I am a huge fan of Ted Talks. It might be that they let me learn about things I would otherwise never had the chance to or maybe I just feel smarter when experts in their field talk at a level I can understand. Whatever the reason, I try to watch or listen to a couple of them a week. There was one talk in particular that I watched a couple months ago that I thought was interesting but had forgot about until taking this class: “Violence against women – it’s a men’s issue” by Jackson Katz. I had forgotten about it because at the time I thought it wasn’t very relevant to me. It was only after taking this class that I realize it is relevant to everyone.
When I say it is relevant to everyone, I don’t mean that all men have had trouble with violence against women personally. I just did not know how close I was to the problem. Growing up, violence against and disrespecting women was just something that I would hear jackasses on the news getting in trouble for. It wasn’t until I came to Cornell that I started to realize what a problem it was. I played a varsity sport and was president of my fraternity for a year, so I am very familiar with the two institutions that are the biggest culprits (or at least get the most attention) of violence against women. I realized that the administration’s way of handling things that cause problems is the “cover our own ass” technique. Whether it be outlawing kegs at parties (we will just buy more cases?) to curb aggressive drinking or lowering the standard of proof from “clear and convincing evidence” to “preponderance of the evidence” to deal with sexual assault cases, I do not believe the administration is dealing with the heart of the problem, nor do I believe they are capable of doing so.
I think it is safe to say that the Greek system plays a huge role at Cornell. It would be impossible to go here for four years and not come into contact with someone that is a fraternity or sorority. This overwhelming presence is a contributing factor to the problems that the Greek community has had with violence against women. In his talk, Katz mentions one of the ways that the dominant group can continue to perpetuate its culture is by never being challenged. He specifically says,
“This is one of the ways that dominant systems maintain and reproduce themselves, which is to say the dominant group is rarely challenged to even think about its dominance, because that’s one of the key characteristics of power and privilege, the ability to go unexamined, lacking introspection, in fact being rendered invisible in large measure in the discourse about issues that are primarily about us.”
The Greek system, specifically fraternities, has never been challenged on their attitudes and beliefs about women. Sure, there have been mandatory quizzes and events that members are required to attend, each with the purpose of educating men on violence against women. Most of the quizzes are clicked through aimlessly until the end, while the events are spent day dreaming about something else. No one has confronted the system head on saying, “it is on you that these things happen.” There has been no real attempt to institute, what Katz calls, the bystander approach, which I believe is the solution to this problem.
The bystander approach is essentially authoritative adults standing up and confronting the issue at hand. This is where I disagree with Katz a bit. I do not think it has to be adults with authority; it can be anyone with some type of influence over another. It can be leaders in the Greek community and in their respective fraternities or even as simple as not letting a friend get away with a joke. I accept the responsibility that comes with my position. Violence against women is a men’s issue. It is our issue.
Violent Femmes 2015 
I agree with you in saying that the issue of violence against women is something that is not properly addressed here at Cornell. While I remember speeding through extremely lengthy quizzes about alcohol awareness there was never any instruction about the bystander approach. The first time I heard about it was by reading a poster that was tacked onto the bulletin board on my dorm floor. While I also believe that it has the potential to be an effective way to solve the violence problem it is something that is not truly advertised enough at Cornell at least. The focus on alcohol should be equal with that of violence and women, especially since the two have always been closely related. There should be a proactive approach toward the problem rather than a reactive approach. The most difficult challenge would be that to improve the situation would cause for a change in the culture of Greek Life, and for something like the bystander approach to work everyone has to be committed to it.
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