Men must acknowledge harassment

By Nathan Littlefield

SHAWN CHENG/YH

This year, my suitemates and I have thrown a few well-attended parties. Unfortunately, every big get-together brings some unwanted guests. At these parties, and others like them, I've been witness to a great deal of male misbehavior. The most notorious perpetrator has been the "phantom ass-grabber," who walks around parties fondling unsuspecting women. On the same night the phantom first appeared, two of my female friends were dancing together when a group of men separated them, grinding the girls against a wall until they escaped. A few weeks later, the residents of a neighboring suite had to drag one man away from a woman and literally throw him out of Lawrance Hall.

Maybe I was too optimistic, but I didn't expect to see this kind of behavior so frequently at Yale. Of course, it happens often enough outside of our ivory citadel. But what is disturbing here is that supposedly intelligent and cultured people are sometimes willing to suspend basic decency. Not only is harassment widespread, it is tacitly condoned. Every overzealous male I've seen was accompanied by a group looking on in amusement. If these guys criticized their friend, it was because he was making himself look stupid—there seemed to be no consideration for his victim. Only in extreme situations have I seen anyone try to rein someone in. If any intervention occurs, it comes from the terrified, angry friends of the victim.

At Yale, we blame such actions on alcohol or on the atmosphere of a party itself. This is a pitiful excuse. Drinking doesn't automatically produce libido—most people can drink without becoming convinced that they're the reincarnation of Don Juan. Nor can we pin harassment on skimpy dresses or the energy of a packed dance floor. If we believe these to be credible excuses, we might as well assume that rock causes teen pregnancy and that women incite rapes. No amount of exposed skin, alcohol, or pulsating techno created the the grabber or caused a group of men to assault two of my friends.

I am not trying to be histrionic. What occurred in all three situations described above is not just reprehensible but illegal, and rightfully so. Furthermore, had the victims in the latter two cases called the police, the cops would have arrested the men involved for assault and battery. Yet several men whom I overheard talking about those situations minimized the severity of the harasser's actions. Similarly, to many people, the phantom ass-grabber is a running joke. Many of us do not recognize that though we live in an open and permissive environment, limits still remain. There is a recognition gap, a failure by many men to understand exactly what physical harassment is. Unfortunately, many women on campus know all too well.

The responsibility of eliminating this problem lies squarely with men. Most likely, we minimize harassment because almost none of us experience it. Few women, upon seeing a man whom they had never met, would decide to throw him against a wall. Most males will never feel threatened by the prospect of sexual assault, while no woman I know can walk down an unlit street without wondering, at least for a moment, what might emerge from an alley. Instead of viewing this as plain fact, we ought to take a moment to think about it. Would any of us want somebody six inches taller and 50 pounds heavier than us to push us into a corner? Empathy seems to be the key to this problem, and to its solution. If we put ourselves in the place of the victim, it suddenly becomes much harder to ignore the reality of harassment.

To stop ignoring harassment means to act against it. This does not entail campaigning for an administrative solution or taking responsibility for everybody's safety. Instead, look honestly at your own actions—and at those of your friends—and respect the rights of other people. That is already more than many Yale men seem to have done, and it would go a long way toward reestablishing the respect that many have forgotten.

Nathan Littlefield is a freshman in Ezra Stiles.

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