So… “Spouting Feminist Rhetoric While Carrying a Duke Diploma”

Fellow Duke feminists have reported verbal thrashings from the larger feminist community on the ongoing Duke Lacrosse debacle, confirming my suspicions that if you don’t toe the line, you’re hung out to dry faster than you can say “Pressler.” And that just ain’t right.

Let’s put aside the team’s boorish behaviour, as well as the embedded patriarchy at Duke (it’s there, girls and boys, I’m not going to deny it), and focus on the fact that this case has been plagued by inconsistencies and cock-ups (har har) from the start.

I do not mistrust the accuser because she is a stripper. Anyone who does that is an ignorant ass. Stripping pays well, particularly wherein people who were never fortunate enough to receive a Duke education are concerned. No, I mistrust her because of the actions of Mike Nifong, who tried this case in the media before it ever got to court, who engineered a shoddy “line-up,” and who is now backtracking, exposing himself to be the opportunist some of the most perceptive people at Duke have known him to be from the start.

Nifong’s actions are indicative of a case that is weak at best, and, at worst, completely false. He must have known that it was false the minute he laid eyes on the accuser, hence the hoopla. He needed this case to galvanize the community and win the election, and had hoped that the facts would get lost in the hysteria, as they pretty much did.

The hysteria, in turn, has only deepend the rift between the Duke undergraduates and Durham, not to mention the fact that it has also obscured the very real issues of patriarchal alpha-male entitlement among some of our students. Thanks for making it worse for our student body, Mike.

Am I less of a feminist because I recognize the lack of credibility in this case as well as the negative impact of the coverage? Because I am fed up with the simplistic and trite descriptions of Duke and Duke students? Because I believe that I am lucky to have graduated from Duke?

It was at Duke that I started researching feminist theory, instead of calling myself a feminist just because it made me seem different from the good ol’ boys and their female counterparts that populated my high school. So to effectively tell me “shut up and sit down, your perspective doesn’t count” is rude and counter-productive. I get enough nausea whilst listening to the “why don’t we all suck some lacrosse dick” crap from the other extreme (particularly from guys who want to use this opportunity to ingratiate themselves and reap what they see as major benefits of being in that particular social circle).

Blindly attacking the entire Duke community for the sake of re-asserting femininst credentials (or whatever other credentials) only makes it worse for Duke women in the long run, not to mention the negative impact this is going to have on future rape cases both at Duke and within greater Durham. It’s the equivalent of that completely retarded “Axis of Evil” speech that, far from inspiring glorious revolution, galvanizes the entire body of the accused against you. We criticize Chimpy for it, so why turn around and do the same thing?