Monday, October 20, 2008
THE opinionated piece
Being a first year at Rhodes is like being thrown into a lion’s den while you are still a small gazelle. The gazelle is young, usually timid and cautious. It makes it worse when said gazelle is female. The lions get ready to pounce and their targets are the first years. Seal-clubbing is an epidemic here at Rhodes and seems to affect you or people you are friends with.Being a woman on this campus, especially a first year, is a conundrum. If one is shy, you are perceived as a prude. If one is not, you are flirt and/or a slut that must want sex. A woman that is sure of herself on campus is stayed away from as if she is radioactive. On many occasions, friends of mine have been offered to be taken back to boys’ residences out of the blue by drunken groups of second or third years. Hardly a perfect example of a first date or a wonderful reflection on the boys here at Rhodes. However, when one turns down these drunken seal-clubbers, they are verbally abused and then slated by that group of boys by being called a “bitch” or worse.
It seems that no matter how you act, you are still prey to the seal-clubbers. It is no small wonder that our House Committee warned us about them at the beginning of O-Week. What makes it worse is that there are some first year women who find themselves in that situation and follow through. It is their first time here, they get a little tipsy and their judgment is clouded. They want to fit in and therefore don’t mind the attention being given to them by older boys. I have no problem with getting involved with someone but it should be on your terms and with whatever you are comfortable. The sad outcome of seal-clubbing is that the first year is left used and taken advantage of. Whenever she sees that boy she will be reminded of the horrible mistake that she experienced in O-Week. The boy will smirk and become a legend among his friends.
Along with seal-clubbing, there is “puppy-training” – something a member of my blog group unfortunately experienced. She was told she was a “puppy” by the third year she was involved with. Thus, she was treated as such and realised that the third year needed a lobotomy. It may seem humourous to call a first year a puppy but there is the fact that she was degraded to being an animal next to this third year who was vastly superior in his mind. This makes absolutely no sense to me and seems that those who resort to treating first years with such disrespect and disdain need to be sent to charm school faraway from females.
Turning down these seal-clubbers or puppy-trainers is hard because sometimes one thinks they are normal, sweet boys. There is really only one thing a first year can do. She must be sure of herself. It doesn’t matter what car he drives or how much he convinces you that because he is older and therefore wiser so you must hook up with him- do not. There is no room for seal-clubbers who only want to exploit first years. No one wants to look back at first year and only remember being a target.
Labels: lesson, O-week, opinion, seal-clubbing, student life