Recently, in my local paper, there was an attack made indirectly on my school's Anchor club for "hazing."
Yes, the Anchor club members were initiating their Anchor Gents. Yes, the boys in question were wearing makeup, women's clothing, and dancing around on the side of a major street in my town.
But is that really hazing?
I, myself, have taken part in these sort of activities (both as the initiatee and the initiator) and I would never consider it anywhere near the level of the FAMU beatings or similar events.
So what exactly is hazing? I decided to find out.
Dictionary.com defines hazing as "subjecting (freshmen, newcomers, etc.) to abusive or humiliating tricks and ridicule"
Those boys weren't being abused. They were not being humiliated, and they were not being ridiculed. The Anchor club was having an initiation (read: A ceremony, ritual, test, or period of instruction with which a new
member is admitted to an organization or office or to knowledge.)
There's a fine line between hazing and initiating. I know a lot of colleges and universities that have a problem with hazing, and I agree that that sort of abuse and humilation should be stopped, but my school has a history of tradition, and what those girls were doing was not hazing.
To read the original story, click here
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I cannot think of a more humiliating thing for a straight male to partake in then being paraded around public in women's clothing. Ask any transgendered person, they get ridiculed for being themselves in public. Making a p0erson feel obligated to this is abusive. As an initiator you can not tell...something like the eye of the beholder, only the abusee can say it is abuse. One might like it the other might not. It is wrong for the later.
Hazing does not always have to do with blood or embarassment. The whole pin the wings of a new pilot Haz is not embarassing and women underware on a male is not bloody (at least it shouldn't be).
Exceelent post.
~Hazing-lating for humiliation.
all truths are easy to understand once discovered; the point is to discover them ~galileo