Yuri Castano | Real men discuss women's issues

Woman's issues are men's issues. We men all have mothers, many of us have sisters, and many more of us hope to, someday, marry a woman. If we love and care for the women in our lives, then we have motive to view women's concerns as our own concerns.

Women's Week at the University of Pennsylvania begins today. Tonight is the opening night of Penn's performance of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." At 8 p.m., a crowd at Irvine auditorium will hear "Cunt. Cunt. Say it, tell me. Cunt. Cunt." screamed by cast member College senior Marcie Rogo. Her voice in reciting the monologue "Reclaiming Cunt" will exhibit how Woman's Week attempts to pierce the silence surrounding topics ranging from women's sexuality to rape.

The issue of sexual violence in particular is urgent on our campus and at universities nationwide.

"One in four college women will be the victims of attempted or completed sexual assault," said Amber Crawford, an adult and child therapist at Woman Organized Against Rape. When "70 percent of sexual assaults go unreported," according to Crawford, Women's Week is only be a jumping point to tackling the false sense of calm surrounding this issue.

In dealing with the issue of sexual violence on our own campus, Rogo noted that "This should not be a blame game, it should be a dialogue."

However, while women continue to comprise the vast majority of victims of sexual assault, men must carry the burden of reform. In engaging in a dialogue with women, us men must be willing to investigate the roots of sexual violence, looking introspectively at the ways we value women and how our actions reflect those values.

Fraternity life is a concentrated form of male culture and is, for many, a target for attack when it comes to talking about sexual assault.

"I don't think that there is enough critical thinking about what is being reproduced by our actions," said Felicity Paxton, senior fellow in the Critical Writing Program and Women's Studies Program, in reference to a fraternity advertisement she saw for "Wings and Wizard's Girl."

Paxton added that "my caution to that fraternity is, what is the message you are sending about your respect for woman if the two objects advertised for consumption are chicken wings and women's bodies?"

While it is not constructive to single out fraternities, Paxton's analysis is emblematic of the fact that the availability of women's bodies for consumption has become commonplace in our society. Even casual objectification starts us down a slippery slope toward sexual assault.

"The message to young men has to be that they are the ones with the greatest power to stop sexual violence, it really is in their hands," said Paxton.

Though society may make women's bodies available for exploitation, men are not obliged to comply. Exercising restraint and better judgment can go a long way to fostering greater respect for women.

"Some of the best solutions are coming from men," said Scott Reikofski, director of fraternity and sorority affairs. The group One in Four, for instance, is an all male group on campus which focuses on all-male programming to educate and promote dialogue about sexual assault.

Awareness about sexual assault isn't enough, however. "The Vagina Monologues and Women's Week are about making [a] woman's sexuality okay to talk about," said sophomore cast member Anna Nettles. Men on campus should be engaging one another to not only learn about sexual assault, but to discuss what they can do about it.

The Penn community still has a long way to go in terms of promoting respect for woman. "I believe that a woman always doubts whether any man she gets involved with is going to hurt her," said Rogo. These feelings of fear and mistrust can only be a product of a culture which fails to value men and women equally.

College senior Kim Rust, producer of "The Vagina Monologues" and coordinator of the Penn branch of the V-Day Until the Violence Stops movement, explained how "my boyfriend made 1000 buttons for the Vagina Monologues while watching the V-Day documentary, which he'd already seen."

While not every man will get involved on the level of re-watching sexual violence documentaries while stamping "Vagina Warrior" thousands of times onto pieces of tin, dialogue is something every man on campus can get involved in.

As Rust noted, "the more we talk about sexual assault the closer we get to stopping it."

Yuri Castano is a College sophomore from Mexico City, Mexico. His e-mail address is castano@dailypennsylvanian.com. Bringing the n Back appears on Wednesdays.

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