Newspapers / Elon University Student Newspaper / Dec. 2, 1993, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Elon University Student Newspaper / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Editorials December 2,1993 2 Viewpoint Protecting rape victims is not a journalists’s job Sexual assault is not an issue that surfaces frequently at The Pendulum. However, this week we were forced to deal with a problem that many newspapers have been faced with recently. Unfortunately, society has attached a stigma to women who are victims of rape. This stigma has forced newspapers to make the “morality” judgement to withhold the names of rape victims. We, as the editors of The Pendulum don’t believe this to be fair to either the alleged victim or the alleged rapist or assailant. However, due to pressures of this society and our readership we are forced to conform and further peqjctuate this stigma. The alleged victim and the alleged rapist’s names become a matter of public record once a complaint or incident is officially filed with the police. Since it is the alleged victim’s decision to press charges against their assailant, they are choosing to make the information available to the public. Therefore, anyone has access to this information. How is concealing the name of a rape victim going to encourage other victims to come forward? If society continues to see a victim that hides the problem, it will continue to remain hidden. Isn’t it the responsibility of journalists to remain fair and objective? We don’t believe that we are making the right ethical decision by printing only one name, the name of the alleged rapist This is not fair. We understand that rape is one of the most brutal personal crimes that could ever be committal. We also understand that just as there is a stigma attached to alleged rape victims there is also a stigma attached to alleged rapists. However, we are forced to protect one and not the other. Unfortunately, for now we will have to cor .orm in order to remain a respccied media. •Tonya Taylor ■Erick Gill The Pendulum Serving the Elon College community Editor Tonya Taylor Mana|(ing ICdllor Erick Gill Afist. Managtng Editor Sheila Kendall Editorial Editor Scott Miller Arts Editor Ix)ri Haley Spurts Fklitor Paul l^ngworth Photographer Bill Harvey Reporters Heather Anderson Amy Logerwell Karyn Howard Sports Reporters Kim Kohlhepp Tony Carrick Bob Grimmie Advertising Sarah Mitchell Graphics tkiitor Rob Mancuso Adviser Joey Senat The Penduluin,founded in 1974, k publisbed by Elon students. The Pen dulum welcomes your oplnionswlth letters Urn* ited to 250 words. Let ters must be signed with a phone number for veri- flcation. Deadlines for submission Is 5 p.m. Fri day. Single copies of The Pen dulum are free. If extra copIca are needed, they can be purchased at the Pendulum office. Offloe: 102 Williamson Ave.,Elon College, N.C., 27244. 584-Z33I. GENERATION X COMES OF AGE? h is the season of cheer and gdod will. Everyone is out helping the poor and the honte'.ess. We develop a con science once a year for about a month and for a frenzied few weeks we make an effort to solve our nations problems by ourselves. Then aftei the last college football game of the new year we return to the same old grind of not caring %nd not giving. Therefore, who’s responsibility is it to clean up the problem’s of our nation? Yes, you got it. Uncle Sam. The taxpayers of this country pay billions of dollars to that bloated bureaucracy and get extremely poor results. Drugs, crime, rape, ignorance, poverty, illegitimate pregnancies, AIDS, hippies and just a plain degradation of society are raising lots of questior J about us and our society. The question that gets most ^ed today is,’^hat is Bill Clinton going to do about our problems?” The question that should be asked most often is,”What are you going to do about our problems?” The power is in the people, not the government. Here at Elon we have the opportunity to really and truly make a difference. Every forty or fifty years a generation of young people is called upon to show the courage to really make a difference. The time has come for our generation. Generation X, Scott Miller to answer the call. Fifty years ago thousands of people answered the call against the Nazis in World War II. Most of them were our age. Can we have the same courage in dealing with our generation’s crises? Fifty years from now our grandchildren will be reading about the coming of age of Generation X in their history books at school. What will the textbooks say? Generation X stood up for itself. They seized the power earlier then any other generation of American’s in history because they recognized they had to rescue themselves. They seized the power by attending town meetings, talking about issues, being informed, and most of all, they voted. They realized that turning out 55 percent of the voters in 1992 was pathetic. Since that time the turnout has been steadily increasing in national elections until we have finally reached todays 85 percent They took the power of civil rights legislation and created a real and fair workplace based on merit of the individual. This is nlw the time when the women’s movement refocused and women were finally getting paid roughly the same amount for roughly the same job. Generation X shed the warped creation of political correctness that the hippies of the ‘60s created and started a society that was based on the free exchange of ideas and thoughts. Generation X got their kids to start going to school to learn to educate themselves. They did this by realizing that they were the last hope of pax Americana and they studied what worked in the past and tried it themselves. In the inner city gangs simply laid down their weapons and stopped. They realized that the profit was going to just a fe^ thugs and stopped the violence. As soon as industry realized that the violence was stopping they moved in and revitalized the inner city. At the turn of the century all Americans were able to look forward to the next with a new sense of hope. A pipe dream? It will happen if we do it. We can, and must cause this turn around for the sake of ourselves and our country. One month of activism at Christmas time will not be sufficient. It will be a long and hard fought war, and we are it’s soldiers. THE SISTER INSIDER Is there ever a time when gender is not an issue? Through our own experiences w j have discovered that women in all forms and ideas are “talking * about the same things . The women in the classroom. Women in the work force, in health research, in the home- women in relationships and marriages - the women who are pro-choicc, pro-life, heterosexual and homosexual . It's black women , white women, Arab, Jewish, Indian, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American women. Feminism for these women and more encompasses all the choices that women arc faced with because of their gender. With such a variety of women it’s almost astonishing to know were shouting about the same if not similar ideologies. When we challenge these paradigms that define our “roles”, roles that oppress us , and through that oppression we learn to embrace our inalienable right to challenge patriarchal socialization. As eclectic as we may come what binds us together is that we are women and because of our gender we take a second class position in society. Yet we are still being told that we are "crazy" or that we have nothing to “complain" about- everything is fine. If we were simply “complaining” than how come marital rape is finally illegal in this state. We have come a long way in our organization for our basic human rights, (how privileged we are to have control and 'espect for our own bodies!) We are here in the midst of a segregated campus. At a college that is 55 percent female , the decisions are made by a board of trustees that is only about 16 percent women . Then to whom does this responsibility of change belong to? It belongs to women themselves, even if we arc misrq)resented and unrepresented in policy making positions . It is evident in all areas of life - media, education, law, religion, spon, and medicine- that there had been a male dominated paradigm. We women, living with that paradigm c?n utilize our inner and outer voic ;s to create new perceptions and alternative paradigms to enhance and open the minds and eyes of all. Let’s recognize the need to work cooperatively not competitively- with all genders and sexes. Men, do not take offense. This is not a personal attack, but a historical one. No one reading this is solely responsible for the bigotry of today. Fighting sexism is a job for all. By— Chrissy Dl Benedetto April Desreuissau Bobbie Cokendolpher Gemma Cubero Del Barrio
Elon University Student Newspaper
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 2, 1993, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75