There's no room in the modern rape-culture to acknowledge that a man might not be interested in sexual conquest, or that he might think of his wife as her own person rather than as his property. (Am I making it clear enough that I hate these rules too?)
Rape culture sometimes encourages same-sex rape, but it's always in the larger context of misogyny. The idea is that there are patriarchal rules (which include claiming women and advocating the rape culture, among other things) for being a real man. A man who breaks those rules isn't really a man. He might as well be a woman, with nobody to protect him from getting raped. Rape as a demonstration of being powerless is HORRIBLE. (Sometimes there's political commentary that a convicted embezzler was only fined, and not sent to prison where he'd be raped. That's rape culture for you.)
The guys in this Facebook group were clearly thinking of themselves as powerful. They wanted to be rapists or spectators.
I was a resident at a Sydney University College (Wesley) for 3 years during my undergraduate degree and, sadly, this doesn't surprise me at all. It's clear that nothing has changed since I was there 10 years ago.
The place is absolutely rife with sexism and homophobia (as well as more general anti-social behaviour) and you'd have to be a very brave person to speak out about any of it being levelled at you. When I was there, a woman made a complaint about harassment and she was very thoroughly victimised. A college tutor actually wrote a character reference for one of the perpetrators! The college secretary (a student 2IC), who was a woman, made an unpopular decision in my second year and her punishment was to have a used condom hung on her doorknob.
The problem is that the men who benefit from this culture refuse to see anything wrong with it, or they refuse to see it at all, or they actively help to perpetuate and protect it. And they have the liberty to do these things because they are essentially untouchable and they know it.
This facebook page shows just how untouchable they believe they are.
You feminists and your need to trample over free speech *waves fist angrily.*
But in all seriousness, how can anyone seriously be, much less be proud of, being anti-consent? I mean, it's like saying you can't have fun playing tennis unless you're making the other player play with you, and they are motionless, crying, or showing any other sign of not wanting to. Except that an unwanted tennis match isn't traumatizing enough, so they want to rape instead.
I totally agree with Skreebs. If anything is sacred in the anglophone world, it is the right of the prep school boy to commit brazen acts of violence. When I was at Barnard College (which is not recognized by Facebook, by the way--Barnard students and alumnae must register under 'Columbia University') fraternity boys streaked through the Take Back the Night march in 2005 in basically a pro-rape statement the nature of which could trigger horrible feelings in survivors who may have been marching. Nothing happened. It wasn't even covered in the college newspaper. They weren't punished. The (male) police officers who were escorting the women marching didn't so much as bat an eye in the streakers direction.
In a moment of rage I decided to suspend my Facebook account. If you want to read about it, I posted about it on my blog: http://howitfeelstobefed.wordpress.com/
Something like this does make you question humanity. It is disturbing that they allowed a group like this to be on facebook. To have such an extreme group to be on facebook and be promoted is disgusting. Facebook should definately step in and end this group. Nothing like this is funny or could be a joke. People should never take the subject of rape as a joke because it is a serious issue to this day.
I haven't got the words to describe this. These are university students - presumably educated men, and they believe this is acceptable.
It's profoundly disturbing.