Forbes Columnist: "Drunk Female Guests Are the Gravest Threat" to Frats
In a now-deleted Forbes column that was published yesterday afternoon, contributor Bill Frezza brought victim-blaming all the way back around to suggest that "drunk female guests" who get raped at fraternity parties are actually the "threat." Yep, "Drunk Female Guests Are the Gravest Threat to Fraternities" is the headline that made it on to the site.
Frezza begins his column (preserved by web cache here) with this line: "I realize this headline is click-bait, but I believe it to be true. Let me explain." Here is the photo that accompanies the column:
Frezza's "explanation" isn't so much important as the fact that he is listed as the "President of The Beta Foundation, the house corporation for the Chi Phi fraternity at MIT." This is the guy advising frat bros on how to police their parties and deal with the ladies. And this is his thesis:
In our age of sexual equality, why drunk female students are almost never characterized as irresponsible jerks is a question I leave to the feminists. But it is precisely those irresponsible women that the brothers must be trained to identify and protect against, because all it takes is one to bring an entire fraternity system down.
Frezza then goes on to put the word "victim" in scare quotes and warn frat bros that a "false accusation of rape months after the fact triggered by regrets over a drunken hook-up, or anger over a failed relationship" could ruin the fraternity. He also recalls this fun story from the Chi Phi house:
Although we were once reprimanded for turning away a drunk female student who ultimately required an ambulance when she passed out on our sidewalk, it would have gone a lot worse for us had she collapsed inside.
Ultimately, Frezza recommends that frats "identify drunks at the door. I don't care how pretty or flirtatious a young lady is; if she's visibly intoxicated, don't let her in."
Honesty, that isn't bad advice. No woman should go anywhere near a fraternity that Frezza's advising.
