There’s no excuse for poor judgment

Friday, May 15, 1998

There’s no excuse for poor judgment

REACTION: Column so badly researched that newspaper’s editorial
staff should be held accountable for letting it run

By Karl Rieser

Daily Bruin writers should take control of their brain before
writing – or the editorial staff should do it for them. There is so
much wrong with Neven Jeremic’s article (Viewpoint, "Become the
master of your own vagina," May 13) that I half consider it a waste
of time to respond at length. As I see it, the real outrage is not
so much his misguided yapping, but that it got published in a
regular university newspaper rather than a reactionary male-rights
mailing list.

I am shocked about this editorial behavior. (I hesitate to call
it oversight.) Are we soon to expect articles by whites who give
"helpful" advice to African Americans and Jews while at the same
time, lamenting their outrage ("fuming with anger") at somebody’s
calculation of the toll of slavery or the Holocaust? Or does the
Daily Bruin allow such reactionary, badly researched and poorly
argued articles only in the field of gender?

As for Jeremic’s article, just a few words:

His disregard for victims of rape, coupled with his preposterous
attempt to speak for women, are an outrage in themselves. Rather
than call the victim of rape "plain stupid," he should ask why the
"drunken frat boy" does not have to "accept full responsibility for
his sexuality." It is also simply a complete distortion of reality
to suggest that rape is committed mostly by drunken
semi-strangers.

What always shocks me is the self-proclaimed outrage of such
reactionary guys. Let’s take his own example. He implies that in
the Ms. study, only those who considered themselves rape victims
should be counted as such. Well, by his own numbers, this would
mean that every 16th woman on campus was raped. Isn’t that enough
for people like Jeremic? I find these numbers to be an outrage, not
that the Ms. study purportedly presents the picture "grimmer than
need be."

The sloppy research – a little Paglia countered against some
Dworkin/MacKinnon – is also plainly visible when he once calls the
FBI statistics as being "at the other end of the spectrum" and in
the next sentence "the real numbers." Unless, of course, it is an
attempt at simple manipulation.

Most important, I think if Jeremic really wants to do something
in the sex and gender realm, he should look at male sexual
behavior. Way too often, too many men rape; way too often, they
molest. And way too often, they are not held accountable for such
actions. That is what I would call, "That must stop." Before we men
have gotten really far toward stopping this, I think we are all
deeply implicated in a rape culture. To study and try to change
this co-responsibility of all men in a rape culture, however, might
be a way to start.

Unfortunately, men like Jeremic will not want to do that.

On the contrary, rather than question himself and men, he wants
to place himself in the position of judge over women: He wants to
decide what "real rape" is; he wants to decide which women should
"be taken seriously"; he wants to decide how sex should be
discussed in women’s studies.

Thus I think the editors of the Daily Bruin should fire Neven
Jeremic and, in the future, bar such sexist articles before
publication. Furthermore, I think an editorial apology is in
order.