By the end(at Duke), if I saw one more poster for an on-campus frat party with a “pimps and hoes”, I would lose my mind.

laughing at wounded frat boys wrote:

Lots of outraged fratboys with time on their hands.

Yes, and an equal amount people like yourself with the same time on their hands to express faux outrage that anyone would offer rebuttal to a comment surely designed to draw attention (mostly to herself).....then are shocked.....just shocked that anyone might offer another point of view.

I agree and I am so glad that someone else is actually noticing the sexism and misogynists on college campuses. It is so sad that campuses have become like this, and although I don't believe in censorship (and yes, I am a liberal, Jeffrey) there must be something we can do to limit that kind of atmosphere. Every party seems to require girls to dress in VERY little clothing, and the expectation for women to show up slutty or not come at all to the party is pretty disappointing. My campus has also had incidents of sexual assaults on campus and it is a pretty scary atmosphere. Thanks for posting!

collegialness wrote:

I think Van Buskirk is fully justified in speaking out about these college culture issues.

However, I think she is mistaken if she thinks this problem is somehow special to Duke or worse there than at other colleges.

Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if it were worse at Duke than at many other places. Hegemonic old-boy culture predominates at some places. It was one reason why I didn't look at Duke when applying.

My question is, are Duke's frat parties so lame that they had to post flyers about their "Pimps and Hoes" party? Are you kidding me? What lame frat parties had to place flyers for people to come? If that's the case, I doubt it would actually be "Pimps and Hoes" party so in the end, there's nothing for the Kate to worry about.

"We had to actually cut the quote down to make it fit above."

And in the process you distorted, perhaps even destroyed, its original meaning.

This is a fine example of why you have no business calling yourselves journalists or even thinking of yourselves as journalists. Here is how a competent editorial type would have done this:

SUBJECT LINE: "By the end of my time at Duke, I thought that if I saw one more poster for..."

BODY OF POST: "...an on-campus frat party with a 'pimps and hoes' or 'bosses and slutty secretaries' theme, I would lose my mind."

It's sometimes okay to edit direct quotes, but when the result doesn't even qualify as a sentence fragment and is missing key nouns (e.g., whatever was supposed to follow "pimps and hoes") and other words, you should probably not mess with the original text.

I'm Surprised no one has mentioned Tom Wofe's book "I am Charlotte Simmons". Although the Wikipedia entry on the book says it was researched at a variety of schools including Duke, I think Wolfe's own daughter was at Duke so he was especially influenced by the Duke culture. Not to say this does not happen at other schools. But it is interesting that Wolfe who is no fan of political correctness writes this extremely depressing book about culture at so-called elite schools like Duke. I think he would agree with everything Van Buskirk says.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Charlotte_Simmons

1. Was anyone being forced to go to these parties?

2. Did anyone present alternative themed-parties to go to?

Look, Duke is a tough school to get into so I'll make the assumption that you have to be fairly bright/motivated to get in.

With that said, there are apparently bright/motivated women on this campus who take pleasure in attending these kinds of parties (otherwise I'd imagine that they'd cease to be held). Despite your perspective on the ethics of the event, these kinds of events draw in ample young men and women.

Please quit forcing your beliefs on others. For all you know, the women at these events might enjoy the roles they play. That is their purgative and their right.

I think there's a lot going on in this thread. Let's get back to the original quote.

As a current Duke athlete who considered (but did not join) Greek life, I have a fair perspective on the issues Kate poses.

While some of what she says is true, I think we need to look at the quote in the context of the interview (http://athleticsillustrated.com/interviews/kate-van-buskirk-interview/). Kate reveals that she dealt with some persistent mental health issues, including anxiety and depression, which, she acknowledges, hampered her college experience. It's important to consider those when we look at Duke through her lens.

On paper, she had a great college experience. She was a star athlete, a good student, and a member of a prestigious, all-female fellowship that promotes leadership within the community. Those are all awesome achievements.

What Kate's quote seems to reveal is a struggle to find an identity at Duke. She should have been a proud, confident, young woman. She had and has so much going for her. Why she would let Greek culture and supposed sexism discourage her is mind-boggling to me. Perhaps it was her teammates or the issues she spoke of, but something was up.

Yes, the Greek scene is prominent at Duke, but the school is by no means a social patriarchy. I have friends in sororities, who, in Kate's eyes, have been subjected to the "male-dominated" culture but, in reality, are confident and proud young women thriving in Duke's challenging academic environment and now finding themselves with promising and fulfilling careers ahead

Duke is a fantastic school - it is in the league of "HYPS" academically, with a vibrant intellectual environment and innumerable opportunities for personal growth; it has an athletic department rich with tradition and success; and it has a diverse social scene with something for basically everyone.

Whatever Kate's issue was, it is not intrinsic to Duke, and it is patently unfair for letsrun to paint Duke with such a broad and inaccurate brush via its "Quote of the Day."

I think this is the best post on the thread.

amcrt wrote:

Yes, and an equal amount people like yourself with the same time on their hands to express faux outrage that anyone would offer rebuttal to a comment surely designed to draw attention (mostly to herself).....then are shocked.....just shocked that anyone might offer another point of view.

I'm not expressing faux outrage. I'm simply laughing at all you pathetic frat boys. What's the world coming to when you can't enjoy your entitlement to a culture of alchohol, hazing and rape? Better shoot the messenger, Mr. Alpha Omega.

when I joined a fraternity I did so in order to party and get hoes, don't believe these jokers trying to legitimize the Greek system with their talk of "philanthropy" and other "contributions"

Kate,

Your interview was one of the most refreshing athlete interviews, I have read in a long time. So wonderful to see an interviewer ask a variety of pointed questions and an athlete speak so thoughtfully on a variety of topics. Thank you for being an engaged and eloquent representative for runners.

I remember when I went to college on a scholarship for track to a school I had no business getting into otherwise (Georgetown), I thought I was going to find a place intelligently engaged with the world. Instead, I found a place that was even more insular than my high school was. People were more concerned with the next party than the endemic poverty that surrounded the school. Nobody ever left Georgetown. It's such a shame that the critical mass of brilliant young adults that is undergrad doesn't do more to change the world according to their principles whatever those may be. Instead, there seems to be an undergrad focus on drinking and sex to the exclusion of most else.

Whatever your views on Kate's opinions at least she joined an organization and advocated for what she believed in. If every undergrad did that I think the best viewpoints would come to the forefront and the world would be an unquestionably better place.

Where are these expectations? Does anyone coerce people to go to these parties? Does anyone publicly humiliate people for not behaving in this manner?

It seems to me some women want to express their sexuality in this environment and so they choose to.

To KVB, if you dont like these parties dont go, but also dont go around demonizing the people who do choose to go to these parties by associating them with sexual predators, rapists and bigots.

Also, why would these parties that you dont have to go to and no one gives you a hard time for not going cause you to "lose your mind?"

Anyone who has gone to college understands that there are different social circles with different tastes. Find yours and leave others to theirs.

The issue she's raising doesn't seem to be that these parties exist, but that they're advertised on school property, which gives the appearance that they're school-sanctioned events. I wouldn't be happy about sending my daughter to a place that promoted "pimps and hos" parties, personally.

On top of that, themed parties are dumb. Why not just get together and drink? Who wants to stand around a frat house in a suit like some b-school dweeb, anyway?

best post yet wrote:

I think this is the best post on the thread.

That's not setting the bar very high, so you may be right. I think it's wrong for "current Dukie" to not-so-subtly imply that Kate's observations were more about her psychological issues than what she saw. That's a very dangerous and unfair road to head down. "Current Dukie," in fact, all but says that Kate would not have said or even thought these things if she's been a more put-together and confident young woman. That's a load of shit.

As for noting that the choice of Quote of the Day in this instance is sketchy, I agree, but since this is the case at least 90 percent of the time, there's no reason to bring special attention to this now. I've seen these dumb shits post quotes from this very message board promulgating flat-out misinformation about figures in the sport that had real potential to damage their careers and lives, and were the dumb shits possessed only of the motivation to spend three minutes verifying the material in these posts, these incidents never would have happened. This place does far more harm than good to running, so it's fitting that they're so proud of their own tenacity when it comes to berating drug cheats, etc.

krispy kremlin wrote:

Please quit forcing your beliefs on others. For all you know, the women at these events might enjoy the roles they play. That is their purgative and their right.

This right wing trope -- whenever someone criticizes something or some attitude, it gets translated into the implicit threat of coercion -- where did it come from? KVB said nothing about other women's choices. She said that she didn't like this aspect of the culture, that it bothered her. Totally different! How you could see that as an implicit threat or an attempt to force her views on others...

Also FWIW the word is *prerogative.*

If women show up at these parties, I would say they are complicit in perpetuating that style of posting (just like the LRC posters who complain about the literary style of the message boards here, but continue to show up). Perhaps "pimps and hoes" is a stylistic convention at Duke sending a message well understood by party-goers on both sides of the gender divide.

Current Dukie, I realize that you probably spent quite a bit of time constructing your post and feel a duty to defend your university that undoubtedly has many great qualities.

However, I advise you to spend even more time considering the merits of her comments rather than rushing to discredit her based on any mental health issues she might have had. She is not the only person who has raised the issues.

I know that it can feel personally threatening to have something so negative said about an institution that you care about and are invested in. Remember though that no university is perfect, and the important thing is to recognize flaws and work to improve on them.