(Cross post -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x866885 )
Several studies have found male athletes to be more likely than other men on campus to commit sexual assaults.
In a study of victims of sexual aggression at a large midwestern university, male athletes were greatly overrepresented among the assailants described by the women surveyed. Though men on sports teams were less than 2 percent of the total male population on campus, they made up 23 percent of the attackers in sexual assaults and 14 percent in attempted sexual assaults.15
At another university, an anonymous survey found that men on varsity, revenue-producing teams, such as football and basketball, self-reported higher rates of sexually abusive behavior.16
Gang rapes on campus are most often perpetrated by men who participate in intensive male peer groups that foster rape-supportive behaviors and attitudes. One review of 24 alleged gang rapes found that in 22 of the 24 documented cases, the perpetrators were members of intercollegiate athletic teams or fraternities.17
Involvement in all-male peer groups may insulate some men from doubts about the inappropriateness of their behavior, particularly when their team or fraternity holds prestige on campus.
http://www.edc.org/hec/pubs/factsheets/fact_sheet3.html#athletesat Duke:
"Similarly, I know that at one point, campus women were aware of sexual assault and harassment by lacrosse players. The house they lived in was repeatedly toilet papered — and once, upon seeing the black-clad women tp-ing the house I asked why. Their reply: to warn other undergraduate women that a woman had been assualted while at a lacrosse party."
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/03/29/duke-rape-case-round-up/Sounds like Duke was used to "taking care of these things" sort of like the Catholic Church and molesting priests:
"In a conversation Friday afternoon with John Burness, Duke's senior vice president for public affairs (aka the man in charge of Duke's image), I learned that the university was fully aware of the antics of its lacrosse team before the sensational gang-rape investigation.
Burness said that Durham police had been asked to inform the university when its students were arrested in town. The charges then were dealt with in the student court system...
My point was that, whatever comes of the rape allegations, the lacrosse team was widely known to be out of control long before those allegations were ever made."
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/424766.htmlI think there are a lot of people wrongly assuming that without the public pressure this case would have been handled adequately by the county court system:
"We will begin by reviewing all available records -- disciplinary records and complaints made to the Duke and Durham police -- and we'll look at the various procedures in place for monitoring the conduct of students in general, and athletes in particular, to determine the adequacy of those," the statement said.
Fifteen players -- about one-third of the team -- had previous criminal charges in Durham in the past three years, mostly related to drunken and disruptive behavior. Most of those charges were resolved in deals with prosecutors that allowed the players to escape criminal convictions.
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/425837.htmlAlso see:
http://justice4twosisters.blogspot.com/--------
The gang rape is the essential scene of the patriarchy
...It’s the patriarchy in its essence, where the leaders of male dominance are active sadists but their followers have managed to convince themselves they do like women, they aren’t evil, etc. In the article, it’s noted that often in a gang rape, some participants will help the victim clean up, give her money, even walk her home (presumably to protect her from rape). Accusations of effeminence are used to keep unwilling participants in the game. The victims are objects of male bonding.
I’ve joked in the past that the states that are lining up now to ban abortion after South Dakota reminds me of a gang rape. It does. The psychology is exactly the same–ganging up to show off who’s the most masculine, who can hurt the victims the most. And the victims are always, always pegged as guilty.
Criminologists say that a lot of young men who participate in gang rapes would never rape a woman on their own. That strikes me as accurate–the pressure to conform and participate is probably enormous. It’s good evidence for the feminist assertion that rape is a tool of male dominance–the psychology is a lot like that of war–you must be brutal to the target to show your loyalty to the group. That the violence on average in gang rapes is worse than most other rapes is more evidence of this.
http://pandagon.net/2006/03/29/the-gang-rape-is-the-essential-scene-of-the-patriarchy/