Response to Duprey Condescending, Diminishes Cooperation

Last week David Kimball-Stanley '09 and Ryan Haney '10 wrote a response to an Opinions piece by Whitney Duprey '09, "If You Don't Like the Frats, Don't Go," which was itself a response to an article written by Lucy Schiffman '09 condemning a fraternity's Playboy-themed party as misogynistic and sexist.

Schiffman got the ball rolling. Duprey wrote a rebuttal. Then came last week's article, "Duprey Ignores Greek Life Concerns," which was stilted, slanderous, and, for lack of a better word, mean.

Are Kimball-Stanley and Haney more concerned with sexism or with Duprey's literary talents? We get it. They are better writers than her. They were so astonished by her article that they built theirs around the idea that hers was a piece of humor writing.

Kimball-Stanley ran for president of the Student Government Association a few weeks ago. In the presidential debate held before the election, he said that when discussing controversial issues, people often get heated and the dialogue may not necessarily be "hunky-dory." We completely agree with him. However, David concluded his remark by saying " [...] we should keep it friendly and it shouldn't be, like, derisive or anything." For those of us who aren't the "Presidential Fellow for the creative writing major," derisive is an adjective expressing contempt or ridicule.

Kimball-Stanley went on to talk about bringing this campus together, and it's for that reason that it strikes us as counterintuitive that he talks about unifying Trinity on one hand, and on the other proceeds to launch a character attack against a fellow student and on a significant portion of the Greek community.

In their article, Kimball-Stanley and Haney say, "the persona [Duprey] put on came dangerously close to saying that, once a woman sets foot inside a fraternity house, she should expect to be sexually assaulted." Does it really come close to saying that? It seems more that this "persona" they repeatedly parody stems from their own preconceptions about fraternities, piggybacked onto her argument for a good pseudo-intellectual high-five.

They say that no matter how many Greeks go to "Take Back the Night," and no matter how many hip-hop shows or cocktail parties they host, if sexism persists, these actions mean nothing. These are steps, and to say they mean nothing is dismissive, facile, and insulting to those that work hard to make them a reality.

It's a truism in any sort of policy implementation that it's the small incremental actions that eventually lead to lasting changes. Greeks have a largely negative stereotype on this campus, and they are working to combat it and what it represents. By brushing off these efforts as nothing, Kimball-Stanley and Haney diminish all of the progress made in the past few years.

This gets at a greater point that we find vexing: these two gentlemen seem to be oddly fascinated with Greek life. Greek life is not the be all and end all of Trinity's problems. Sexism, scantily clad women, sex in general, none of these issues will cease to exist even if all the fraternities became monasteries.

After reading their article, we think their energy is misdirected. Their problem isn't with the fraternities themselves. Their problem appears to be with showcasing their wit, blaming one social group on campus for problems endemic in our larger society, and with the confused musings of one girl.

Earlier this month an event entitled "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Orgasms" was hosted at the Fred (an organization that Haney and Kimball-Stanley are members of). The speaker at the event, Megan Andelloux, wore a small black dress and bright red high heels. We assume that members of the Fred did not force her to dress this way. Is it possible that she dressed this way because she wanted to? Perhaps she is proud of her figure and finds it to be empowering for her to show it off. Why is it then that women who choose to dress with minimal clothing at a fraternity party are automatically perpetuating sexism? There are plenty of guests at themed parties who choose not to dress up and they are still allowed inside the various basements, living rooms and kitchens. Just ask Lucy Schiffman. In her article, Schiffman noted that she did not don lingerie or bunny ears to the "infamous" Playboy party, and yet she was still admitted. Schiffman concluded her article by saying, "I still go to fraternities [...] However, I always make it out wearing at least a shirt." Schiffman decided to keep her clothes on, and thought it necessary to disdainfully judge others who didn't. Perhaps she would've preferred to attend parties back when Trinity was founded in 1823. Back then, women weren't allowed out of the house without the top button of their blouses buttoned and their ankles covered.

Looking the other way in the face of sexism, racism and violence - these things are wrong. We're with you. But parties are voluntary revelry. Duprey was not making a figurative argument, or trying to espouse a particular sort of reasoning with which to understand the world, she was making a specific one: if you don't like a party, you don't have to go.

To address the issue in such a condescending manner, Kimball-Stanley and Haney detracted significantly from their argument and needlessly attacked a student guilty of nothing more than writing a disorganized opinions piece (that admittedly could have been written in five words not 500).

Last year, Kimball-Stanley penned an article for The Trinity Tripod in response to an anonymous article written about the Fred that claimed that it was "a haven for elitist intellectualism." In his article, Kimball-Stanley wrote, "There is no empirical evidence to show that the Fred thinks it's better than anyone else." We know many members of the Fred for which this is true. By writing their article, Kimball-Stanley and Haney have failed to convince us of the same.