It starts young.
Students discussed how gender roles start from birth and influence rape culture at Feminist Friday, which was Carolina Advocating for Gender Equality’s last event of the year. The meeting at the Campus Y was part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Dolores Chandler from the Orange County Rape Crisis Center led a discussion on how rape culture is embedded in social norms and gender roles. Chandler said people begin to be socialized even before their birth when parents decorate a baby's room blue or pink.
“To speak really broadly, everywhere we go, from the time we are small children, we are introduced into a space, we are being socialized, we’re given lots of information about the ways that it’s appropriate for us to behave,” Chandler said.
Sophomore Rachel Allen, a political science and peace, war and defense major, said from a very young age, girls are socialized to seek male attention.
“I was a ‘kissy girl’ in kindergarten. There was this whole group of girls who would chase the boys around and kiss them, which is, sort of, really problematic,” Allen said.
Chandler asked questions about consent and setting boundaries.
Annie Proctor, a sophomore journalism major, said growing up, her parents set more boundaries for her than they did for her two brothers. She said her parents would send her brother to spy on her and a boy hanging out in their basement.
“We’re taught that if someone wants to hug you, they’re allowed to do that and so we don’t tell children that it’s OK to say no about those types of things,” said Abbie Largess, a sophomore global studies major.
