“Our Guys” Discussion

After reading the article “Our Guys”, all I could think about was how ignorant some people really are! How could those boys get away with something so disturbing and dangerous? Did the judge not give any thought to how Leslie was going to cope and continue on with her life after a situation like that? How would her personality be affected by this? Would she ever be able to trust a male again? How would any of the girls in the school be able to trust that group of boys again? I strongly disagree with the final decision of the jury to let the boys go free until an “uncertain” date in the future. I understand why that decision might have been made, but what the boys did was a crime and should have been treated as such. Too many men are getting away with sexual harassment, rape, and even abuse because women are too afraid to tell anyone. According to a national survey in 1993, 81% of female public school students said they had been sexually harassed in high school, but only 7% of those harassed told a teacher about it. This statistic is just one of many that shows how females are ashamed of what happened and tend to internalize the issue, feeling that they must have done something to cause it to happen. There are many cultures and communities that tend to misuse women, but one of the more “familiar” trends is that of the male athletes and female students. The male athletes and others in their peer group are treated as heros and put on a pedestal. They are allowed to think that they can have or take whatever they want and because of these thoughts of superiority, whenever a female student stands up to a “jock” she is shunned or treated as an outcast. High school is like a popularity contest and nobody wants to be known as an outcast, so the female students learn quickly that the the price of their acceptance is submission. In order to be