It only takes one good man to stop a gang rape. That’s not a cliché that I just learned. That is a sentence that I have been saying for over 40 years.
Just over four years ago I retired from a 37-year career in student affairs in higher education. In the spring of 1985, I was traveling to a professional conference. In the airport shuttle on the way to the conference hotel, I sat next to a professional colleague who worked at an institution on the west coast. After asking him how he was doing, he responded by telling me about a fraternity gang rape he was currently responding to on his campus. I was horrified at the limited details of the incident. My first response in my mind to the conversation was telling myself, “I can’t let this happen on my campus.”
That was 41 years ago.
When arriving back on my campus I began learning all I could about such heinous incidents and began doing whatever research I could to inform prevention programming. The story also informed a career-long commitment to stopping these horrible incidents. Then, a couple of years later, a horrific fraternity gang rape occurred on the campus at which I worked in the late 1980s. I could go on and on about all of the legal and policy issues regarding institutional response. I’ve actually presented at national conferences on such topics. However, in this piece, I would like to address what each of us can do individually to help prevent the continuation of such nefarious occurrences.
First, research has shown that “it only takes one good man to stop a gang rape” is a true statement. Any of the seven young men reportedly involved in the recent Cornell incident could have disrupted the incident, stopped it, and gotten the young woman to safety. Also, the fifty-seven young men reportedly on the snap chat could have also gone to the room, opened the door, pounded on the door, or in any way interrupted and stopped the alleged assault. What I believe happened in this situation is that the culture of this particular fraternity dominated and overruled any conscience of any of the young men involved. This is just one reason why the fraternity itself needed to be separated from the university. It all could have been stopped is there was one good man, one real man, who would have been courageous enough to stop it.
Second, we all must shift our own interpretations of such incidents away from legal and policy constructs and move toward moral and ethical decision-making. As a society we have gradually moved toward asking “is this legal” and away from asking “is this right, moral, or ethical.” Is it right, is it good, is it appropriate, is it moral for seven young men to take turns having sex with one vulnerable and intoxicated woman? The answer is a resounding and emphatic “NO!” Unfortunately, we now tend to quickly start analyzing the minutia of the law and miss the important moral issues. We need to get back to teaching our children, and in this case our sons, what is morally right and wrong, and deemphasize whether we can get away with something according to the law. We are currently in a period when some leaders are viewing empathy as a weakness and expressing such. We must as men support the notion that empathy is a strength, that caring about other people is good and right. What happens in gang rapes is that not one man in the room has a strong enough capacity for empathy to stop it, and that results in irreparable harm to the victim.
And third, as men, we must intervene in instances that contribute to a culture that supports rape. I’m talking about a culture that dehumanizes women and jokes and laughs about harm to women. A prime example is the recent horrible performance by a 20-year-old student athlete who laughed about a meme of his coach slapping and knocking to the ground a veteran female TV professional saying, “it was awesome.” This is just one more example of a culture that supports the abuse of women.
Gang rape is a male problem, and it is men who must fix it. I encourage my brothers to learn more about this issue and stand up for what is right, moral, and good. Don’t be silent. Stand up and stop it when you can. Be a good man. Be a real man.
Dr. Bill Haggard is a retired affairs professional in higher education. During his career his research area was the incidence of sexual violence on college campuses. He presented at numerous professional conferences on a comprehensive institutional response to sexual violence. The final position in his career was serving as Vice President for Student Affairs at UNC Asheville retiring on January 1 of 2022.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: It only takes one good man to stop a gang rape
