Our Brotherhood and Your Sister: Building Anti-Rape Community in the Fraternity

Abstract

Research shows that male peer influence is a significant predictor of violent sexual behavior. However, men challenging sexual violence within their male peer communities may exert a counter-influence, shifting community norms and behaviors. Using the Fraternity Peer Rape Education Program as a case study, this article examines the ways that fraternity men in a peer rape education program make sense of and interact within their communities. Through coded interviews, this article examines participants' perceptions of change within themselves, within their interactions with fraternity brothers, and within their fraternities. Learning about sexual violence altered participants' worldview and created a communal sense of partnership and responsibility, while simultaneously limiting the traditional ways that fraternal communities are maintained. This experience provides lessons for how we may begin creating communities of men against sexual violence, as well as what support may be required for such messy, nonlinear change processes.

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