FaceTime with Annie Gardner

Recently, my group members and I interviewed Annie Gardner, a young woman who goes to Dartmouth University. We were asking her about her sorority, which has different beliefs from regular sororities. Most sororities in the United States don’t allow drinking in their houses. Annie was in a New York Times article about a proposed solution to the number of rapes that happen at fraternity parties. Annie was interviewed about having parties at sorority houses instead, because most of the girls in her sorority believe those parties would be safer than going to a fraternity. When we face timed with Annie on February 4th, we asked her about what happens at fraternity parties, and what she thinks she can do to change that. We also asked if there would be alcohol at the sorority parties, or if they would just be regular parties.

I brought up the fact that there were a lot of rapes happening at colleges all over the country, and it seemed as if it was an epidemic almost, and asked what her thoughts on that were. Annie said that it was happening partly because the girls who want to go to parties don’t have a choice except to go to frat parties, because they don’t have a safer option and at many colleges, including Dartmouth, all the parties on campus are at fraternities.

She also de-bunked the whole “wearing short skirts and tight shirts will get you raped” myth (aka “she was asking for it”), and shared a very strong opinion about why that was wrong. All in all, the FaceTime was really important, as we finally got a perspective from a college woman.