You must stop this. I understand no amount of university scolding or media shaming is going to make you. But you, my young friends, need to make this stuff a distant memory.
As university campuses returned to life last week, we have read a handful of bizarre stories about a public alienation of women resurfacing in orientation weeks – none more serious than the sociopathic incident at St. Mary’s University. Chants of those student leaders encouraging the sexual assault of under-aged girls have been heard across radio and television for a week. It has been a national embarrassment, as well as inspiration for soul-searching across postsecondary institutions.
Many have dismissed the St. Mary’s incident as “juvenile ignorance” or, as the school’s now-former student union president claimed, just something that happened “in the heat of the moment” and part of frosh week tradition.
Please, don’t give me this ‘tradition’ crap. I spent two decades in the Deep South – and I don’t mean Chatham-Kent. I have had countless arguments with people who justify continuing their institutionalized ignorance and oppression in the face of changing societal norms simply because that’s how they ‘have always done it.’
You are allowed to say, ‘enough is enough.’
Now, I realize this isn’t an epidemic; most orientation week messages across the country are positive. But like the failings of government officials or religious leaders, a shortfall of one university’s student body tends to stain all. And when we see student leaders of any university accepting messages like these – encouraging them, even – people notice.
The reasons for these hateful messages are too numerous and complex for a simple newspaper column. But allow me to offer some thoughts from a guy not so old I don’t remember my youth, but not so young I think I know everything about anything.
On Western’s campus, our Housing team is the best. This isn’t some sort of university-sponsored informercial. Along with divisions across campus, Housing leads the push to make this the country’s safest campus. More than academic rigor or third-party rankings, a safe campus tops a parents’ recruitment wish-list.
In part, I think that’s why this university and student government moved quickly – and correctly – to bounce one O-Week entertainer tied to sexual assault charges, and distance themselves from a backup act who acted a fool when given the gig.
But this is not a university problem; it is a student problem. When students don’t stand up against this type of behavior among their own ranks not only on their campus, but on campuses across the country, it creates an atmosphere of acceptance.
Ladies, you represent 60 per cent of the student bodies across Canada. And that number grows every year. Start acting like it. When stuff like this happens, don’t laugh it off or join in. Nothing was more sickening watching the St. Mary’s video than seeing women joining in the chant. Demand respect.
Gentlemen, if you haven’t reached the emotional level to respect the women next to you in class, then stay off a university campus. I have two 1-year-old sons. When I read the St. Mary’s story last week, I wrote their future selves a short note about what I will demand of them one day. Funny, I expect of them tomorrow the same I expect of you today – respect for your fellow humans.
I also have a daughter, a perfect 3-year-old girl, who lives in a land where she looks for Smurfs on our morning walks, believes ‘princess’ is a viable career option and thinks a garbage truck is the coolest transportation on the road. I love spending time with her so much I have trouble leaving her to go to work in the morning, let alone want to think of sending her off to university.
I see her face in so many of the young women who walk this and other campuses across this country. While I want a better environment for these women today, I demand one for my daughter tomorrow.
And that, my young friends, is your duty.
You need to fix this. Now.