From: es2q+@andrew.cmu.edu (Erik Warren Selberg)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: fraternities
Date: 17 Apr 92 17:44:22 GMT
	<1992Apr16.070020.9030@midway.uchicago.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Junior, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
> >My insurance rates are based upon drivers under 21 in Northern Utah,
> >not the nation as a whole.  Thus, if you'd like to conduct a study at
> >CMU, feel free, and I'll accept that statistic.  However, I won't
> >accept some statistic being applied to me from some random college.
> 
> So, instead accept the statistic that comes from the nationwide survey.
> Or from Bernice Sandler's report on rape on campus.  Or the numerous
> studies mentioned in Peggy Reeves Sanday's book.  Or go to the library,
> go to the Nexis database, and do a search for "fraternity" and "rape."
> Except you better limit the search to a narrow range of dates, or else
> you'll be dealing with thousands of articles.

Yet again you miss the point.  The liklihood of my getting into an
accident is based upon the immediate area of my permanent residence,
not (a) the nation as a whole or (b) a small sampling from some other
area.  I can accept the way the insurance company deals with that; I'd
also like to point out that the insurance company does not deal with
the average schleppy living in downtown LA the same as with the
average schleppy living in downtown Salt Lake -- for whatever reason,
people are less likely to be in accidents in Salt Lake, and thus I pay
a lower premium.  (Pittsburgh is somewhere in the middle, fyi).
   What I'm trying to point out is that I do not accept statistics
either (a) based on a national average or (b) based on a small random
sample which I am not a part of.  I'll concede that nationally, it
can be shown that there is a correlation between fraternity membership
and rape.  What I perceive this means is that there are a bunch of
scummy greek systems / chapters out there building up the average,
rather than all fraternities contributing to the degredation of women.
If you want to base your judgement upon a sample size of your choosing
and then instantiate it for everyone, that is your perogative.
However, it is my opinion that the end result of the correlation is
not "fraternities are bad," but simply that there are areas in which
SOME fraternities need a lot of improvement, much like society in general.


> One statistic is weird.  Two seperate statistics saying the same thing
> is a coincidence.  Three's a conspiracy.  What's dozens?  Do you have
> *any* counter-statistics?  Doesn't it pique your curiousity to see that
> *none* have been introduced?  There have been several studies that go into
> great detail explaining (a), dozens of which are mentioned in Sanday's book.

I don't have CMU's figures personally, nor do I know of any studies to
the tune of "Correlation between propensity of rape and lack of
membership in a fraternity at Joe University."  However, I personally
don't put too much stock into the correlation between fraternity
membership and propensity for rape, for the following reasons:

A fraternity tends to be a group from 10 -> 150 people (around here,
from 30 -> 90) who form bonds of friendship and set out to do certain
things.  The key thing about how a fraternity differs from a big
clique is that once you become a brother, you are in for life (save
random rare exceptions).

There are certain psychological factors that tend to be present in a
lot of rapists.  Among these is that many are either consciously (in
the case of forcible rape) or unconsciously (in the case of
aquaintance rape) trying to force acceptance from their victim.  What
this implies is that rapists tend to be lonely, and will thus have an
inclination to join organizations in which their acceptance and
membership are permanent.  Thus, the causal relationships you mention
seem to be that the same psychological motivations for rape are also
motivations to join a fraternity.


for a good time, call                       _____            __   ___ 
(412) 268-5534 (CMU-5-KEG)                 /__    /   /  /  /_/  /__
$5.00 / min., $25 minimum                 /      /_  /__/  /    ___/ @cmu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.college,soc.women,talk.rape