On February 2nd, 2015, my social justice group and I Facetimed Annie Gardner. She attends Dartmouth College and is the President of her Sorority, Sigma Delta. In the past, college parties usually occurred at frat houses instead of sorority homes, but Annie and her sorority recently opened their house to parties in order to address the issue of sexual assault. At Fraternity houses their has been multiple occurrences of rapes, but it is harder for a girl to be taken advantage of in her own home. (This would eliminate the possible chance of their being date rape drugs at fraternity house parties.) Also, there has been a recent alcohol policy change at Dartmouth College. Hard liquor, being anything over 15 percent alcohol, is officially banned from campus. This is supposedly going to decrease the amount of sexual assaults and hazing at Dartmouth. We got to speak to Annie and hear her perspective as a college student involved in the issue of rape on campus and had first hand experiences of her sorority sisters being sexual assault at parties.
We spoke to Annie about the recent alcohol policy change a Dartmouth and I was surprised with her response because although she was not sure how it will play out, she did not feel it was a step in the right direction. If hard liquor is not allowed, this would be encouraging to people to have it in their rooms especially at frat houses. Annie said that therefore during parties, women would end up in the rooms of frat boys making rape a greater risk. Overall, it is not about women to drink less the responsibility is on the rapists to stop raping. We also spoke about how she has opened up her house and she said, “if a lot of the women in my house want to socialize, the only place they can enjoy that and be able to deal with seeing people they don’t want to see is here.” To have the party at a woman’s own sorority house makes them feel safer and more in control. She believes there needs to be a huge change in culture on campus having to do with sexual assault. The idea of “can I get away with it without her saying no,” needs to end and be replaced with affirmative consent. I enjoyed talking to Annie Gardner because we got to speak to someone who has the perspective of being woman a woman living on a college campus, constantly being exposed to rape culture.
A poster Annie has in her sorority house that she showed us.
My group and I Facetiming Annie.
