The memoir “The College Hazing That Changed My Life” written by Thomas Rogers, is about a freshman in college who experience hazing in a rowing team until they received an eye-opening revelation. Hazing is a major problem throughout the world, a tradition that embarrasses or shame a group of fresh participant to a particular group. A tradition that can be “traced back to the Europe in the Middle Ages where it was known as pennalism” (History – StopHazing). In the first paragraph, it states an important fact about the author that is a repetitious word throughout the memoir, it states that he is a homoerotic male during the time of the hazing. The memoir describes how spiteful and futile hazing is, and it’s often only used to target freshman with superiority. The plot of the story is about a homoerotic male experiencing hazing during his time at college. It also tells how it has impacted his life in numerous way, good or bad. The setting of the memoir is college, a place where a person discovers who they really are after high school. Especially with the quote from the author “As soon as our parents drive away from our dorms, […] we’re free to make an extraordinary number of mistakes” (Rogers). The point of view is told from a student and his involvement in college sports and their ethic way of treating new members into their groups. …show more content…
This quote gives an image of basically fresh new French fries being ready to be dipped into a steaming oil grill. The author also tells about how his whole family is athletic and he is just an awkward wallflower. He wanted to fit in, he wanted his family to be proud of him, and the way to do that, is by doing stuff he didn’t want to do. That’s where the hazing began, after he joined the rowing
The book “Our Guys” is more of a cultural and sociological study than just a mere crime book. Bernard provides detailed information about the story of a young girl known as Leslie who was raped by the Jocks in a town known as Glen ridge in New Jersey. The story reports that the Jocks had been in trouble since their middle years in school. However they were considered the star athletes, golden boys in a town that valued competition and athleticism. The behavior of one of the young men was so inexplicable and revolting; however, he was never charged or punished for his actions. As Bernard puts it, you would walk in a high school with a cabinet full of trophies, game balls and other accoutrements, but surprisingly, you would not be able to find the honor roll list (Lefkowitz, 1997).
The novel Our Guys, written by Bernard Lefkowitz, is a very dynamic story about the heinous actions of a dozen middle-class athletes, from a small New York suburb, against a defenseless mentally handicapped girl. Lefkowitz describes a brutal gang rape involving a baseball bat and broomhandle, which took place in this unsuspecting town, by these upstanding young group of boys, as the town would describe them. Lefkowitz looks at the incident which took place and then examines the “jock clique” sub-culture that allowed such atrocities to happen, and spawned the scandal to cover it up.
What is victory? What is failure? How do we know what state we’re truly in? In “Locker Room Talk” Stephen Dunn explores the conception of men boasting about their sexual encounters alongside women and persuades the audience boastful men who are presenting their victory of not yielding to the attractiveness and capability of women by not falling in love have actually failed through rhetorical strategies such as purpose, audience, and genre; pathos, logos, and ethos; and angle of vision. Dunn supports his stance on the journal by providing evidence and examples that emphasize the fear of falling in love to the general audience. Moreover, Dunn persuades the general audience through a reasonable, emotional, and credible approach on why men boast about their sexual encounters alongside women such as “Frankie made it sound dirty, something great you do with a bad girl” (Dunn, Locker Room Talk) and “A young man was telling his friend what he did to this particular young woman the night before, and what she did to him” (Dunn, Locker Room Talk). From Dunn’s angle of vision, even though boastful men feel victorious in their effort to not fall in love Dunn experiences sympathy for their actions as portrayed at the end of the passage “He thought we’d be happy for him” (Dunn, Locker Room Talk).
Many people have written articles about their experience with athletics, especially with high school and college-level athletics. Because athletics are so often intertwined with these formative moments in one’s life, as well as with normative ideals of masculinity, they are ideal contexts in which to write about gender identity. Thomas Rogers’ essay “The College Hazing that Changed My Life,” originally published on Salon.com in 2011, and Joe Mackall’s essay “Words of my Youth” both deal with athletics as a way into discussing gender identity. Although the essays are very different, they both deal with a very similar theme: how difficult it is to develop a masculine identity, particularly within a sporting context, in a world that is increasingly accepting of different gender identities.
When you are a part of Greek life you are popular. In professional sports, with men sports the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major Baseball League etc., there is a history of hazing to accept new rookies into the league. Even though, the organization have dangerous activities, but ignore outrageous events they may have to endure to become part of the organization. Hazing is classified into three types subtle, violent, and harassment. Subtle hazing is mainly deception, or not having to do the same thing other new members had to do. These falls under “reasonable hazing” to others, but to me it is not. With subtle hazing when a pledge is lining up you could call a guy run a lap but referring to him as a girl. Mainly, required greeting of members in a specific manner when seen on campus. With harassment hazing is causes stress, a relative degree of discomfort, physically or emotionally, to the new members
The essay describes the transgressions of a hockey coach on trial for multiple counts of rape and sexual harassment made against his hockey players and perpetuated upon their girlfriends. The thesis in paragraph five states that with maturity, the player's girlfriends discovered that the limited sexual opportunities offered by their ex-boyfriends were truly
Hazing is a very serious issue throughout America. Hazing, by definition, is any action or
A person who has a weak sense of self-identity that can be easily manipulated, is easier to change then it is to change someone who have a strong sense of self-identity. To completely remold an individual, the individual has to completely broken down and not have any remains or fragments of the old self. The foundation and the remolding of the identity were for a good intentions, if the Citadel did not go about it the wrong way. The Citadel’s way of making these new men was cruel, malevolent and unusual. The freshmen were hazed and abused from upperclassmen who they had to listen to. The hazing was not reported for fear of repercussion by the upperclassmen, because the hazing was not reported it continued to happen. This a good example of the broken windows theory. The hazing gets worse year after year as and people eventually will start to join in and because nothing is done to stop it, it is assumed that it is okay to haze. The hazing becomes a tradition and the vicious cycles goes on. Furthermore, Tim O’Brien further proves this case when Curt Lemon and Bob Kiley invented a game to play during their spare times. “The game involved smoke grenades, which were harmless unless you did stupid things, and what they did was pull out the pin and stand a few feet apart and play catch under the shade of those huge trees.
Arditi, Lynn. "R.I. Schools Report 18% Increase In Sex Assaults." LexisNexis Academic [LexisNexis]. Providence Journal, 8 Oct. 2014. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.ytgfd
Hazing as we know it today is most commonly to initiate members into a fraternity, sorority, or club of some sort. Hazing’s roots go into Ancient Greece when Plato first observed the occurrence and wrote about it in one of his works. The first sign of the term “hazing” appeared in the 16th century, when veteran soldiers would harass new sailors whenever the weather would create a haze. The integration of hazing in American society occurred in the 19th century after the Civil War. Before the war, university fraternities were a place to exchange ideas which most students did not find too engaging. After the war, the meaning of university fraternities had evolved to strengthen bonds with one another. The war put not optimal events and situations, which made soldiers strengthen bonds between one another. Fraternities would often replicate the traumatic events that occurred during the war to strengthen bonds between the recruits and the organization. The fraternities would base hazing rituals on stories their fathers or grandfathers who had participated in the war. Three hazing related deaths occurred in the
However, the awareness of this issue can benefit the audience. The audience for this play is most likely high school students, college students and parents as well. In this modern day use of social media with the youth of this society, it is more than likely this is the perfect audience for this play. First, the audience is able to recognize that misconception about various groups in the society and in schools. High school and college students of today face a wide variety of critics and ordeals on school campuses. This play depicts the same issues that occurs in these institutions and enables the audiences to be aware of this issue of sexual assault. This play raises so many vital and sensitive questions in regards to the issue of sexual assault which makes the audiences ponder about these
Hazing in universities across the nation has become an increasingly dangerous ritual that is seemingly becoming more difficult to put an end to due to its development into an "underground" activity. Though a regular activity in the seventies, hazing, a possible dangerous act of initiation to a group, has now become an activity that is banned in thirty-nine states (Wagner 16). However, this ritual has not been stopped or become less severe. In fact it is becoming more dangerous. Since it has been banned, with many colleges imposing their own penalties against those participating in it, many fraternities and sororities have pursued this activity in an underground fashion. Since these groups have gone underground, some victims of these
The article that is of interest is “The Decline of the Date and the Rise of the College Hook Up” by Paula England. In this reading, the author is interested in understanding what relationships mean to college students at Stanford University. In this excerpt, England wanted to understand the hook up, which has become the most common trend on college campuses. The research deals with both males and females to show the commonality as well as differences based on gender. The students shape the research and define the ever changing terms. England argues that the gender revolution has not lead to equal treatment to men and women based on their sexual experiences when forming a reputation.
When females tend to go to parties/social gatherings they usually get nervous or fearful because there's no one around to support them. Respectable company, such as friends are always good to have when going out. Reasons why so many females get sexually assaulted on campus is because there drinking consumption while attending those events. Men and women can work together to prevent sexual assaults from happening to them. The consuming amount of alcohol needs to change and be higher, and liquor stores need to be more aware. “According to the nationally representative Monitoring the Future Study, in 2012, 42 percent of high school seniors reported having had alcohol (more than just a few sips) within 30 days prior to the survey, and 24 percent
Nevertheless, sexual abuse has always been biased towards women relative to men for as long as we can remember. Considering the fact that sexual abuse can occur to both genders, it is mostly known to victimize women. One of the most common environments for sexual abuse to take place is in academic domains. In the view of society, men are above women; in consequence, women portray a weak image, hence making easier casualties of sexual abuse in the educational field. Due to the fact that students may need guidance to better excel in their career, some professors begin treating it as an opportunity to gain sexual access from the student. To better illustrate the idea that sexual abuse makes its way through into academic environments, take the word from the victims themselves. “I was naive enough to think that we would talk about Wittgenstein, but after he flopped over me a few times, telling me that I had to have sex with him... I made my escape” (Whitley 39). Moreover, another victim said “I couldn’t say ‘no’ because he would have responded with rage and revenge. He would have ruined my career”(Whitley 39). In both cases, these women were attacked by the professors for being of lesser status; they were manipulated to remain silent by fear, threats, and their dependence on the professor for academic help. Due to the idea that women are viewed lesser than men, inflicts professors’ to