A Book Review by Jocelyn Crawley

Although rape can occur in a plethora of contexts, the sexual assaults that happen in the university setting are uniquely egregious. This is the case for innumerable reasons, including the fact that these rapes are oftentimes suppressed by university administrators, with this reality ensuring that victim-survivors experience a double betrayal marked first by being subjected to sexual abuse by individual/s who were ostensibly trustworthy, and second by college representatives who lack the empathy and transparency necessary to openly discuss what transpires in legal and social contexts. Although not all university administrators fail to appropriately address and resolve issues of sexual assault effectively, rape is still problematic because it constitutes a violation of the individuals will while simultaneously creating the conditions conducive to trauma-based psychosomatic disorders. And what is perhaps the most disorienting and disquieting about sexual assault on college campuses is the strategic planning that male fraternity members put into organizing social events so that males may have sexual access to females while inebriated.  In her important book Fraternity Gang Rape (year), Peggy Reeves Sanday offers an acute analysis of the unique and multifarious ways that sexual assault unfolds within fraternities on college campuses. 

Rape And Gender Status/Roles

In the introduction of the book, Peggy Reeves provides readers with information regarding rape as a general manifestation of depravity and a specific reality which unfolds in distinct ways within the fraternity-university setting. For example, Reeves references a study that finds  the frequency of rape is directly related to gender status and roles. Specifically, rape-free societies in the study were marked by male-female integration in everyday activities, particularly domestic activities. In these societies, women had higher status. On the other hand, rape-prone societies were marked by “greater sexual segregation, male social dominance, interpersonal violence, and the subordination of women” (6). Here, the reader might conclude that reducing the reality of rape is contingent upon creating a deeper level of parity between the sexes in the economic, social, and cultural sectors. In addition to discussing rape as a general phenomenon, Reeves references sexual assault in the context of its manifestations on college campuses. Specifically, she notes that many male participants who rape a woman in the context of “having sex” with her while she is comatose or passed-out do not categorize the behavior in terms of a sexual assault. Rather, they construe their role in the activity as “passive” (2). Although Reeves does not elaborate on exactly why males would categorize the act of forcing their penis into a woman’s vagina as her operating in an “active capacity”, it appears that this construal results from the cultural myth that a woman who becomes inebriated in men’s company is “asking for it” (2).

The Cultural Acceptability Of Rape

In Chapter One of the text, Reeves cites troubling statistics regarding the cultural acceptability of rape. Specifically, she notes that “Many teenagers believe that sex means “guys pounce on you, you struggle, then forget the whole thing” (quoted in Warshaw 1988, 119)” (54). This construction of sex parallels the reading of patriarchy articulated by radical feminists, which includes awareness that emotional and somatic intimacy within an androcentric framework is marked by the classic paradigms of male aggression and female passivity or women initially resisting aggressive acts and eventually acquiescing to them through immediate relenting or subsequently being silent about having experienced unwanted attention and aggression. Additionally, Reeves notes that a study of adolescents between the ages of fourteen and eighteen found that “more than half the boys and nearly half the girls thought that it was okay for a male to force (that is, rape) a female if he was sexually aroused by her” (Warshaw ibid., 120, referring to study by Goodchilds et al. 1988) (54). As with the previous study, these findings are consonant with the radical feminist development of an ideology which both recognizes and opposes the normative modes of thinking and acting sexually under patriarchy. In her analysis, radical thinker Sheila Jeffreys refers to the quotidian patriarchal reconfiguration of reality as penile imperialism, an ideology defined by men’s  assumption that they have the right to sexually access the bodies of female humans. 

As the book  progresses, the reader attains more understanding regarding the role that patriarchal values play in shaping the consciousness of male fraternity members. In this chapter, Peggy Reeves Sanday delineates the fraternity’s disposition towards two women, Susan and Alice. Specifically, the text notes that the fraternity brothers interpreted the behavior of a woman named Susan as “cute” and also decided that these behaviors meant she was “asking for it” (67). I found the intersections of the adjective “cute” and word-phrase “asking for it” intriguing, with the convergence of the verbage suggesting that patriarchal thinking results in males perceiving a woman deemed physically attractive as automatically and always desiring sex. This logic seems to stem from or exist in congruent relationship with other aspects of phallocentric thinking, including the idea that women are not independent autonomous beings but rather exist for men. This reasoning process leads males to conclude that a woman modifying or accentuating her body to appear conventionally attractive is doing so to attain male attention. In addition to referencing the cognitive contiguities that exist between men viewing a woman as “cute” and subsequently concluding that she desires sexual interaction with males, the text asserts that fraternity brothers treated both women referred to below in a substandard manner. Specifically, “…while Susan was treated as an object, Alice was treated as a pet” (67). Here, we learn of a prototypically patriarchal devolving transmogrification of female identity from the sphere of autonomous sentience to robot-like dependence, with inanimate objects and subordinated animals being the ideological and material sphere in which men attempt to define and devalue female existence. 

The Homosocial Behavior Of Fraternity Brothers

Just as Chapter One of the text reveals the process of dehumanization experienced by women seeking interaction with fraternity men, Chapter Two evinces the reality of fraternity brothers maintaining the type of homosocial purview wherein male-male relationships are considered more significant than male-female relationships. In making this plain, the text notes that a woman who spent time in the fraternity house, Anna, observed that her boyfriend Ed “was always running after other girls and she felt that he paraded their sexual relationship in front of the other men. It was clear to Anna that his primary loyalty was to the fraternity and his primary bond of affection was to the brothers” (75). The text goes on to point out that the gender-based socialization process involved male fraternity members including women like Anna in their interactions, but only within a framework of sexualization and objectification. Specifically, the text notes that during the same moment in which Anna was treated like one of the brothers, there were innuendos about group sex which made it appear “as if it were as natural to have sex with her in a group as it was for the brothers to get naked in a circle dance” (75). Here, the reader notes that a key aspect of homosocial behavior includes males both engaging in seemingly convivial activities amongst other men and appropriating a woman into primarily male activities and engagements for sexual purposes. Although one might not view the latter construal as homosocial behavior given the inclusion of a woman, this extrapolation regarding homosocial social construction is indeed a likely representation of operative, oppressive homosociality because the woman’s inclusion perhaps paradoxically signifies the antithesis–her absence. Specifically, the males are not incorporating a woman into group sex activities for the purpose of generating her pleasure, power, or personhood, but rather appropriating her as an “object” or “pet” that they can utilize for their own male entertainment. The text itself seems to legitimate this interpretation of the innuendos regarding group sex as code for female devaluation as the narrative includes Anna’s realization that she is not truly included in the male-centered group. This realization transpires in context of her budding awareness of her deluded belief that “because the brothers included her in such activities as the circle dance, she was accepted” (77). Here, the reader notes that inclusion can never be conflated with acceptance, and also helps us understand that men frequently desire female presence for purposes which support and sustain nonparity, with this nonparity oftentimes perpetuating the patriarchal paradox of female presence existing as its antithesis–absence. (This accurate interpretation of reality is pertinent for radical feminist thinking because it functions as a representation of how the material world can be constructed in a manner which appears to connote equality while actually hiding, or obfuscating, the reality of nonparity. In other words, material reality cannot always be taken at face value, with this assertion helping us to understand why many individuals cannot understand and respond to the reality of contemporary society’s rampant sexism just because there is a strong (or even merely token) female presence in various public sectors such as media, politics, religion, and education.  

Anna’s internal monologue and interpretations of her experience as a woman in a male environment comprised of men who made the dehumanization and devaluation of women an integral element of their homosocial process includes her assertion that the behavior of the males reflected their development of a “heterosexist male identity” (80). The text notes that Anna likely references this type of identity to describe how “the brother’s practice of affirming their heterosexual identity by taking women as sexual objects while rejecting women as equals gives their house activities a marked misogynist quality” (80). This assertion and construal is infinitely important because it draws attention to both the public view of heterosexuality as an innocuous institution comprised of well-meaning individuals who seek the unity and pleasure which results from romantic and sexual interaction and awareness that this mode of identity formation and socialization can and oftentimes does have a profoundly pernicious impact on human beings. The pernicious, perverse import of the impact is that men construct their masculine identity around the devaluation of women and women being rejected as the equals of men and thus constructing their sense of self around the renouncing of their subjectivity and acquiescence to the patriarchal paradigm of existing as a predominantly non-sentient member of the object world who exists for male titillation. 

Although many meaningful ideas were pointing towards the actively operative nature of patriarchal principles in fraternity houses, what I found most meaningful was the reiteration of the principle of “asking for it.” Specifically, an existing and perhaps prevalent view amongst both male and female participants in fraternity culture is that if women enter into the campus houses and partake in activities, they are essentially submitting to sexual activity which may or may not be interpreted as coercive and harmful. In describing this reality, the text notes that “Alice believes that by entering the situation and staying in it, women are agreeing to an unspoken sexual contract. This is what “asking for it” means: consent is given by the very act of coming to the party and getting drunk. Hence, Alice doesn’t perceive herself or other women as victims” (81). In reflecting on this reality, I have drawn a conclusion: in patriarchal culture, male violence becomes permissible in a manner which entails viewing culpable men as non-culpable for many reasons, one of which is the assumption that because women consent to any form of interaction with men, such as drinking or dancing, they are implicitly consenting to sexual behavior as well, even when manifestations of physical and verbal resistance to such acts is present directly before, during, or after they transpire. This conclusion is awe-inducing because it indicates the ongoingness of the patriarchal practice of negating female existence, the material world, and the way that female beings exist in the material world such that as males, men do not have to cooperate and coexist with the universe but rather exert their dominance.  In other words, this form of patriarchy is awe-inducing because it reflects a patriarchal pattern confluent with the necrotic essence of androcentrism: a desire to destroy and dehumanize that which exists such that it either 1) does not exist or 2) exists in a diminutive form.

Sociocultural Responses To Rape

One of the most significant chapters in the book was Chapter Three, entitled “Rape or “She Asked for It?” The chapter’s title is effective in that it reflects assent to ongoing interrogations regarding how the world of language can be used to obfuscate the sexual violations which transpire in material reality. In this chapter, Reeves delineates a woman named Laurel’s resistance to the ostensibly prototypical female response to sexual assault: silence. Rather than adopting the quintessential position of female passivity in the face of male aggression, Laurel chose to report the fraternity males who raped her. In detailing her resistance, Reeves juxtaposes the disparity between females responding to the reality of being raped and males responding to the reality that they have raped: 

In most cases the woman involved blames herself either because she got drunk or because she stayed too late at the party, or for some other reason. The men involved seem to feel no such confusion. They brag about the act among their male friends and revel in a sense of enhanced masculinity that comes from a feeling of sexual power and dominance over women (83). 

In addition to drawing attention to the discrepancy between female and male responses to sexual assault, this section of the book incorporates Reeves’s awareness that the reality of the female victim coming forward despite the existence of this androcentric arrangement of gender-based relations is “surprising” (83). It is, and pleasantly so. But what is unpleasantly unsurprising is the divergent discourses (of which Reeves enumerates three) regarding the reality of Laurel being subjected to rape and the multifarious, convoluted impact that these noncongruent interpretations of sexual assault might have on both the victim as an individual and stubbornly androcentric communities as a composite whole. According to Reeves, “one discourse reinforced the power of male bonding in fraternities by promoting a belief in the explosive, biological nature of male sexual expression – the “boys will be boys” rationalization – and the need for an outlet for this explosive sexuality” (83). Here, the reader becomes acclimated to one element of a two-fold, ongoing debate regarding whether the male proclivity to rape and operate in a sexually aggressive capacity is rooted in biological reality or sociocultural training. Additionally, empathic readers might cultivate awareness regarding how assent to the idea that men are biologically inclined towards explosive sexuality makes women the “outlet” or receptacle for their explosions. For those who accept male sexual aggression as biologically unavoidable, how can we avoid making women the inevitable recipients of it? Clearly, women are not the inevitable “outlet” for explosive male sexuality given alternatives which cause harm to no other sentient entities, including masturbation. 

A second and alternative discourse asserted by the university administration asserts the necessity of “building a responsible community where “dehumanizing incidents are least likely to occur” and to establishing “better procedures to handle such serious situations if they do occur” (83, 84). Like Reeves, I find the failure of this discourse to be rooted in its passive rather than active approach to the reality of sexual assault. Rather than unearthing the aspects of campus culture that create conditions conducive to rape, it waits on bodily violations to occur with the plan to respond after the fact. I would add that while building a community where rape is unlikely to transpire is a tenable response to rape because it involves envisioning and constructing an alternative potentially rape-free environment, the construction of spaces free from the violence of sexual assault does not diminish or demolish the existence of these realms of male violence. It simply means that the two ideologically and materially antithetical worlds coexist, and that is not enough. The realms of rape and non-rape should not maintain a continuous coexistence such that the development of spaces free of sexual assault is coincided by the ongoing presence of spheres where rape exists. Rather, the construction of a rape-free sphere must be accompanied by the demolishing of the rape-laden sector. The third discourse, about which I am most hopeful, albeit with some qualms, is a feminist discourse which includes “strong female and male voices who spoke out against violence against women on campus and against the institutional practices promoting sexual aggression” (84). This discourse makes me hopeful because it provides victims like Laurel with palpable evidence that there are many members of college campuses specifically and society generally who do not passively or apathetically accept rape as the immovable status quo that women need to acclimate themselves to with the response of silence or active, enthusiastic participation in their own objectification and subordination. At the same time, I am wary of this discourse because it perpetuates the ostensibly permanent practice of patriarchy hurting women and people yelling back, “That hurt!” While the response is meaningful and resonant, it has yet to collectively intimidate the enemy – patriarchal ideology and the men who accept its mechanisms of violence and domination – into retreating from the perpetual practice of systematically (whether secretly or brazenly) integrating rape culture and rape into every sector of society. 

 Phallocentric Discourse Regarding Sexuality Precipitates Rape

Because Chapter Three asks readers to reflect on how androcentric society misconstrues female and male behavior and identity according to a perverted understanding of what sexuality is, it sets the stage for Reeves’s articulations in Chapter Five. Here, Reeves asserts a phallocentric discourse amongst men in fraternities that is rooted in “their own sexuality and mak(ing) sexual conquest the primary goal of sexual expression” (129). This assertion is an accurate construal of male sexuality and also indicates how phallocentric modalities exist as ideologically confluent with patriarchy generally insomuch as this praxis primarily concerns the valuation of self-sovereignty and ego-based modes of existence as ideal and appropriate despite their obfuscation of the reality of the other and her or his autonomy in conjunction with the valuation of coercion and competition (conquest) over cooperation and communion. Reeves goes on to note that this phallocentric modality reproduces phallocentrism because it “both produces specific meanings associated with sexual behavior and maintains these meanings by keeping them current” (129). To specify, Reeves notes that the forms of sexuality adopted by the males involve maintaining positions of domination and control over women such that masculine subjectivity, or “being a man,” is ultimately contingent upon the male’s ability to overpower the female. The hierarchical, domination-based model of phallocentric sexuality also incorporates the perpetuation of self-sovereignty and homosocial elements, such that “…even when brothers follow unwritten rules about what is allowable in their house, the impression is left that the rules are not meant to protect vulnerable women but to protect the house reputation” (134). Here, the livelihood and safety of women is secondary to that of men, thereby reflecting the role that male-centered constructions of sexuality play in both reinforcing a form of homosocial interaction which is hostile to women and creating environments that are conducive to violence against women. In referencing his own awareness of how homosociality and male sexuality work together towards the degradation of women, one of the fraternity brothers asserted that “abuse, sexual and otherwise, is a way of breaking down barriers, building trust, and bonding more closely” (138). In other words, male bonding actually transpires through the development of a breach in the somatic and cerebral world of women such that their sense of bodily and mental self is continually interrupted by the nefarious, malevolent activity of men. Thus, for these fraternity men, building up their community transpires as they break women down, thereby revealing the fundamentally necrotic (life-destroying and death-reverencing) nature of phallocracy.  

How Males Create Sexually Necrotic Male Identities

Although this entire book is exemplary in its analysis and synthesis of male sexuality in fraternity contexts as a replication of the principles of the patriarchal order with its insistence on men dominating women as its integral and most inalienable element, Chapter Eight is uniquely effective in explicating these principles because its explicit focus is the development of sexually necrotic male identities. Entitled “Constructing A Sexist Subjectivity,” this chapter demonstrates the paradoxically identity-muting process of creating a male self rooted in prototypically patriarchal paradigms of masculinity which involve the devaluation of women such that “the sexual relationship with these girls is disparaged” (184) as males use their misuse of women to reflect their control over females in a manner which somehow conveys their superiority and disciplinary mastery of themselves and the universe. What is paradoxical about the process of males adopting patriarchal paradigms to attain hierarchical power over women is that this phallocratic praxis does not precipitate a form of male subjectivity conducive to or confluent with the fully human, choate sense of identity which radical feminists associate with the privilege of being a member of the master class, male. In fact, the book  suggests that in order to participate in the world of the fraternity which functions as the vehicle through which to gain access to female bodies for the purpose of degrading and dehumanizing them, the males themselves undergo an identity devolution which involves never achieving “autonomy or wholeness” (180). Specifically, the young males who undergo hazing rituals to become members of a fraternity are told by the fraternity members that they are “psychically female” (181). This produces confusion and anxiety regarding one’s gender-based identity, with the realm of convolution created by the hazing process culminating in the putative resolution of becoming a male. The process of becoming a male transpires through successful survival of the ritual procedures which putatively rid one of the contagion and scatological nature of being female and/or feminine. Here, being female and/or feminine is ostensibly characterized as antithetical to maleness given the former’s semblance to ineptitude and inefficacy and the latter’s conflation with efficacy and competence. Yet the fraternally defined male identity (one unequivocally and entirely divorced from the innately and irreparably inferior, inept nature of femaleness as a biological reality and cultural product) acquired in context of completion of the hazing procedures does not engender a clear, choate male self because it is contingent upon the assertions and assessments of external sources of authority rather than a permanent, internally defined personhood which is not contingent upon the approval of others. And, as recited by many individuals who do not even identify as feminists, the inanity of the construction of masculinity is that it has to be done over and over, such that men are constantly having to prove their manhood through homosocial behavior and the subordination of women, so the identity formation process is in a state of constant flux. Perhaps paradoxically, the attempt to eradicate the sense of an ambiguous, amorphous male identity and replace it with an irrefutably, irrevocably male identity is therefore a futile failure. Ultimately then, the formation of sexist subjectivity through the valuation of maleness by means of devaluing female beings is doubly wasteful because, most importantly, it is psychosomatically debilitating to women and secondarily, it does not accomplish the purpose of male valuation and male identification for which it was brought into being, making the impact of the attempt moot or null. Phrased differently, making masculine subjectivity is working hard for no real results. 

On the whole, Fraternity Gang Rape is a meaningful text in how it enumerates and elucidates of patriarchal practices which erase women while simultaneously establishing a male presence which is fundamentally noxious and nefarious. Thus the text is another testament to the ongoing nature of the patriarchal paradigm which involves female existence necessitating male interference such that women are constantly subjected to diminution, degradation, and dehumanization. It is time for radical feminists to reject the ongoingness of this patriarchal pattern and construct a stellar nursery which, in consonance with the universe and its ability to create clouds in which new stars are formed, we work towards the construction of a female-centered ideology and praxis. This mode of thinking and doing can and should culminate in the production of material spaces where original, unique forms of non-phallic, non-necrotic life free from rape can be formed and sustained. 

Jocelyn is a 39-year-old radical feminist who believes that male violence is the most egregious problem on the planet, particularly with respect to manifestations of sexual violence against women and girls. When not writing about radical feminist topics, Jocelyn enjoys yoga, eating out with her wife, and building community with like-minded individuals who are sick of patriarchy precluding us from having nice things.