Drinking is definitely a problem for some people, and alcoholism is a very serious situation. I find that the article
addressing student drinking (“The allure of alcohol,” Nov. 23) missed the point by a long shot. Drunkenness degrades the quality of human interactions and often fosters a hostile environment. Aggression, violence and sexual assault were all listed as negative effects on the community but there was a major oversight in expressing who is being violent and who is being victimized. All of us can see a mile away that when the article describes rape it means men raping women. But why ignore this fact of gender discrimination? Why gloss over reality and say that men are more apt to become aggressive when drunk and fight each other?
There are much deeper social norms at work here than the “social norm theory” that the administration uses to discourage excessive drinking. Perhaps we should begin to question the concerns of gender roles that require men to be aggressive in order to be masculine and that require women to be sexually available and used as eye candy. Could these two pervasive themes of this society be connected to create a rape culture that is greased by alcohol?
Michelle Hansen
Eugene